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
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Music This Bang-Up Music Doc Is One You Should Have Seen In 2017
I first started digging for old records in thrift stores in the late 1980s, back when you could still score stacks of 45s from the glory days of AM radio at 5 or 10 cents a pop. In the course of each thrift store foray, I would almost inevitably come across a single or two…
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Culture Lou Reed Was A Regular Jewish Kid — And Cultural Rebel For The Ages
Lou Reed: A Life By Anthony DeCurtis Little, Brown and Company, 528 pages, $32 At first glance, Lewis Allan Reed wasn’t all that different from the other middle-class Jewish lads he grew up with in 1950s Freeport, New York. He was a diligent student and an avid tennis player; he liked to make weekend forays…
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Music In Memory Of Walter Becker, A Love Song For Steely Dan
By Dan Epstein Swimming lessons at the “Y” were the worst. For reasons I can no longer recall — but which probably had at least something to do with my stubborn resistance to taking any sort of extra-curricular instruction in anything that I wasn’t already deeply interested in — I got a late start on…
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Music Meet The Boston Red Sox Organist Who Got His Start At Shabbat Services
Editor’s note: This story originally appeared on Jewishbaseballmuseum.com Josh Kantor has performed everywhere from synagogues to orchestra pits, from seedy nightclubs to outdoor festival stages. But his favorite venue for playing music is Fenway Park, where he serves as the organist for the Boston Red Sox. A pianist since the age of five, Kantor (now…
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Culture Detroit Star Ian Kinsler On Stepping Out Of Hank Greenberg’s Shadow
In a sport where players generally peak in their late-twenties and decline precipitously thereafter, Ian Kinsler’s early-thirties revival has been an unexpected joy to watch. A three-time All Star second baseman (and two-time 30-30 player) during eight seasons with the Texas Rangers, Kinsler has somehow kicked things into even higher gear since being traded to…
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Culture 50 Cover Versions Of ‘Stardust’ That Are Better Than Bob Dylan’s — And Three That Aren’t
Pardon us for not losing our minds with excitement over Bob Dylan’s much-praised new recording of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” which was released late last week as a preview of Triplicate, his three-album set of American standards that’s due out at the end of March. Sure, Dylan has long earned the right to do whatever the…
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49 Reasons Why 2016 Wasn't as Bad as You Think Swim Through the Darkness
“Swim Through the Darkness” by Mike Stax was easily the most moving and inspiring book I read in 2016. Stax’s biography of Craig Smith — a promising musician and songwriter who took a wrong turn at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and fell forever through the cracks of society — is a deeply…
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Culture Check Out 8 of the Greatest Jewish Christmas Albums of All Time
Eydie Gormé and the Trio Los Panchos — Navidad Means Christmas Steve Lawrence’s better half went south of the border for this festive 1966 collection of Spanish-language Christmas songs. David Grisman — Acoustic Christmas Folk/jazz mandolinist Grisman and his string band serve up swinging instrumental renditions of secular and traditional Christmas carols on this 1983…
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