Best of 2020: Music Writing

In the before times, a little over a year ago, we traveled to Savannah, Georgia, for a music festival. It was fall, but still sweltering. We stood for hours directly in front of the stage, shoulder-to-shoulder with sweaty strangers who, too, love music. This seems like a heat-induced fever dream, an act now incomprehensible. The day’s highlight was seeing Shovels & Rope — the husband-and-wife duo of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst — play live. The energy and intensity of their performance outshone the sun on that humid Georgia afternoon.

As the heavens opened up and rain poured down, the Purple One ran through a handful of covers and some of his own songs, delivering an iconic set on the biggest stage possible and only expanding his legend

It is now mostly unclear why I thought it was a good idea to bring Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits to school with me.

A former child prodigy travels to Spain to revisit the instrument of her youth—and to learn flamenco guitar from the tocaoras playing to the top of the male-dominated world.