When I was growing up, my family was close friends with the Morans, a family who lived several hours away in upstate New York. We visited regularly and usually spent a few nights there. John Moran, the father, had a regular ritual before he left for work every morning: Playing a recording of the Browns [...]

When I was in college back in the 1960s, there was usually a Peter, Paul, and Mary album playing in the student lounge. So it was wonderful last night to relive that whole era during a PBS documentary about the group: Peter, Paul, and Mary Carry it On. Of course I got weepy over “Blowin’ [...]

Fifty-two years ago today, singer Buddy Holly died in a Minnesota plane crash, along with Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper.” In Don McLean’s song “American Pie,” it became “the day the music died.” McLean’s song is a rambling and uneven allegory that, nevertheless, powerfully evokes the magic of Buddy Holly’s music, sung “in a [...]