Deep Roots Magazine

Deep Roots Magazine

Roots Music and Meaningful Matters

 
 

 
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Cleotha Staples, 78, Is Called Home

Remembering CLEOTHA STAPLES, Pops Staples' firstborn child and a vital element in the Staple Singers' success. Afflicted with Alzheimer's, Ms. Staples died in her Chicago home on Feb. 21.
by David McGee
 

 
 
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Pandemic Passover: A Moment of Rupture May Lead to a New Path

RABBI MICHAEL ROTHBAUM, reflecting on Passover's history of being recreated in 'inhospitable worlds of exile,' sees the traditional as having lessons to teach a COVID-19 planet.
by David McGee
 

 

 
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‘Birmingham is not a dying city. It is dead.’

On Sept/ 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan set off a bomb at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four young girls. On Sept. 16, civil liberties lawyer CHUCK MORGAN spoke out.
by David McGee
 

 
 
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‘Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow’

George Morton came and went like a shadow, producing great '60s singles for the Shangri-Las and Janis Ian, and shortly thereafter, disappearing. But the Shadow left his mark. Remembering a pop great.
by David McGee
 

 

 
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Ruminating About Sandy

If you've ever lived through a catastrophe in which you lost everything (in my case, a house I lived in burned to the ground and I walked away with only my cat and the coat on my back-and the coat was stolen the next day!) you ...
by David McGee
 

 
 
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The Quiet Heroism of ‘Right Living’

Contributing editor MICHAEL SIGMAN reflects on the recent fall of 'self-appointed heroes' and the virtues of 'quietly going about one's business.'
by David McGee
 

 

 
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‘Mission’ Accomplished

On her vaunted new album, Mission, CECILIA BARTOLI (this is her--really, it is) fashions the music of Agostino Steffani into a conceptual work brimming with passion, politics and intrigue. It is the opera great’s finest hour.
by David McGee
 

 
 
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The Mythic Weight Of Phil Spector’s Christmas Gift: A Semicentennial Reflection

November 22, 1963, was a horrible day for the nation, and for PHIL SPECTOR, a personal disaster as well, as his ambitious Christmas album arrived and was promptly forgotten. A semicentennial look back ensues.
by David McGee