Jonathan Lethem

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The Oxford American’s 21st Annual
Southern Music Issue & CD

Featuring
SOUTH CAROLINA

Order your copy today.

Featuring unforgettable songs and stories from South Carolina, the issue includes voices ranging from the Upstate to the Lowcountry, highlighting icons like Dizzy Gillespie and Eartha Kitt, as well as contemporary artists such as Shovels & Rope and Ranky Tanky.

Our cover star is NASA astronaut Ronald McNair, who became a physics (and music) pioneer when he brought a soprano sax into orbit in 1984. A native of Lake City, South Carolina, McNair died tragically in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster two years later. In a revelatory and thoughtful feature in the issue, Jon Kirby speaks with McNair’s family, friends, and colleagues, who remember him not only as a famous astronaut but also a devoted, one-of-a-kind musician.

Order the South Carolina Music Issue & Sampler today. The issue comes packaged with a CD compilation and digital download card.

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Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem is the author of eleven novels, including The Fortress of Solitude and The Feral Detective. His music writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, and the 33 1/3 series, for which he wrote about Talking Heads’ Fear of Music. He lives in Los Angeles and Maine.

“Mashup (Two Cassettes Diptych)” (2008). © Christian Marclay. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, and Graphicstudio. Photo by Will Lytch

Issue 103, Winter 2018

I Remember the dB's

November 20, 2018

A Points South essay from the North Carolina Music Issue.

I remember the dB’s. I was eighteen. It was 1982. The band was still together.

I remember time and space were different then, and information moved incrementally through these media. Only a handful of things ever happened to everyone all at once—things like John Lennon’s murder, or Reagan’s election.