Xgau Sez: February, 2025

Louis Armstrong and the Beatles in book form, 'Brat' but it's a lowish A but also still 'Brat,' Emmylou Harris and Wussy grades grubbed, and combating the evil which is going on.

My wife Rachel is loving the Ricky Riccardi interview with Terry Gross and what she’s learning about Louis Armstrong. I liked your thoughtful summary of the biographies. In your opinion has there been anything better than Teachout in the years since you wrote that? And thank you for everything you do. — Aldan G. Wylde, Oakland

Armstrong being Armstrong, there probably has been, but that’s not the kind of thing I keep track of. My big Terry Teachout-hooked piece was a lot of work and ended up one of the best things I ever wrote. Recently there was an Armstrong-inspired Broadway musical called A Wonderful World that I found accurate and admirable and thought-provoking as regards the strong women in his life should some version come your way. But do I want to read another Armstrong book? That depends. For sure the profusely illustrated Gary Giddins retrospective Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong is worth having around to look at as well as read.

I hope you have not answered this before but what are the best books about the Beatles? — Dave W, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

Oddly enough, I haven’t read that many Beatles books. But I’d be very surprised if there was a better one than Rob Sheffield’s Dreaming the Beatles, which pays close attention to the female fans he argues were the band’s too often neglected artistic secret. That said, Philip Norman’s Shout: The Beatles in Their Generation was early and excellent, and Brian Epstein’s very early A Cellarful of Noise, which I bought from a drugstore paperback rack circa 1966, is embedded deep in my heart. May Pang’s strange and sometimes embarrassing Loving John has stuck with me, as has Norman’s 2008 Lennon bio and for that matter The John Lennon Letters, which I found so engrossing I reviewed it. As I began by admitting, I’m no expert, and as you may have noticed I keep going back to JL. But I guarantee you’ll get plenty from the Sheffield.

When your Brat review first came out I was a little surprised but not very by the letter grade and kind of incredulous that the actual text of the review spent most of its time flippantly describing a remix that didn’t even appear on the album’s official release. My girlfriend also detected some sexism though your Chappell Roan A a month later redeemed you in her eyes. So I was pleasantly shocked when I saw that Brat had moved up to your 11th best of 2024 in your year-end list. What changed your mind? And if I’m grade grabbing, where do you feel it is now? — Tom, Philadelphia

Probably a lowish full A, else it wouldn’t be number 11. Initially I found her self-evidently remarkable album hard to get both my mind and my pleasure receptors around, which is why I wrote one of my more abstruse reviews about it—a somewhat twisted and indirect analysis of a relationship to Lorde I thought cool at the time and I now find so “clever” I’m not sure it makes sense myself. But seeing how positive the year-end consensus was I found myself, well, convinced: able to go back to the album and enjoy it for what it was.

Has your opinion of Emmylou Harris’ body of work changed in the last two decades? You didn’t rate any of her ‘70s and ‘80s and ‘90s albums very highly—not hardly high enough in my opinion as a long-time fan. The highest grade you gave her was a B+ for her Profile best-of, which is way too low. Don’t you think Profile and its sequel Profile II should be A’s not to mention her Ricky Scaggs-aided Roses in the Snow which is an acknowledged Nashville bluegrass classic? — Earl Simmonds, Franklin, Tennessee

As it happens, I was friendly with a guy who recorded her when they both were living in the same building in Manhattan circa 1970. Wasn’t that impressed then either. Tastes differ, including yours and mine in this matter. In order for my opinion to change I would have had to play yet more Emmylou Harris, which I would only do were a guest to make a request because I try to be a cordial host. Meanwhile, I have better things to do and am happy to stand by this Subjects for Further Research graf in my ‘80s CG book. “In 1984 I wrote off her second best-of (‘pristine neobluegrass, pristine rock oldies’) even though I’d already put 1980’s pristine neobluegrass Roses in the Snow on my A shelves. But 1986’s rockish Thirteen impressed me almost as much as 1987’s Parton-Ronstadt-Harris Trio, which Harris held together—this reformed folkie always sounds great on other people’s records. She’s genuinely at home in Nashville, and put into relief by competition like Nanci Griffith, Kathy Mattea, and Lacy J. Dalton, she may well deserve to stand up there between Rosanne Cash and Reba McEntire. That best-of sounds better now.”

Going back through Wussy’s back catalogue, I was startled by how much Forever Sounds holds up almost a decade later: surely now a full A? I feel like the only crime it committed was following up the near-definitive Attica. Even filler like “Gone” sounds gorgeous; don’t even get me started on knock outs like “She’s Killed Hundreds,” “Hello, I’m a Ghost,” and “Better Days.” Call me a grade grubber, I don’t give a damn. Also, an internet-man said you were recovering from a heart operation: hope you’re healing well. — Will Conder, London. England

I must say it’s flattering to have readers who gauge things so carefully. Wussy, as I presume you’re aware, probably owe me more than any other band I’ve raved about, which is hardly to say I’ve turned them into stars—the cash value of critical approbation, even from Der Dean, is damn near nugatory. But just for the hell of it I took a look at the 2016 Dean’s List and saw that they were 14th, right behind Rye by Dawn Oberg, who I expect would just as soon not estimate the cash value of her full A but be pleased if you checked out whether you too thought it superior to Forever Sounds—commercially, she makes Wussy look like the Rolling Stones. P.S. Heartwise I had an ablation to cure what I experienced as all but imperceptible “atrial fibrillation.” Live long enough and strange words like these may enter your vocabulary as well. Won’t that be interesting? Even if you still don’t know what an ablation is after you’ve had one?

Despite being an atheist, you have a penchant for using the word “evil” unironically. How do you define evil, where does it come from, and how does one combat it? — Chris, Dallas

You don’t need to believe in God to believe in evil—you just have to have a conscience, or maybe simple empathy, a concept first named by the ancient Greeks, who didn’t believe in God although they honored plenty of gods. You combat it by engaging in righteous politics to the extent your personal life permits, which in this godforsaken nation often means combatting “born-again” Christianity to the best of your ability. I say that as a proudly apostate ex-Christian whose younger brother is a born-again clergyman-activist who figured out a way to honor his faith by using the church to train nurses who’d promise to use their new skills in poor countries overseas. I also say it as someone painfully aware that the odious sex offender and let’s just hope not disastrously unqualified defense secretary Pete Hegseth is a rabid Christian nationalist who should be called out on his religious affiliations as well as his alcohol abuse, sexual assault allegation, and extensive history of organizational incompetence.