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Best Of Rock
Reasons to be excited about Rock right now
Because Jake Bugg Is the Best Singer-Songwriter
Born in the Nineties
Photograph by LeAnn Mueller
At home in the u.k., singer-songwriter jake bugg already has a platinum album, a model girlfriend and paparazzi on his trail. But in Austin, the fresh-faced 19-year-old is enough of a nobody to arouse skepticism when he walks into a guitar shop and asks to handle one of its most expensive antiques. I was trying this 1966 Fender Stratocaster, and the guy who works there asks me, ‘Cash or debit?’ ” Bugg says a few days later at a Texas steakhouse. “Basically, he meant, ‘Are you gonna buy it, or are you gonna put the fuckin’
thing down?’ ”
Natalie Maines
Goodbye Dixie
Natalie Maines took on a president, and Nashville cast her out. Ten years later, she’s finally ready to move on
By Brian Hiatt
Photograph by Mark Seliger
In 1986, while george w. bush was busy finding jesus and swearing off alcohol, a spunky little blonde girl named Natalie Maines was finishing sixth grade in sleepy Lubbock, Texas. At a graduation ceremony, one of her favourite
teachers offered a mock prediction: She would be elected president of the United States, then get “kicked out of office for excessive talking”. For Maines, who instead grew up to be the Dixie Chicks’ lead singer, then the most vilified woman in Dixie, and now, at age 38, a fledgling solo artist, the story proves one thing: “I was born outspoken. It followed me my whole life.”
Philip Tabane
THE ROLLING STONE INTERVIEW
Hammer of the Gods
Half a century after Philip Tabane and his band of fledgling wizards took South Africa by storm with their Kwela-Avant-Blues record, “Foolish Fly” – influencing every other local style from Blues to Black Consciousness Punks – Tabane finds himself the Last Pirate rowing. Bongani Madondo books an hour with the Ancestral-Jazz-Rock god’s ultimate recluse. And two weeks later he’s not left the house. They’re still talking, even as you read …
By Bongani Madondo
SPRING 2002: Three Blues Brothers – Arabi Mucheke, manager (and “godsent” as the artist would later put it) of Phillip Tabane, and his two protégés, Andile Dlamini, and yours truly (well, what do you know? - yours truly).
Rolling Stone Issue 20
Aretha Franklin
May 23, 1974
The Aretha phenomenon emerged in chuch at the tender age of 10. By 18, she had experiences that were beyond most human beings and knew more about men, alcohol “and everything”, according to her manager. She was given to spells of self-hatred and disappointment. Yet, at her enduring prime, that voice, her singing, touched the lives of millions.
By Chris Hodenfield
Aretha Franklin wore a body stocking on stage the other night. Couldn’t tell ifi t was transparent, but you could tell she was proud of her new deep-dish streamlined body. She’d tell the world. She spread her wings, her cape fell open and the spotlights hit the spangles like the Crab Nebula.