Order
The Oxford American’s 22nd Annual
Southern Music Issue
Guest edited by
BRITTANY HOWARD
Order your copy today.
This year we’ve compiled our “greatest hits,” including selections of the most beloved music writing from our archive—guest edited by Brittany Howard, the Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and frontwoman of the Alabama Shakes. This jam-packed issue also includes new essays on iconic Southern artists who have changed the trajectory of American music.
Rather than including a CD this year, we’ve asked guest contributors to curate a selection of playlists that limn the bounty of Southern music across genres. These are available to stream on Spotify.
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Oxford American
Notes on the 25 songs included with the Georgia Music Issue.
Our methodology: if you can’t include everything, make sure everything you include is masterful.
From the country blues to early jazz to gospel, soul, metal, rock & roll, hip-hop, and beyond—there isn’t a corner of American music the people of this state haven’t made their own.
We are pleased to announce that Eliza Borné is the new editor of the Oxford American, succeeding Roger D. Hodge, who left the magazine in June.
From now until December, we’re offering a series of special offers through PledgeMusic: limited-edition Georgia Music issue posters, t-shirts, and more.
This fall, two historic exhibitions—and a squirrel recount—have our attention.
“I find that people who live close to the earthly, fundamental things usually have more character in their faces,” said painter Marie Hull, whose work is on view at the Mississippi Museum of Art until January 10, 2016.
This issue includes “The Battle of and for the Black Face Boy,” a radical libretto by Nikky Finney; a profile of a transgender drug counselor who lives on the border of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, by Jonathan Blitzer; John T. Edge’s exploration of Southern theme restaurants; and more.
The sun’s shining through the windows in Georgia. A poet climbs into her attic and takes down a box of old photos, opens it, and tilts the images into the light. A page from an old notebook peeks out of the stack. Jimmy Rabbitt’s “Wheels’ Rollin’” starts skipping on the record player.
The sun is going down in New Orleans. A man turns onto Frenchman Street, putting out a cigarette on the old brick sidewalk. He hears laughter coming from inside a bar. Nearby, a local bookstore owner closes up for the night.
In May, Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson loaded up a tour bus in Nashville with some of their songwriting friends and headed to Little Rock for a night of food and drink and music in the round.
