[A] First, all caps because I've said it several times before: I DON'T LISTEN TO PODCASTS. The main reason being that I spend so much ear time listening to music, both for pleasure and for work. How I sort out Consumer Guide records is as it's long been—Spotify, somewhat dubious sound quality and all, means there's no need to send me physical product, although it does give anyone who does so a big leg up, because I play anything likely-looking as well as some but not all of the indie obscurities I still do get in the mail—that's how I discovered Claudia Gibson's Fields of Chazy a few months ago, although it's far more common for me to quit after two or three tracks. And I always scan the Pitchfork and Rolling Stone review sections. Plus I gossip with other music lovers amateur and professional: my sister Georgia for one, and it was Rob Sheffield who turned me on to Rosie Tucker some months ago. Most important, however, is that although he's not on my nonexistent masthead And It Don't Stop does have an overseer: my much-younger-than-me old friend and nearby neighbor Joe Levy, the great editor who persuaded me to give this Substack thing a try and is forever emailing me with tips without which I'd have trouble making my nine full reviews plus five briefs quota every month. Levy made And It Don't Stop happen and thereby changed my old age. How long it can last remains to be seen—I am truly not getting any younger. But I am in his debt, and so are my readers.

[A] First of all, I don't put Warwick in Holiday's or Fitzgerald's class—take a look at my reviews and note that the Warwick picks are basically redundant greatest-hits albums I assume without doing the research were reviewed at different times. Second, I'd almost certainly add Dolly Parton to this short list, exactly how I won't figure out for free. Third, I was just mentioning Dinah Washington as a Subject for Further Research in a recent Xgau Sez and take this note as seconding that emotion. Fourth, checked my CD shelves and found a 2004 reissue of Black Coffee, the only Peggy Lee there though I bet a few are I've tucked away in my vinyl. Promise to play it at breakfast or dinner soon.

[A] When I was a young jazz fan just out of college in 1962 I was already aware that most of my favorite music was made by African-Americans. So even back then I made it my occasional business to try to learn more about Africa. My research was sporadic to say the least, and I never became a big fan of Miriam Makeba, then the best-known African musician. But I never forgot that truism. As I've written before, the turning point came when I drove over to Brooklyn to have dinner with John Storm Roberts, a Brit who grew up in Kenya who was covering salsa for me, and he told me he'd released a superb DIY compilation of African pop hits called Africa Dances, which is still findable on Discogs. I loved and reviewed it instantly. By the late '70s other African music was being released in England, with King Sunny Ade an early beneficiary, and soon it was an vaguely defined subgenre, which as you say I've always kept my eyes and ears on. But what's struck me over the years is that seldom are lyrics a comprehensible part of the package, and also that the woman I married, who heard Africa Dances at the same time I did, is a much more skilled and enthusiastic dancer than I am, which in a rhythm music is a major factor. So there's a sense in which Carola augments my enthusiasm whenever she sashays around the dining room as an African album comes on.

[A] These all sound like good movies and I'll try to keep an eye out for them. As for the Hubleys, the only film of theirs in my recall memory is Moonbird, a basically humorous 1959 kiddie animation that completely charmed me when it came out. I believe I saw it as a short at the Fifth Avenue Cinema. Even at 17 I was a complete sucker for little ones like those who dominate this film. Regrettably, they do not include Georgia, who was not born yet. To which I should add that it was my pleasure to see Georgia and Ira (and James McNew too) at a house show last Tuesday, where everyone in the audience paid for their seat by writing a rather large check to the Harris-Walz ticket.

[A] Without an iota of reporting to back me up, I would assume that at this juncture newly crowned Jerry Garcia fill-in Mayer can use an extra shot shot of the hottest young male newcomer in the biz and might even have angled for one. I also assume that superstar Springsteen is both impressed and just plain decent enough to be happy indeed to hitch his wagon up with Bryan's when it's convenient for both.

