Dan Epstein is the Forward’s contributing music critic. His books include Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ’76.
Dan EpsteinContributing Music Critic
By Dan Epstein
-
Music I was up onstage with Bob Dylan at Newport the night he went electric
For keyboardist Barry Goldberg, the legendary 1965 folk festival started out as a nightmare but ended up as a dream
-
Culture A lovin’ tribute to one of the unsung Jewish heroes of rock ‘n’ roll
For a time, Zal Yanovsky was an effective foil for John Sebastian, but it was not to last
-
125 greatest Jewish movie scenes In a rare Lumet comedy, Jews meet an unexpected landsman
Why the cab scene in 'Bye Bye Braverman' is still a riot
-
Culture Was ‘Blazing Saddles’ better than ‘Young Frankenstein?’ — an exclusive Forward investigation
Ranking Mel Brooks' films from 11-to-1
-
Culture How to get closer to Lou Reed than you ever could in real life
‘Caught Between the Twisted Stars’ features artifacts from every phase of the artist’s career
-
Culture George Carlin’s ‘Class Clown’ is 50 years old — does it still hold up?
A new Judd Apatow-directed documentary on HBO leads our critic to revisit an album he loved in sixth grade
-
Culture The Jewish jazz master who Hunter S. Thompson thought could cure any ailment
I first met Herbie Mann in January 1979, when I noticed him bursting out of a phone booth in the parking lot of Tower Records in L.A. It wasn’t the noted jazz flutist in the flesh, of course, but rather the image of him on a six-foot-tall cover of his new album, “Super Mann,” which…
-
Culture How Neil Diamond’s most personal song chronicled his journey out of Brooklyn
'Brooklyn Roads' begins as an exercise in nostalgia but becomes so much more
Most Popular
- 1
Music For Bob Dylan’s biographer, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is a dream come true — even if it’s mostly fiction
- 2
Culture They were a kosher bakery success story — 80 years later, people are still trying to make a buck off their babka
- 3
Culture ‘A Complete Unknown’ proves that one thing about Bob Dylan will certainly endure
- 4
Film & TV Why ‘The Brutalist’ resonated so deeply with me
In Case You Missed It
-
News 18 notable Jews who died in 2024
-
Fast Forward Department of Ed resolves Title VI antisemitism complaints against 5 U of California campuses, U of Cincinnati
-
Theater While Yiddish lives, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s ghost stories may flourish
-
Yiddish World Frankie’s Menorah (a Yiddish Hanukkah story)
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism