John Legend is asking music to be real; asking music to be a bridge to reality; asking music to interrogate reality. I respect that. I admire work that expresses, preserves, and celebrates experience; and work that articulates values and virtues: work that embodies complete thoughts and uses poetic resources, whether the work is domestic or international. I know something about country and city life, of how children recreate the cruelty and ignorance they see in their parents, and the difficulty of professors and employers seeing themselves in a young African-American man.
Author:
Social Awareness and Spiritual Consciousness, Precious and Proud: The Essential Earth, Wind and Fire
By Daniel Garrett Earth, Wind and Fire, The Essential Earth, Wind and Fire Compilation produced by Leo Sacks and Maurice White Sony, 2002 “Don’t hesitate ’cause the world seems cold. Stay young at heart…” —Earth, Wind and Fire, “That’s the…
Citizens of the World: Rihanna’s Loud with The Definitive Collection by Diana Ross
Yet, it is usually interesting, if not illuminating, to hear new sounds, something I began to contemplate once more when considering the work of Robyn Rihanna Fenty, whose popular work seems to draw from different genres—hip-hop, rock, dance, and Caribbean music—to create a sound that is, at once, personal and impersonal, familiar and fresh.
A Great Voice Evokes, Inspires Feeling: My Soul by Leela James
The slow, intimately blues-tinged song “So Cold,” a response to a quirky lover, is a quick reminder of the gifts of Leela James, in which it is easy to identify with her voice and to feel empathy for her. Leela James has a great voice, the kind of voice one hears and then feels like crying or making love.
Glamour, Grace, and Grit: the anthology Breathe Again: The Best of Toni Braxton
Toni Braxton is both a song stylist and a popular entertainer; and she has touched places in an audience that used to be reserved for the obscure divas requiring special introductions and interpretations. It says much that her toughness is direct but not frightening, and that her sensuality is easy to see but does not diminish respect for her.
A review of Junior MasterChef Australia
Having your children make their own teacher gifts would pay for the cost of the book, and would also be a lovely way to encourage them to participate and take pleasure in gift giving in a way that just doesn’t happen with bought gifts. Come to think of it, there’s no reason why your children couldn’t make their own holiday and birthday presents either, as well as cooking up their own parties.
A review of The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers
Having experienced domestic violence first hand and gone on to work with the perpetrators of such violence, there is no one better equipped than Meyers to write a story like this. I would categorise, The Murderer’s Daughters as faction—a skilful blending of fact and fiction.
A review of Night Road by Kristin Hannah
Hannah writes firmly in the present, putting the readers in both Jude and Lexi’s thoughts at the moment of her narration. Even though Hannah makes many references to painful events in her characters’ pasts, she doesn’t delve into those moments with any great depth.
A review of Page Truly and the Journey to Nearandfar by L. B. Gschwandtner
In a world where kids are used to the kill or be killed mentality of video games, it’s a pleasure to find a story that demonstrates how the most obvious solution to a problem is not necessarily the best. So, too, it demonstrates creativity and compassion, and shows readers how that which is evident on the surface is not necessarily what lies beneath.
Let Us Now Praise Sensitive Men: Bob Baldwin, Never Can Say Goodbye: A Tribute to Michael Jackson
In tribute to a man lost much too soon, the jazz pianist Bob Baldwin has produced an album that executes with delicacy the established and known rhythm patterns of Michael Jackson’s songs, and, sometimes, even adds intensity, but, for the most part, Bob Baldwin does not extend the songs into new territory, new invention.