Music

Phoebe Snow, RIP

I was sad to see on Twitter the other day that Poly Styrene had died. I’d been a big fan of her music. Not much later, I read that Phoebe Snow had died. I’d kept up with news about Poly but realized that I hadn’t heard what was going on with Snow in a few years. I came across the CBS morning news video embedded here on Roger Ebert’s blog at the Sun-Times. It’s several years old but it was full of detail and I was sobbing by the end. If you’re at all a fan, you will be well served to check it out.


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Pod people: Dylan does his Dylan thing

It’s time for another Crossroads podcast, so please click here to tune that in on your computer or head on over to iTunes. We’re talking Bob Dylan and I think that it’s safe to say that Dylan is in better shape right now on the whole China sellout thing than, oh, Maureen Dowd & Co.


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A tin ear for religion

Last month, I highlighted media coverage of campaigns to get worshipers to confession. I needled the Miami Archdiocese a bit for using Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in C Major to accompany their television advertisement. Johann Sebastian Bach is my favorite Lutheran composer, in a very crowded field. I was surprised that a couple of commenters didn’t know he was Lutheran, on account of how well regarded he is as a musician, composer and theologian.


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Dylan works around China's bosses?

Is there anyone in American popular culture who intrigues and frustrates journalists of a certain age — the Baby Boomer elites — than Bob Dylan? The man is a walking history book, when you combine the landmark events in his life with the confusing but gripping map that is his canon of songwriting.


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Charlie Sheen, Hannah Montana and God

Of all the areas where media coverage of religion seems weak, celebrity news has to be up there. For a recent example, you can read this Associated Press account of Billy Ray Cyrus lamenting the effect of his daughter’s fame on his family. He apparently says, in a recent interview with GQ, that the Disney TV show “Hannah Montana” destroyed his family, caused his divorce and is sending daughter Miley Cyrus spinning out of control. At the end of this brief story, we learn:


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Grace, karma and Boy George

When you think of someone doing right by the Church of Cyprus, you probably don’t think of Boy George. And yet there he was, returning an icon he’d bought (without realizing its origin) in 1985, years after the Turkish invasion. The BBC writes:


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