Curated playlist
American political music artists
- Bob DylanAt a 1966 Manchester concert, Bob Dylan told his band to play loud after a heckler called him Judas.
- Marvin GayeMotown boss Berry Gordy refused to release Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.
- Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur wrote and recorded the album The Don Killuminati in three days. Mixing took four more.
- Willie NelsonWillie Nelson plays a classical guitar with a hole worn through its face. Decades of strumming with a pick have scoured a wide sweep of wood away beside the sound hole. Classical guitars are made for fingers, so this one has no pickguard…
- Frank ZappaAs a boy, Frank Zappa spread mercury across his bedroom floor with a hammer. His father brought it home from work.
- Joan BaezJoan Baez was singing at a music festival called Bratislavská lýra in Communist Czechoslovakia in May 1989 when someone cut off her microphone. From the stage, she had just greeted members of Charter 77, a dissident human-rights group.…
- Woody GuthrieWoody Guthrie often played a guitar that carried a blunt message: "This machine kills fascists." He was an American singer, songwriter and composer who wrote hundreds of country, folk and children's songs, along with ballads and improvised…
- Gil Scott-HeronGil Scott-Heron preferred the word "bluesologist" even as critics called him a rap progenitor.
- Ice-TIce-T got his stage name when friends heard him recite novels by Iceberg Slim.
- Steven Van ZandtSteven Van Zandt answers to several names. Born Steven Lento, he is also known as Little Steven and as Miami Steve, and each name marks a different stretch of his working life. In Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band he plays guitar and…