hitwheelsnep

There is a version of artistic suffering that is romanticized and dishonest — the idea that pain automatically produces greatness, that misery is a prerequisite for genius. John Lennon’s story is not that story. His story is more specific and more uncomfortable than that. It is the story of a man who, at several precise … Read more

The sun beat down on the VA hospital parking lot like a hammer on an anvil, turning the asphalt into a shimmering black mirror. I stood there, iced coffee sweating in my fist, the condensation dripping down my wrist like cold sweat. I’d just stepped out for a quick break—visiting my uncle, another faded vet … Read more

When Vince Gill, Gregg Allman, and Zac Brown came together to perform “Midnight Rider,” the result was more than just a live collaboration — it became a celebration of Southern music history. Their performance, featured on the 2014 concert project All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs & Voice of Gregg Allman, captured the soul of … Read more

Stevie Wonder lost his sight as an infant — an excess of oxygen in the incubator he was placed in after premature birth damaged his retinas permanently. He has been blind his entire conscious life. He has also, by the consistent assessment of virtually every musician who has worked alongside him for sixty years, possessed … Read more

Robert Plant and Jimmy Page built one of the great creative partnerships in rock history. Page was the architect — the guitarist, producer, and sonic visionary who constructed the world in which the band existed. Plant was the voice and the myth — the golden god figure who inhabited that world with a physical charisma … Read more

On June 25, 2004, David Bowie walked offstage at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, Germany, after a set that had been cut short when he complained of shoulder pain. He was 57 years old and in the middle of a world tour — the Reality Tour, one of the most successful of his career, playing … Read more

By 1996, Johnny Cash had been famous for forty years and was, by the music industry’s cold actuarial assessment, finished. His record label had dropped him. Radio would not play him. The country music establishment that he had helped to build had moved on to younger, smoother, more commercially manageable artists. He was 64 years … Read more

For twenty years, the world accepted a comfortable lie about The Beatles. The lie went like this: Lennon and McCartney were the geniuses, Harrison was the quiet one, Starr was the lucky one, and the hierarchy was fixed and permanent and not worth questioning. It was a lie maintained partly by the sheer commercial dominance … Read more