Dating back at least to 1977, when Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, and Linda Ronstadt performed during Jimmy Carter’s first day on the job — and all the way up to Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez at Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony — it hasn’t been unusual for rock and pop stars …
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A few years before his death last September, longtime Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter partook of one of his usual traditions. He emailed a bunch of fresh lyrics to one of his post–Jerry Garcia songwriting collaborators and asked if that artist wanted to set the words to music. That year, …
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A recent episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast tells the story of the Cars‘ Ric Ocasek, who went from struggling folk musician to MTV hit-maker to go-to alt-rock producer. David Browne joins host Brian Hiatt to share details from his reporting on Ocasek, who died in September at …
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In 1961, a young Jerry Garcia met another struggling artist: writer and musician Robert Hunter. For more than 30 years until Garcia’s death in 1995, the two were friends and songwriting partners; with Garcia supplying the music and Hunter the lyrics, out came most of the Grateful Dead’s most enduring …
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