[A] Stokes was one of my best friends at the Voice. He lived just a few blocks from me on East 10th Street and as the generalist you describe liked to say: "You want a ham sandwich? I'll give you a ham sandwich. You want cheese on that? I'll put cheese on it." Politically he was a staunch left liberal with no radical pretensions—I believe he worked in city government for a while. We once spent half an hour rewriting his The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie review so that we could legitimately obey the silly heds-must-have-a-verb rule so as to call it "Flo and Eddie Flow and Eddy." Eventually he moved to Vermont, and by sheer luck I decided to give him a call from my sister's summer place. He'd had cancer and told me he was headed down to Boston the next day for surgery that would fix him up. Instead it killed him, making me the last Voicer to exchange words with him. He was deeply missed and for some of us remains so.

[A] First of all, let the record show that I was a Springsteen fan before Jon Landau himself--saw him at Columbia's behest at Max's Kansas City in 1973 and assigned none other than Carola Dibbell an early review, than there is no greater compliment I can offer. Howard Keel was a big-voiced Broadway star whose approach to singing basically shared a certain grandiosity with Springsteen's. "I Think We're Alone Now" was an excellent hit by the somewhat unfairly forgotten Tommy James and the Shondells. James wrote a memoir called Me, the Mob, and Music that's basically about what it says it's about, centering on the notoriously gangster-not-gangsta-ridden Roulette label, where he scored his hits.

[A] Without question my favorite music history site is located a few miles from where I grew up: the Louis Armstrong House Museum on 107th Street in Corona Queens, only a few blocks--not that I knew this then--from where I went to junior high school on 104th Street right near the 7 train IRT stop. But I've enjoyed visiting New Orleans several times and wonder if I'll ever get there again, which I well might. As for my to-do list, I'm a little old for that now but would certainly explore whatever Beatles shrines there are in Liverpool if I were to find myself there.

[A] Just checked my NYU files and found there a solid six-graf lecture on Jordan. Will scrounge around a little more and try to make a Big Lookback out of what I found. Jordan is all too forgotten. Be worth giving him some of the notice he deserves.

[A] Without bearing down and writing reviews of these records, all of which I like, I would just say this: Freewheelin' was my first Dylan album and probably remains my favorite, though it's not electric and that's partly a kind of nostalgia anyway. As for the first three electrics I'd start with Highway 61 and Bringing It All Back Home though I play Blonde on Blonde more than either and have long nurtured a fondness for the underrated New Morning.

[A] Sure I knew Wes Goodwin. He was a damn good illustrator who, like my sister Georgia, put in years at the Voice. They met at the Christian college I think they both graduated from, although as I recall Was wasn't actually a Christian and by then Georgia was losing the faith as well. Both of them worked at Creem in its early years, and they were quite a serious couple for a while, plus Georgia was night editor at the Voice for a while. She now lives upstairs from me with her husband Steven Levi, who she met at the Voice, and was in contact with Wes in Baltimore before he died. His artwork hangs in her apartment. Good guy, though he did drink.

[A] Again, again, again--I'm much too busy with sound recordings to listen to podcasts, though that doesn't prevent me from making one once in a while. If there's a printed version of the "Honky Tonk" I will certainly read it. Reading--as a professional writer I'm really big on reading.

[A] Please do not take too literally thoughts I had churning out an all-nighter, one of my very first Voice columns as I recall, at a time when few were aware that the Kinks did anything worth their while after "You Really Got Me," the divine "Waterloo Sunset" included. In late March when I was writing I greatly admired and probably overrated Village Green. On the other hand, they were the first band I saw live--in Detroit, with a woman I remember warmly who had almost no idea who they were--after breaking up with Ellen Willis, and as I recall were fun enough although I was in no condition to judge. As for Something Else, I only own it on vinyl and doubt I've played it in 50 years, though I also would guess I'd enjoy it if I ever did. You obviously love the Kinks and have every right to, although I found most of their post-'73 output pretty wan (as I recalled and then double-checked in the first CG book). For me they were a pretty darn good band for seven-eight years who wrote one of the most beautiful songs in the English language. Were a guest to request them I'd pull something out, vinyl perhaps included.

[A] Decided I wouldn't mind hearing it again and pulled out my vinyl but ended up streaming it on Spotify. Released 1968, hence pre-Consumer Guide. Immediately sounded and still sounds as I write like a certain A minus and maybe a full A. Lacks the novelty brilliance of Hoboken Saturday Night, not to mention the little kids singing about "busketty worms" or the Moondog cameo. Also sounds like nothing else--eccentrically and even willfully jazz-inflected folk/blues-rock with a gentler groove. Check it out.

