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.
Magazine
Issue 115, Winter 2021
By the end of the 20th century, some six million Southerners had left their homes for New York, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Syracuse, Oakland, Milwaukee, Newark, Gary, and beyond. Each city transformed as the new denizens brought home with them. The Oxford American’s Winter 2021 issue focuses on Southern influences on American music beyond the borders of our region, reimagining these locales as Up South.
Our impressive lineup of contributors includes composer Terence Blanchard, who traces the Southern roots of Chicago-born Quincy Jones’s prolific production across an epic sixty-year career. The innovative recording artist Big Freedia writes a history of bounce and its spread from New Orleans to Houston and beyond. And a selection of featured images from the archive of Kwame Brathwaite tells a visual story of jazz and soul music through majestic performance portraits of Miles Davis, Max Roach, Nina Simone, and more.
Through essays, dispatches, and playlists curated by an exceptional lineup of musicians and writers, this issue explores the movement of Southern sounds and aesthetics, tracing the region's influence in Motown, Chicago gospel, and Philly soul, spanning the West Coast to Paris and beyond.
Editor’s Letter: A Rhythm Nation by Danielle A. Jackson
POINTS SOUTH
I Love the Way it Sounds, by Lynell George
In Search of Vigon, by Miles Marshall Lewis
Music from the Magic Box, by Alice Randall
Our Us (Three Syllables), a story by Ed Pavlić
Alvin Ailey Finds His Voice, by Mark Burford
I Am Bound for de Kingdom, a poem by Marlanda Dekine
Lowell George in Eight and a Half Songs, by Elizabeth Nelson
Ode to Coca-Cola, Helium, Carbon, a poem by Cal Freeman
In Montana, by Jessica Lynne
Buddy Guy Walks into a Bar, by Ben Greenman
Where Is Jimmy Bishop?, by Alex Lewis
Overnight Scenario, by Karen Good Marable
FEATURES
Can't You See That I'm Lonely?
“Rescue Me,” on repeat
by David Ramsey
Slow Time
Southern resonance in Daniel Lanois’s Sling Blade score
by Tim Greiving
Country Boy Gone City
A ballad of Johnny Bristol, Al Green, and Battle Creek’s Bloody Corner
by Rebecca Bengal
Toward the Sun
Jazz and soul bloom Up South at midcentury
Photographs by Kwame Brathwaite
Accompanying essay by Jasmine Sanders
Manhattan in East St. Louis
Ike & Tina Turner and the scene that formed their art
by Maureen Mahon
SONGBOOK
Notes on the sound of the South in the city
The Watts Miracle
Zandria F. Robinson on Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace
More Bridges Than Walls
Jim Beaugez on Chicano Soul
Fye-Veaux
Joi Gilliam on Turning Fifty
Houston Meets Broolyn in UGK's "Big Pimpin"
Dan Gentile on Jay-Z and UGK’s Big Collaboration
The Dollar Done Fell at the Checkerboard Lounge
Jay Jennings on Buddy Guy’s Checkerboard Lounge
A Brief History of Bounce
by Big Freedia
The Southern Roots of Q
Terence Blanchard on Quincy Jones
Spring Break Soundtrack
by Leon Bridges
Sculpting the Epic Hero in Sound
Harmony Holiday on Mary Lou Williams
Carolyn's Alchemy
Tarisai Ngangura on Carolyn Franklin
Vocal Visionaries
by Simon Marotte
Art by: Ethan D’Ercole, Malick Sidibé, Carla Jay Harris, Ida Kohlmeyer, Lynell George, Derrick Adams, Zhou Yilun, Irwin Gooen, Jack Mitchell, Edgar Bryan, Jessica Lynne, Omar Velázquez, Gordon Parks, Angela Davis Johnson, Bryan Graf, Kwame Brathwaite, Jim O’Neal, Carter/Reddy, Joi Gilliam, Daniel Hastings, Jonas Dovydenas, Brad Hebert, William P. Gottlieb
Cover 1: Tina Turner in concert at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, 1969 © Walter Iooss Jr./Getty Images
Cover 2: Aretha Franklin, c. 1967 © Induna Entec Media/Alamy