By Sean Fennessey, eMusic ContributorThe Grateful Dead are a peculiar entity, and tough to think about critically because they exist almost entirely as their own subculture. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are similarly successful, massive revenue-generating groups, but… more »
By Holly George-Warren, eMusic Contributor"The Grateful Dead isn't an event, it's a process," guitarist/songwriter/vocalist Jerry Garcia once quipped of the band he cofounded and led until his 1995 death. For 30 years, the Bay Area-based group fearlessly meandered the… more »
By John Morthland, eMusic ContributorThey're the beneficiaries of a rather unlikely tribute album and a primary inspiration and/or influence for numerous contemporary string bands, from the high-profile Carolina Chocolate Drops to Geoff Muldaur's one-off collaborators the Texas Sheiks. No… more »
By Richard Gehr, eMusic ContributorOne figure stands off to the side and slightly obscured amid the pantheon of African bandleaders. The Congolese superstar Franco - christened François Luambo Makiadi in 1938, dead of AIDS in 1989 - is the… more »
By John Morthland, eMusic ContributorIn a sense, we know more about the African antecedents of the blues than we do about the African-American music that prevailed just prior to the codification of the blues form around 1900. Most prominent… more »