[A] I don't know that I'd rank One Hundred Years of Solitude over Marquez's gorgeous Love in the Time of Cholera myself. I also liked his Chronicle of a Death Foretold quite a bit. He's obviously great. But Reasons of State remains a relatively obscure motherfucker for sure.

[A] All these quiddities are there for the exploration, but only by someone who's really moved or perturbed by said quiddities--someone younger than me, for instance, but not you. As for the novel you sent, I began it twice and never got to page 50. More quiddities for you.

[A] There probably is such an artist, but that's exactly the kind of personal factoid you can't pick out of thin air. You have to trip over it as you pursue a related matter. I sat here musing for a few minutes and got nowhere. Dinah Washington, whose '76 vinyl twofer I once recommended in passing, might be worth a shot. As for one-offs, you could say Have Moicy! Doesn't really count but I say it does. Hoboken Saturday Night is a good one (and also not truly a one-off), but not in that league. Less fun, but you could put Hanging Tree Guitars on the short list too. And now I'll stop before I sprain my brain.

[A] That's a pretty good list--only Guaraldi wouldn't be a candidate for me. My (similar) sleeper is Dave Brubeck, whose Jazz Goes to College was my very first true jazz album and who I play fairly often--Carola's just the right age. Played Jazz Goes to College at dinner recently and not only did Carola love it but Nina thought it was quite OK. I also play my small Nils Petter Molvaer collection (right near Monk in the shelves) often with pleasure--as much as Bird or certainly Blakey (mostly because I've never immersed properly in Blakey, I suspect).

[A] Generalizing about The State Of Pop Music is a fool's game I have no desire to play, but it's definitely the case that (a) people do sometimes just lose their taste for the new stuff and (b) that it evolves for a multiplicity of economic, sociopolitical, and technological reasons. What I certainly am willing to say is that if I'm a crucial source of guidance for you and some of my recent enthusiasms aren't ringing your chimes for one reason or another, maybe I've just outlived my usefulness for you. Owning thousands of albums and spending as much time with my music-loving wife as I do, I can certainly say that playing Arto Lindsay's Mundo Civilizado certainly made breakfast feel like a feast yesterday morning and that I'll probably be digging out a less certain pick soon. Then there's one more thing: jazz. I'd bet plenty that there are lots of jazz artists you barely know at all. Explore that avenue for a while. Spotify makes it so easy, but buying a few likely-sounding CDs would be even better.

[A] I didn't know Chance or whatever we are to call him had died until I received your query, but for sure much worse people have lived to 71, like for instance Donald Trump. When I was first aware of Chance, decades ago now, I thought he was a jerk as a person but a not altogether uninteresting musician, as in this review: "Bohemias are always beset by ambitious neurotics who hawk their obnoxious afflictions as if they're the future of the species, which is why in theory James White's music is better without the words: you get the jagged rhythms and tonic off-harmonies without being distracted by his 'ideas.' But in fact the music is so (deliberately) stunted it needs a voice for sonic muscle, and James's lyrics do have a certain petty honesty and jerk-off humor. 'I Don't Want to Be Happy' should separate the believers from the spectators quite nicely. B+" (Yes, Chance did sometimes call himself "White.") But I am sorry I have to go into the Artists Space incident yet again, which I once did when Thurston Moore was writing a book he never sent me when it was published. For sure no blood was involved no matter what it says in Bernard Gendron's From Montmartre to the Mudd Club. Anyway, it happened at a nonprofit-I-think downtown spot called Artists Space where my then-young friend Perry Brandston was doing the sound, with his stepfather Bob Stanley and mother Marylin Herzka, both very close friends and both now deceased, in attendance. One "cool" thing Chance liked to do was stride or clamber out into the audience and hit people--not hard, he was a shrimp, just annoying taps. But when he chose Marylin as one of his targets, Bob Stanley, an excellent painter with zero tolerance for "avant-garde" BS, waded onto the floor and to the rescue until, as I recall it, whatever passed for security goons at Artists Space pulled him off. Whereupon I entered the fray, which is to say I sat on Chance until I in turn was either pulled off or persuaded to desist. So to repeat: despite what Gendron reports third-hand, no blood was shed.