The award-winning Oxford American magazine, which makes its home on the UCA campus, celebrates the diversity of American music and storytelling in its 2007 Music Issue, which hits newsstands nationwide this weekend.
The Music Issue, which includes a CD abounding with 26 musical surprises, covers a wide range of subjects. Sheryl St. Germain tells us how it is to be in that number that misses New Orleans. Sean Wilentz delivers a fly-on-the-wall account of the making of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde in Nashville. Columnist Roy Blount urges for the return of yodeling. Harper’s staffer Bill Wasik writes on the blogosphere phenomenon. Acclaimed novelist Fredrick Barthelme writes of his days in the 1960’s as the drummer for the cult art-noise band, Red-Crayola. Sam Stephenson writes about Thelonius Monk’s final gig in his home state of North Carolina in 1970. And more…….
“Every year we try and do something special with the music issue and CD,” says Editor Marc Smirnoff, “Thus year, with the exception of a few big names, we wanted to get into the undercurrent of celebrating lost and unjustly forgotten musical superstars. If people recognize right off the bat most of the names we’re covering in this year’s edition we kind of failed at our mission.”
The Oxford American is a quarterly magazine published by the nonprofit Oxford American Literary Project at UCA. Founded in 1992, it bills itself as “The Southern Magazine of Good Writing.” The magazine received the National Magazine Award in 1999 and 2003.
