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The Night Aretha Franklin Sang Opera: How the Queen of Soul Saved the 1998 Grammys
Ten minutes into the live telecast of the 40th Annual Grammy Awards, the phone rang in producer Ken Ehrlich’s bunker beneath the stage at Radio City Music Hall. On the line was the evening’s headliner, the most famous tenor on earth, calling to say he could not sing. What happened over the next two hours…
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Rod Stewart: The Rascal’s Heart — Eight Kids, Two Cancers, and One Enormous Model Railway
The tabloids always got Rod Stewart half right. Yes, the spiky hair and the supermodels, the football terraces and the champagne. But behind the rascal’s grin stands one of the most devoted fathers in rock, a two-time cancer survivor who turned his scares into a crusade, and a man whose greatest passion — the one…
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How Rod Stewart Created “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”: The Disco Detour That Became a Charity Anthem
In 1978, Rod Stewart committed what rock purists considered an unforgivable sin: he went disco. The gravel-voiced veteran of the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces — the man who had sung “Maggie May” — squeezed into spandex, slicked back the rooster hair, and released the most shamelessly danceable record of his career. “Da Ya…
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Linda Ronstadt: The Heart Behind the Golden Voice
She was the most desired woman in rock and roll, courted by governors and movie directors, serenaded by millions. And she walked away from all of it — from the fairy tale, from the spotlight, from the very idea that a woman needs a prince — to build a life entirely on her own terms.…
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How Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris Finally Made “Trio”
Some albums take weeks to make. “Trio” took more than a decade — and it was worth every year. When Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris finally released their legendary collaboration on March 2, 1987, it wasn’t just a record. It was the fulfillment of a promise three friends had made to each other…
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Jackson Browne: The Father, the Fighter, and the Friend of the Earth
Jackson Browne has always written about what matters most — love, loss, responsibility, the state of the world his children will inherit. It turns out he wasn’t just writing songs. He was writing a mission statement. Behind the gentle voice and the poetic lyrics stands a man who raised two boys through heartbreak, who turned…
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How Jackson Browne Created “Take It Easy”: The Unfinished Song That Launched the Eagles
Some songs are written. “Take It Easy” was rescued — coaxed out of a young songwriter’s basement, finished on a neighbor’s encouragement, and then handed to a brand-new band that turned it into the opening announcement of an era. Without Jackson Browne’s unfinished tune, there is no Eagles debut single. Without Glenn Frey’s finishing touch,…
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Bob Seger: The Homebody Heart of Heartland Rock
For fifty years, Bob Seger sang about the road — its loneliness, its freedom, its 3 a.m. revelations. “Turn the Page,” “Travelin’ Man,” “Roll Me Away”: nobody ever made the highway sound more mythic. But the great irony of Bob Seger’s life is that the man who wrote the definitive songs about leaving never really…
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How Bob Seger Forged “Live Bullet”: Two Nights at Cobo Hall That Shook America Awake
Every great live album has an origin story, but few are as gloriously rock-and-roll as the one behind Bob Seger’s “Live Bullet.” It was recorded over two September nights in 1975 at Detroit’s Cobo Hall — and it almost never came out at all. The record label didn’t want it. Seger himself didn’t want it.…
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Roberta Flack: The Teacher Whose Heart Never Left the Classroom
The world knew Roberta Flack as the voice of “Killing Me Softly” — the most intimate singer of her generation, the woman who could break your heart without raising her voice. But those who knew her best will tell you that the singing was only half the story. Underneath the stardom was a schoolteacher who…