Bob Dylan

The genre has been disdained by the church and mocked by secular culture. That just reassured practitioners that they were rebels on a righteous path.

The four-piece lived with the New York Dolls and played with Sid Vicious, but they’ve been largely written out of cultural history.

His groundbreaking rock-n-roll was neither 'thievery' nor 'derivative blackness.'

A new book by Eric Lott frames white appropriation of blackness as containing the possibility of greater racial solidarity.

One of the greatest living artists in popular music still isn’t properly recognized.

Dorothy Thompson's 1941 paranoid 'parlor game' just as (un) useful today.

Mavis Staples' lyrics span from the civil-rights-era to today's societal issues.

The history of the epithet, from its rise among leftists and jazz critics and folkies to its recent fall from favor.

The origins of rock and roll are unknown, but no one can deny the role Chuck Berry played.

The story of how The Band, in Robbie Robertson's words, "acted out an ideal of democracy and equality."

And how the Rolling Stones, a band in love with black music, helped lead the way to rock’s segregated future.

How the April 8, 1966, cover of TIME set off a firestorm.

The iconic fusion of country and rock in Gram Parsons' legacy.

In the seven decades since his mysterious death, bluesman Robert Johnson’s legend has grown.

Guthrie challenged the commercial aesthetic of the pre-rock era through a performance style that was almost combatively anti-musical.

"The Essential Willie Nelson" compilation demonstrates the continuity of Nelson's style across a variety of musical genres.