Stevie Nicks gave up cocaine in 1985, after it had bored a hole in her septum big enough, she said, “to pass a belt through.” In the next decade and a half, Ms. Nicks turned to tranquilizers, put out lousy albums and put on a couple of pounds. Her songs, which had drawn heavily on Read More
For the last 10 years, David Byrne has run Luaka Bop, the Manhattan-based record label that specializes in international pop, with Yale Evelev, formerly of the Icon world music imprint, which is now defunct. The label, a Warner Brothers affiliate, has felt some buzz and heat, as with the 1989 release of Brazil Classics 1: Read More
On stage, Duke Ellington used to introduce “The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse” by quoting the Marshall McLuhan dictum, “The whole world is going Oriental.” Today, if Ellington weren’t celebrating his 100th birthday from the grave, he might say that the whole world is going Brazilian. The secret knowledge that obsessive record collectors and eagle-eyed deejays have guarded Read More
