Old songs like old photographs are the purveyors of a kind of double imagery. They have relevance in the moment, just as they make yesterday's events today's reality. They remind of us of a time, a place, and often of the social construct at the time they were heard or created.Almost more than any other art form, music both shapes and captures the essence of the time and place it was created.
Perhaps it's the speed at which it’s produced, perhaps it’s the duality of both creation and performance, or perhaps it's something in our DNA and the way we process music itself. Maybe, if we can better understand any of this, we’ll better understand this crazy place we are today.
Helping us to understand this is NPR’s music critic and correspondent Ann Powers in her new book Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music
.My conversation with Ann Powers:
