Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker reviews rock, country, hip-hop and pop music for Fresh Air. He is a cultural critic who has been the editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a film critic for New York Magazine. His work has won two National Magazine Awards and two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards. He has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and other publications.
Tucker is the author of Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate About Television.
-
Yoakam has recorded a harmonious new duet with Post Malone. Morris is stretching beyond country's borders. And Thompson — half of the duo Thompson Square — looks back to the roots of honky-tonk.
-
Ken Tucker reviews Robert Hilburn's biography of Newman, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country. Plus, we listen back to a 1998 archival interview with the Grammy Award-winning artist.
-
Dylan's 40-show 1974 tour with The Band produced a live double-album later that year. Now, the music available from that tour has increased dramatically with the release of a new 27-CD set.
-
The recording sessions for Young's 1974 album were gloomy, drug-fueled affairs, but the end result proves that artists can make good work no matter how hemmed-in, churlish or depressed they may be.
-
Though sales were lackluster, Too Much Too Soon captured the band's spirit. Less than a year after its release, the Dolls broke up in a combination of commercial failure and personal misbehavior.
-
The British band Roxy Music, led by singer/songwriter Bryan Ferry, released their fourth album in 1974. It would go on to crack the Billboard top 40 — and it remains thrilling today.
-
Fulfillingness’ First Finale won the Grammy for Best Album in 1975, yet today it feels underrated — perhaps because its overall tone was more meditative than the albums immediately preceding it.
-
By 1974, Steely Dan's two albums had helped established the band as a viable business proposition. With Pretzel Logic, they began a quest for studio perfectionism that would last for decades to come.
-
Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs' “Dare To Dream," Tommy Richman's "Million Dollar Baby" and Jeff and Steven McDonald's “Born Innocent" feature spontaneous sounds rooted in deep knowledge of the past.
-
Swamp Dogg, aka Jerry Williams Jr., began his career in the 1960s. Now 81, he demonstrates that, in his long career in R&B, soul and funk, country is another road he’s traveled.