Archive for Elvis Presley

The Bad Penny’s Top 10 Music Books of 2025

Posted in Features, Lists, What You Readin' For? with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/19/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Most music fans can’t read music. But they can read about music – the larger-than-life personalities, the history of various genres, the often-times truth-is-stranger-than-fiction dynamics that keep one of the entertainment industry’s least profitable yet universally beloved pillars standing.

For the first time ever, The Bad Penny shares what we consider to be the most essential nonfiction books about music that came out in a year during which citizens across the country tolerated book bans and censorship in Authoritarian America. Mark these words: What happened this year and is still happening in libraries and schools in the U.S. will go down as one of the most shameful “chapters” in this country’s history.

Read whatever books you want to read, and enjoy doing so, because in this unpredictable hellscape, who knows what rights we might lose next.

1. Patti SmithBread of Angels: A Memoir (McNally Jackson)

Buy here.

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Pete Yorn On Musicforthemorningafter: ‘It’s Too Clean’

Posted in Interviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 10/07/2010 by Kurt Orzeck

Night owls can expect to see Pete Yorn performing on Jimmy Fallon’s show tonight in support of the self-titled album he squeezed out last week. Seems like an opportune time to roll out this vintage, never-before-online interview I conducted with him on March 9, 2003. Continue reading

The Magic Wanda Jackson

Posted in Interviews with tags , , , , , on 01/30/2010 by Kurt Orzeck

Here’s a from-the-vault interview you probably didn’t expect to see on this blog: one with rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson. Online for the first time, the 2003 conversation revolved around Elvis Presley, Elvis Costello – and the Cramps too. Continue reading

Wanda Jackson Transcript, 6.26.03: On ‘Soul Mate’ Elvis Costello, Elvis Presley And More

Posted in Interview Transcripts, Interviews with tags , , , , , , , , on 01/21/2010 by Kurt Orzeck

Here’s my vintage, previously unpublished conversation with the Queen of Rockabilly (Bob Dylan’s words, not mine), Wanda Jackson. In it, she gives a track-by-track analysis of 2003’s Heart Trouble – which still stands as her most recent album. Continue reading