Author Spotlight

Ben Ratliff

Ben Ratliff is the author of books including Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty and Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. He was a pop and jazz critic at the New York Times for twenty years and teaches at New York University.

2 Results

Songbook

From Elvis in Taipei

The King of Rock and Roll’s tender ballad “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” becomes a central motif in the Taiwanese epic A Brighter Summer Day, bringing to the surface unresolved feelings about love, national identity, and lost innocence.

By Ben Ratliff

Features— Apr 10, 2020
Dead Man: Earth, Wind, and Fire

Improvising to Jim Jarmusch’s film in real time, Neil Young created a rich parallel environment that sounds like a force of nature.

By Ben Ratliff

Essays— May 18, 2018