Jack Sherman, one-time guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers who played on the band’s debut album, has died at the age of 64, the band confirmed Friday. No cause of death was provided. “We of the RHCP family would like to wish Jack Sherman smooth sailing into the worlds …
Read More »How Surfing Saved Me
Growing up in Manhattan, I never gave surfing more than a glancing thought. I liked the beach, but I wasn’t much of an athlete and I figured you had to be insane to want to ride those heaving behemoths they showed on Wide World of Sports. And, besides, as a …
Read More »Battleground Michigan: Inside the Fights Over the President and the Pandemic
This story appears in the August 2020 print edition of Rolling Stone. The bells of Hamtramck’s Saint Florian Church ring out for Sunday Mass. The building was enlarged in 1928, and the June sun glances off a spire built 200 feet high so that its Polish-immigrant parishioners would have a …
Read More »After the Kent State Massacre, 'Ohio' Spoke to the Country — and Helped Save CSNY
Nearly 50 years after it was written and recorded, Neil Young’s “Ohio” remains one of rock’s greatest protest songs. Over the decades, it’s been covered and resurrected by the Isley Brothers, Devo, Paul Weller, and, three years ago, the combo of Jon Batiste, Leon Bridges, and Gary Clark, Jr. But …
Read More »Andrew Cuomo Takes Charge
This story appears in the May 2020 issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands May 5th. On March 1st, New York reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19, after a Manhattan health care worker in her late thirties, who had visited Iran, tested positive at a hospital in the city. Six …
Read More »How Taylor Swift Is Helping a Small Nashville Record Store Survive
Like most small businesses that have had to shut down or alter their operations during the coronavirus pandemic, record stores have been forced to completely change the way they operate. Over the past two weeks, Nashville retailer Grimey’s New & Preloved Music, for example, has had to send its employees …
Read More »Hear Bob Dylan's Absolutely Mind-Blowing New Song 'Murder Most Foul'
Bob Dylan, who hasn’t released an original song since 2012’s Tempest, unexpectedly dropped a previously unheard, nearly 17-minute-long new track, “Murder Most Foul,” late Thursday night. Dylan didn’t say exactly when the song was recorded, but his delicate vocal delivery resembles the way he’s been singing in his live shows …
Read More »Genesis' Reunion Tour: 8 Questions We Have
Genesis announced a 10-date reunion tour of the U.K. and Ireland this morning. It’s their first tour since 2007, their first time playing since Phil Collins suffered nerve damage that makes it impossible for him to drum or even stand for long periods of time, and their first tour with …
Read More »The CDC's 'Disease Detectives' Are Our Front-Line Defense Against Coronavirus
The men were frozen. Tattooed faces still beneath the fluorescent lights of the intensive care unit, eyelids taped shut. Only their stiff chests heaved, medical grade oxygen forced through tubes into their lungs. “So glad you’re here,” said the ICU attending, a doctor at least two decades my senior. “We’ve …
Read More »The Rebirth of SZA
It’s past midnight at SZA’s home in Los Angeles when she disappears to retrieve her set of sound bowls. There’s a car arriving in just under three hours to take her to the airport, where she’ll be catching a 6 a.m. flight to Hawaii, but she’s not concerned about her …
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