Why one country legend embraced punk rock

In 1984, Dylan began experimenting with punk

When Bob Dylan was asked to appear on David Letterman’s relatively new late-night show, he decided to call an audible. He’d been intrigued by LA’s exploding post-punk scene and had spent time jamming with one of its bands, the Plugz, whom he decided to bring to Letterman as his backing band. The appearance sounds unlike anything else in his catalog and is one of his more fascinating creative reinventions in a career loaded with them.

The Bakersfield Sound challenged the music's creeping respectability

As country music leaned towards the slick Nashville Sound in the 1950s, several artists operating outside that city reacted with rougher sounds more reminiscent of honky tonk and early rock ‘n’ roll. It came to be known as the Bakersfield Sound, reflecting the California agricultural region.

Watch Johnny Cash’s 1969 concert at San Quentin

Johnny Cash is one of the most recognizable names in country music, but by the 1960s, he was also a rock icon. Part of that status was due to his outlaw identity and willingness to play for true outsiders. This documentary from one of his most famous performances shows why.

Elvis was allegedly chided for playing rock 'n' roll at the Grand Ole Opry

Elvis Presley had deep roots in country music, though the Grand Ole Opry and its audience weren’t happy with Presley’s rocking take when he performed for his first (and only) time in 1954. Afterwards, the Opry’s manager Jim Denny allegedly told Presley, “Don’t quit your day job.”

Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were an influence on early punk rock

The Beach Boys' sunny sound profoundly influenced early punk acts, such as the Ramones, who took Brian Wilson's sugary hooks and ramped up the tempo. In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, California pop-punk acts such as the Descendents, Green Day and Blink-182 continued the tradition.

In 1977, Iggy Pop said 'punk rock' was a term used by 'heartless manipulators'

Although he's often called 'the Godfather of Punk,' Iggy Pop was over punk by 1977, just as the term was entering the mainstream. "It's a term that's based in fashion, style, elitism, Satanism, and everything that's rotten about rock 'n' roll," Pop told Canadian TV host Peter Gzowski.

Why Neil Young is sometimes called 'the godfather of grunge'

The legendary singer-songwriter's work with his band Crazy Horse, especially "Rust Never Sleeps" and "Ragged Glory," married infectious melodies with overpowering guitars, a formula that many grunge acts would replicate. Young would go on to perform with Pearl Jam (like in the performance of "Rockin' in the Free World" below) and record the 1995 album "Mirror Ball" with them.

Outlaw Country was a subgenre that emerged in the 1970s

Outlaw country was a reaction against popular country music produced in Nashville. The name's origin is disputed, but it was firmly established with the 1976 album “Wanted! The Outlaws,” a record featuring songs by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser—artists who bucked industry norms.

CBGB, the breeding ground for punk, was intended to be a country bar

Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, and many other bands got their start at CBGB. But its owner, Hillel “Hilly” Kristal, didn’t intend for it to be a punk rock venue. CBGB stood for “Country Bluegrass Blues,” though he included “OMFUG” (for “Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers”) on the venue’s marquee.

The early Los Angeles punk scene found a home in Chinatown

Acts like Black Flag, X, and Circle Jerks performed in unconventional venues like Madame Wong’s and the Hong Kong Cafe—restaurants in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood that became an integral part of the nascent scene.

How underground radio revitalized rock 'n' roll

Early FM was a wasteland and quickly became the domain of amateurs and risk-takers, including many stations and DJs who played music that flew in the face of mainstream trends. This history of the band's scrappy beginnings unpacks how it realigned the rock charts.

Before becoming a country superstar, Dolly Parton recorded girl-group-style singles

Parton signed with Monument Records in the mid-1960s and released a few singles that were distinctly not country music. Instead, they sounded like Phil Spector productions, in the vein of records by the Ronettes and the Crystals. Although they weren't hits in the United States, songs like "Don't Drop Out" took off in England's Northern Soul scene, which celebrated American records that had slipped through the cracks.

Three rock stars who made great country music

Steven Tyler, Tina Turner, and Darius Rucker all crossed into country. The author claims the trio shared a common trait: they weren't chasing a new audience. Instead, they were delving deeper into a sound already present in their work.

Richard Hell is one of punk's most accomplished writers

Richard Hell is punk royalty, known for his work with Television, the Heartbreakers, and the Voidoids. He's also a well-traveled poet, novelist, critic, and memoirist, as this detailed profile from Poetry Foundation's Andrew Marzoni shows.

Goldenvoice, Coachella's promoter, began with punk and gangster rap

This documentary produced by Coachella tells the story of Goldenvoice—a scrappy upstart booking punk, hardcore, and gangster rap shows in Southern California—and how it created one of the biggest festivals in the world. Beyond the narrative, though, this is worth watching for incredible performances from the White Stripes, Kendrick Lamar, Amy Winehouse, and more.

Gary Panter's punk art defined the '70s and '80s counterculture

The artist got his start providing fliers and logos for early Los Angeles punk bands, but later took his psychedelic, Pop Art-vision to designing on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," for which he won three Emmy Awards.

David Bowie tried to hire Norman Rockwell for the cover of 'Young Americans'

The Thin White Duke thought the iconic artist, known for his classic Americana, would be the perfect artist for his campy 1975 album, “Young Americans.” Bowie called the Rockwell residence and made the request, but was told that Rockwell would need around six months to complete the painting, which Bowie felt was too long.

Yodeling wasn't intended to be music

Alpine herders originally used the technique to call cattle. When it made its way to the US, in the South and Appalachia, yodeling was a popular singing style in "hillbilly music," which eventually evolved into country.

Punk band Devo formed after witnessing the Kent State shootings

Band members Jerry Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh were students at the Ohio university when the National Guard shot and killed student protestors. Casale said that the experience led them to pursue the project, which was a satirical critique of mindless consumerism and conformity.

Arthur Russell's avant-garde music spanned many genres

The classically trained cellist moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s, mingling with the hippie movement and the Beat Generation. After arriving in New York in 1973, he began exploring the nascent punk and disco scenes, infusing them with his classical training; however, his eclectic style might've been part of the reason he never broke through during his lifetime. That variety, though, is what draws so many devoted listeners to his work today.

How the Vietnam War changed rock 'n' roll

This short video essay analyzes how rock music responded to US involvement in Vietnam, from the protest folk of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan to the popularity of rock and soul records with soldiers stationed abroad.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Tom Petty used bankruptcy to change the music industry

In order to resolve a dispute over how a label was treating him as an artist, he self-produced an album and racked up $500K in debt. The resulting bankruptcy filing allowed him to start a new contract with the label on more favorable terms.

Honky-tonk features a rollicking stomp

Widely considered the first honky-tonk song, Ernest Tubb’s "Walking the Floor Over You" is a perfect example of the subgenre's upbeat percussion, barroom piano, and chippy lyricism. The song is a country music classic, being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and preserved in the Library of Congress.

Funk musician William Onyeabor left music for Christianity

The Nigerian artist released eight albums between 1977 and 1985, often producing, recording, and releasing the records himself. After that brief career, he became a born-again Christian and left music behind. The records eventually reached collectors in the United States and England, including Talking Heads' David Byrne and Blur/Gorillaz's Damon Albarn, who praised the music's forward-thinking sounds.

Joan Didion's 1967 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' laid the hippie counterculture bare

Didion wrote a detailed account of living alongside hippies in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury area in the 1960s. Beyond their style and politics, Didion uncovered chaos, with one particularly shocking interview of a 5-year-old on LSD. Her stories challenged the movement's message of freedom and utopia in California.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.