The Night Janis Joplin Performed at Woodstock — And the Moment She Realized She Was Already Running Out of Time

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Janis Joplin performed at Woodstock on the night of August 16, 1969, in circumstances that were chaotic even by Woodstock’s considerable standards of chaos. She went on at approximately two in the morning, hours behind schedule, in front of an audience whose size was impossible to accurately assess in the darkness and whose condition ranged … Read more

The Song Dolly Parton Wrote in Twenty Minutes — That Whitney Houston Turned Into the Best-Selling Single by a Female Artist in History

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Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You in 1973 as a farewell to Porter Wagoner — the country music star who had given her her first major exposure, who had fought against her decision to pursue a solo career, and with whom she had a professional and personal relationship complicated enough that it required … Read more

Five Radiohead Songs Thom Yorke Wrote During a Mental Breakdown — That Became the Most Influential Album of the 1990s

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OK Computer was recorded between 1996 and 1997 in a series of locations that included a rented mansion in Bath called St. Catherine’s Court, where the band set up equipment in rooms that were not designed for recording and that produced accidental acoustic properties that became features rather than problems. The album that emerged from … Read more

The Moment Mick Jagger Saw James Brown Perform for the First Time — And Immediately Changed His Entire Stage Presence

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Mick Jagger has been imitated by more performers than almost any other rock musician alive — the strut, the lip, the way he occupies a stage as though it was designed specifically for him and could not fully function without him. What is less discussed, and what Jagger himself has addressed in interviews with more … Read more

The Song Carole King Wrote That James Taylor Said Saved His Life — And He’s Never Explained Why

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There are songs that function as entertainment and songs that function as life support — pieces of music that arrive at a specific moment in a specific person’s circumstances and perform a function that the people who wrote them did not intend and could not have predicted. James Taylor has spent fifty years acknowledging his … Read more

Five Doors Songs Jim Morrison Recorded That Ray Manzarek Said Came From a Place None of Them Could Explain

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Ray Manzarek spent fifty years as the keeper and interpreter of the Doors’ legacy — the surviving member most willing to examine, in specific detail, what the band had actually attempted and what Morrison had actually been doing in the moments when the music exceeded anything that rehearsal or intention could account for. His interviews, … Read more

The Night Elton John Played a Concert With a Broken Voice — And Received the Only Standing Ovation That Made Him Cry

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There are nights in a performer’s life when everything that can go wrong does go wrong and the performance happens anyway — not despite the circumstances but somehow because of them, the limitation stripping away everything that is practiced and polished and leaving only what is real. Elton John has performed over four thousand concerts … Read more