Ann Powers
Is Joni's Jazz Pop? Fusion on the 1970s Borderlines
When Joni Mitchell joined forces with saxophonist Tom Scott and his band, the L.A. Express, to make her 1974 album Court and Spark, she was trying to leave behind the adulation and scrutiny her successful career as a confessional singer-songwriter had brought. She found herself more in the spotlight than ever. The album became her best-selling work, spawning her only Top Ten single, the effervescent seduction "Help Me." Mitchell had employed jazzers before -- including Scott -- but the sound she cultivated on Court and Spark brought her to a new intersection of jazz, rock and pop in which the then-adolescent "fusion" style fully entered the pop arena. This talk surveys that moment and considers the popular embrace and critical scorn it engendered.
Eric Weisbard
Introducing the Oxford Handbook of Pop Music
This presentation will draw upon the introduction to the still in progress Oxford Handbook of Pop Music, which looks to compile work in pop music studies as an emerging subfield of popular music studies. How does current work that explores the musical mainstream, from cover songs, cassettes, and power ballads to gay Black male influence, Dolly Parton, and K-Pop, push past questions of definition to begin providing more detailed studies? Among the topics: pop’s emergence and re-emergence, pop forms, pop as music, intersections of identity, icons, and 21st century pop.
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Prior to her appointment as NPR Music’s critic and correspondent, Ann Powers worked as chief pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times, pop critic at the New York Times, and music editor at the Village Voice. Her books include Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell (June, 2024) and Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music. She coauthored Tori Amos Piece By Piece and coedited Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop and Rap.
This open lecture is supported by the Fulbright Program.
Eric Weisbard is Professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama and the current Fulbright Chair in American Studies at Uppsala University. The cofounder of the annual Pop Conference, he has edited three conference collections, the Spin Alternative Record Guide and The Journal of Popular Music Studies. His books include Hound Dog, Songbooks: The Literature of American Popular Music, and Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music. He is currently editing The Oxford Handbook of Pop Music.