When I became editor of Creative Loafing for the third time in the late 2010s, I decided it was time to put That Guy Smitty on the cover — celebrate his legacy while also celebrating a bit of the history of Charlotte’s electronic dance music scene
Nathan Bell: Red, White and American Blues
Before the worst president in American history incited a deadly insurrection at the White House, singer-songwriter Nathan Bell asked me to write the liner notes for his latest album, Red, White and American Blues (it couldn’t happen here).
Greg Cox: Making His Own Band
In the summer of 2018, I had coffee with a guy named Greg Cox — an R&B singer in Charlotte, North Carolina, whose self-released debut LP Etc. had just dropped on my desk and blown my mind.
Lou Reed + John Cale: Fifteen Minutes with You
In July 1990, I landed my first magazine cover: a story on Velvet Underground co-founders Lou Reed and John Cale, who’d reunited to perform and record Songs for Drella, a tribute to their mentor, the late pop artist Andy Warhol.
Vic Chesnutt: Famous By Association
In 1996, seven years after I wrote my first profile of the late Vic Chesnutt for Option magazine, I flew down to his Athens, Georgia, home to do this full feature for Rolling Stone.
Ed Sheeran: The X Factor
What Ed Sheeran’s huge success showed was the endurance of the acoustic guitar in popular music—not just in the singer-songwriter or country-bluegrass realms, but also in the pure, unadulterated, teen-loving pop world. In this 2014 multimedia package, I talked to him and others about his music and guitars, and he performed an unplugged version of his hit “Thinking Out Loud.”
Ani DiFranco: Return of the Righteous Babe
Early on in what’s come to be slandered by the right as “cancel culture,” Ani DiFranco angered fans by planning an artist retreat at a former plantation. The irony was that DiFranco had spent her entire career as a stanch political ally, not just of Black Americans, but of all people of color, all gender identifications, the poor — basically, all people marginalized by the dominant culture. She survived the controversy with her fanbase intact.
The New Southern Rock: Latin Music in the Carolinas
The images in La Rúa’s video are quintessentially Southern: hot rural roads, rich green grass and trees, deep red dirt, dusty construction sites and a gritty pool-hall parking lot filled with people in jeans and T-shirts, dancing and singing.
Whitney Houston: A (Very) Personal Tribute
By the late ’90s, Whitney’s “children” regularly passed through the green room at MTV, where I was then working as vice president of music editorial on the daily show TRL. Like Whitney, I was at the top of my game — or, so it seemed.
Beck: The Rolling Stone Interview
My first Rolling Stone cover story, in 1997, was sort of a Part 2 of an earlier cover story I did on Beck for Option in 1994.