Sublime

But the main thing I dislike about Elvis Presley is the idea of Elvis Presley, and that idea is what keeps Graceland in business. It’s the religiosity of garbage culture; it validates the import of tabloid aesthetics, and it makes our society look stupid.

Fats Domino was the singer, whose apparently eternal and universal appeal defies musical analysis. His records were simple, convincing, memorable, and danceable. While a steady rhythm pounded from his full-chorded piano playing, a band led and arranged by his producer Dave Bartholomew played easy riffs that emphasized the dance beat, and Domino

I remember once, when I was a kid, hearing Johnny Winter singing “Tired of Tryin’ ” with Muddy Waters on guitar, on the Nothin’ but the Blues album, and hearing him sing and liking what I heard and then looking at a picture of him on the album and double-taking, maybe triple-taking, and then wondering what it meant to be black (or white, or albino)

evanescence.

Big Mama Thornton (“Hound Dog”)

Fetishism of famous writers, he suggested, occurs because “it’s such heavy-lifting to actually read books.”