Dive into Memphis magic with our 26th Annual Southern Music Issue!
From Al Green to Elvis, explore iconic photography and fresh takes on legends through stellar writing from Zandria Robinson, Robert Gordon & more.
From Al Green to Elvis, explore iconic photography and fresh takes on legends through stellar writing from Zandria Robinson, Robert Gordon & more.
Kentucky Music Issue
The Oxford American’s 19th annual music issue explores the Music of Kentucky. The magazines comes with a 27-song CD + free download with bonus tracks. The Commonwealth gave us musicians like Loretta Lynn and Nappy Roots, Richard Hell and Bill Monroe—just to name a very few—and beloved writers like Crystal Wilkinson, Ronni Lundy, Silas House, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and our own poetry editor, Rebecca Gayle Howell. You’ll see those names (and many, many others) in our Kentucky Music Issue—“the greatest mixtape accompanied by the best liner notes ever,” according to Beale Street Caravan.
Notes on the songs, including:
"Rainbows"
Minda Honey on James Lindsey
"Me Hungry"
Jay Ruttenberg on King Kong
"Camp Nelson Blues"
Nathan Salsburg on the Booker Orchestra and two Kentucky octets
“I'm Going to Organize, Baby Mine“
Elyssa East on Sarah Ogan Gunning
"Eights"
Joe Manning on Rachel Grimes
Hey, Loretta!, by Marianne Worthington
Louisville Lip, by Erik Reece
If God Had a Name, by Jason Howard
A Peculiar Composition, by Michael L. Jones
Ain't Half Bad, by Leesa Cross-Smith
Living Too Close to the Ground, by Will Stephenson
Just As I Am, by Jewly Hight
Real People Radio Stories, by Jeffrey A. Keith
The Lexington Cure, by Rebecca Gayle Howell
Three previously unpublished poems by Thomas Merton
He's Not There, by J. D. Daniels
Paradise Waiting, by John Thomason
Fire in My Bones, by Ashley Blooms
Let's Gather, by Harmony Holiday
"That Place in the Middle," by Ronni Lundy
Cleo, Cleo Black as Coal, a story by Crystal Wilkinson
Blank Place
Richard Hell after Lexington
by Amanda Petrusich
Watershed
Southeastern Kentucky’s Phipps Family legacy
by Silas House
Border Wars
When the South is everywhere and nowhere
by Zandria F. Robinson
Tuned Up in the Spirit
The Old Regular Baptists and the joyful sound
by David Ramsey
Death Rattle
Searching for the old jawbone
by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Cowboy Steve, photo by Guy Mendes
Art by: David McClister, Steve Squall, James Dechert, Dave Banks, Les Leverett, Chloe Meynier, James Robert Southard, LaVon Van Williams Jr., Judith Eisler, Chris Sikich, Letitia Quesenberry, Audrée Anid, Dennis Mader, Ray Johnson, Gina Phillips, Bob Hower, Steve Schapiro, Lina Tharsing, Ted Kincaid, Ray Kleinhelter, Nadezda Nikolova-Kratzer, Les McCann, Emily Joyce, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Robert Beatty, Meg Wilson, Alan Lomax, Tom Martin, Adrian Morales, Juliana Hawawini Johnson, Guy Mendes
Cover: Sturgill Simpson – Photo by David McClister, Loretta Lynn – Photo by Les Leverett, Courtesy of Grand Ole Opry, LLC, J.D. Wilkes – Photo by James Dechert, Les McCann – Photo by Dave Banks, James Lindsey – Photo by Steve Squall