Celebrate 30 years of the OA.
With original work from Imani Perry, Kristen Arnett, Diane Roberts, and so many others, our Spring Issue honors our past and looks into our expansive future.
With original work from Imani Perry, Kristen Arnett, Diane Roberts, and so many others, our Spring Issue honors our past and looks into our expansive future.
North Carolina Music Issue
The Oxford American presents its 20th annual Southern Music Issue, featuring more than twenty-five stories exploring the history and legacy of North Carolina music. Among the many notable contributors to this year’s Southern Music Issue are novelists Jonathan Lethem, Jill McCorkle, and Wiley Cash, and the beloved North Carolina musicians Rhiannon Giddens and Tift Merritt. Tryon-native Nina Simone, one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, graces the cover in a portrait by Jim Blanchard; Simone is the subject of a feature essay about artistic influence and identity, written by poet Tiana Clark.
The issue comes with a 28-song sampler of recordings by North Carolinians sourced across nearly a century. The compilation highlights music from NC legends like Simone, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson, James Taylor, and Elizabeth Cotten, plus a wide-ranging host of others. Accompanying the sampler are detailed liner notes and essays on the songs by Ron Rash, Laura Ballance, Randall Kenan, and others.
Notes on the songs, including:
Rhiannon Giddens on Joe & Odell Thompson
Michael Parker on Ruby Johnson
Mark Powell on Malcolm Holcombe
Tift Merritt on Elizabeth Cotten
Wiley Cash on Ella May Wiggins
David Joy on the Honeycutters
Harmony Holiday on June Tyson
John Coltrane’s Spiritual High Point, by Benjamin Hedin
Beach Music Memories, by Jill McCorkle
Why 9th Wonder Stayed, by Dasan Ahanu
Two Lumbee Baptisms, by Malinda Maynor Lowery
Etta Baker’s Morganton Chord, by Rebecca Bengal
I Remember the dB’s, by Jonathan Lethem
James Taylor’s Chapel Hill, by Will Blythe
Big Boy Henry’s Open-Hearted Blues, by Tom Rankin
La Musica Latina en Charlotte, by Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas
John Cage’s Black Mountain Music, by John Thomason
Wesley Johnson, A Teentone in Rome, by Jon Kirby
Ryan Adams, Thomas Wolfe, and Leaving Home, by Maxwell George
How Kinston Changed Music, by Sarah Bryan
George Clinton’s Funky Origins, by Dave Tompkins
Of What America, by Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley
The World Grows, by Tyree Daye
North Carolina State Fair, by C. L. White
Fort Bragg Winter, by Zachary Lunn
NINA IS EVERYWHERE I GO
Finding the artist by facing the damage that made me
by Tiana Clark
THAT KIND OF MONEY
Liquid Pleasure’s ascent into wedding band superstardom
by Abigail Covington
THE GOSPEL OF JODECI
Sex, money, God, and slow jams
by Lauren Du Graf
QUEEN OF SNOW HILL
Rapsody on top in hip-hop—and at home
by L. Lamar Wilson
Art by Jim Blanchard, Sandlin Gaither, Juan Logan, Minnie Evans, David Holt, Gai Terrell, Marthanna Yater, Scott Hazard, Hatty Ruth Miller, Christian Marclay, Jeremy M. Lange, Tom Rankin, Rosalia Torres-Weiner, Joseph Fiore, Lindsay Metivier, Romare Bearden, Richard E. Aaron, Angela Franks Wells, Amy Sherald, Fahamu Pecou, Deborah Roberts, Tom Martin, Chris Charles