2006 May

What exactly is early music, anyway? It depends on what you mean by “early.” Early Rolling Stones is one thing, but early Muddy Waters is something else again — something played with a different bat and ball but in...

When I call to ask whether or not my six-year-old can do these dances, the woman on the other end of the phone laughs. “My daughter’s been doing them since she was about four,” she says. “They’ll...

This year the Purple Rose seems to be celebrating the misunderstood keepers of high culture. Purple Rose founder Jeff Daniels, playing way against type, delivered an ace performance in movie theaters this winter in The Squid and...

Jerry Harmon's great-great-great-grandfather Council Harmon, born in 1803 and deceased in 1896, brought the Jack Tales to the United States from England. "Jack and the Beanstalk" is the only one of these most of us...

Jazz musicians from the West Coast are often not given the appreciation they deserve. There are vibrant musical scenes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and other Pacific Rim cities, but not enough players from these areas...

Before its June 24 move to temporary quarters during its renovation, the U-M Museum of Art is giving itself a blowout sendoff with a sweeping survey of the history of photography, opening April 22. The exhibition Rethinking the...

Three years ago, the DJs on my favorite college radio station fell in love with a song that had a beautiful, obsessive chorus. "I wanted to be sweet/So you won't disappoint me," a woman sang with such pain and rage...

Among his many other qualities, Richard Russo is our contemporary master of the fictional small town, and particularly of the small-town diner. His novels, though set in small places, are big and sprawling, in the best sense....

Seeing is believing. You can listen to the fast and fuzzy glam-rock sound of the Sirens on their 2004 self-titled CD, and the musical performance will probably sound more impressive than at a live show. But the key to this...