Henry Cabot Beck

British singer Dusty Springfield was the diva de tutti dive of the "Tough and Tender" genre, in the sense that no matter how sweet the pop confection, she was guarded in all directions but one — the only place she allowed some vulnerability to show was straight down the pipes...

Sons? Unquestionably. Bastards? Probably. Of Johnny Cash? Who can say? We are all the bastard sons of Johnny Cash if we so choose to be. If, in fact, we are talking about a band and that band's themes, musical and otherwise, Mark Stuart and the other Bastards' songs inhabit that...

We miss Buck Owens. Genial, shrewd, goofy, and incredibly gifted, Owens shared the pop and country music stage with the vast crowd of '60s musical wunderkinder. He stood his Top 40 ground with the Beatles, who liked him enough to cover him ("Act Naturally" was Ringo's signature theme), while performers...

There were a lot of great independent labels that flourished in the '50s and early '60s, and each owns a place in the stars — Chess, Sun, Atlantic, Motown, Stax. It was a movement, a golden age for music geared toward a new teen demographic. Maybe it's true that Vee-Jay...

This is not Frank Sinatra Jr. embarrassing his dad by warbling "My Way" for the Geritol geezers, nor is it Mercer Ellington working hard to do the Duke proud and missing the mark. And this is not a mixed bunch of ex-sidemen doing a songbook while a disembodied star with...