[A] Good question. Not something I've given any real thought to, but now that you mention it, two points seem pretty obvious. One is that I was wired this way from a very early age. The other is that since 2001 or so, I've been fortunate enough that I haven't had to worry about making a living, and I've been unusually conscious of, and resistant to, the hassles and compromises that seem to be inevitable consequences of having to hustle for a living. So I've been free and able to follow my own muse, even though I worry I have little to show for it. (Well, I have over 10 million words on the website, and 45,000 records reviewed or at least rated, but still only 100 subscribers on Substack.)

The economic details aren't very interesting. My wife and I had fairly lucrative tech jobs. We moved to Wichita in 1999, partly to cut costs, but that left me with few decent employment opportunities after 2001. She continued to work remotely until she retired, which provided more income than we needed. Our parents were working class, but saved, so we inherited a bit of money. I considered two career paths in 2001: start a business, or try my hand at writing. I had a couple of book ideas over the years, but nothing came of them. But my wife liked my writing, and she grew up politically to my left, so she encouraged me in that direction. I wasn't planning on writing about music, so I credit (or blame) Robert Christgau and Michael Tatum for asking me to do that. I've always been eager to please, so when they asked, I did what I could to accommodate them.

As a child, I was very smart, and introverted and insecure, so I worked hard to appeal to people I admired. I naturally gravitated to people who were inclined to groom protégés. But I was also very stubborn and independent, so most of those relationships didn't last. One thing I found in growing up was that, while I had very little skill at influencing other people, I did have the power to refuse to obey or even go along with authorities. I quit church. I dropped out of school. I refused the draft. I became a hermit for most of my teen years. I got locked up in a psych ward, but I caught a couple breaks after that, and avoided jail or homelessness. I read, and found reason, and politics that matched my sense of ethics. And while it took awhile, I found work I was good at and enjoyed, and could even make a decent living at without feeling too compromised.

But my ethics, and my work ethic, were wired in very early. My parents were simple folk, who grew up on farms, in fairly large families (my father was the middle child of five; my mother the last of eight), so they worked hard from an early age, and worked together, and shared beyond their families, as people back then and there tended to do. They believed, but weren't preachy, or harsly judgmental. They sought to improve themselves, but didn't have grand ambitions or airs. They had little education, but didn't belittle it, and continued to learn things on their own — they were widely regarded by their peers as smart, skilled, and industrious. But also we had very little contact with the upper classes, or even white collar professionals.

This ethic of self-starting work that is best given away isn't unique to me. My brother and late sister share those traits, and I'd say they exemplify them much more than I do. In comparison, I'm pretty self-centered, vain, ambitious, and neurotic about it. I'm also cheap and stingy. And I'm much less caring or empathetic (even more so compared to my wife). But I've spent most of my years trying to live a better life. Whether I've made the world better for the people around me isn't for me to judge. But the old communist maxim ("from each according to their means, to each according to their needs") always appealed to me. And I've long believed that its opposite, that people should ruthlessly pursue wealth and power above all else, to be not just morally repugnant but a sure path to hell here on Earth, with no afterlife judgment necessary.

I've also found that a great many of the world's problems are caused or at least aggravated by the narrow pursuit of profit. That attracted me to the open source software movement, which I've made some small contribution to. After 2000, I felt I could do more good creating free content than code, although I don't feel like I've accomplished much in that arena. But I am convinced that the ideas are applicable way beyond software, and that if we are to have a decent future together, we need more and more to look in that direction.

One more seminal experience I should mention: my work in a software startup convinced me of the power of aligning interests by giving employees a substantial ownership stake in companies. Again, I see that as a direction we should be taking all across the economy, and the world. And one that ties back neatly to my deepest, longest-held ethical and political beliefs.

I don't have an answer to the question about concerts. I haven't seen many, especially compared to other music writers, or for that matter to the serious fans I'm acquainted with. I should, however, open up a memoir pile file on concerts, and see what I can remember. Probably something from NYC 1977-80, like the Clash in a theater on 14th St. (I don't recall whether the Ramones opened then, or for Iggy Pop in the same venue, around the same time.) Or Bryan Ferry at the Bottom Line, where the opener was Talking Heads, still a trio just before their first album?

[A] I stumbled onto this old question by accident, and figured why not? Aside from that I don't have a very definitive answer. I've listened to blues and jazz since the mid-1970s, but didn't do much background reading until the 1990s, when I went on a massive buying spree. (CDs were new, and lots of old music was being reissued, but also I was put off by the decade's big vogues for gangsta and grunge.) Back then, I thought Francis Davis's The History of the Blues: The Roots, the Music, the People From Charley Patton to Robert Cray (1995) was brilliant and definitive. On the much broad subject of jazz, the book that meant the most to me was Gary Giddins' Visions of Jazz: The First Century (1998). Both books, I'm sure, are still quite good, although a lot of new jazz has come out since then, and I rather hate the idea that Cray is the be-all/end-all of blues.

That said, I got a lot of value from record guies, notably Tom Piazza's The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (1995), although he has virtually no interest in avant-jazz, even in the 1950s and 1960s, and nothing past 1970. (I can cite many omissions there, and have a few quarrels, but the book goes a long ways for a beginner, especially on the bop period; he only hits the high points in early jazz, and he dismisses Davis after Bitches Brew).

My bible was really The Penguin Guide, which I collected every edition of up through 2010 — the series stopped after Richard Cook died in 2007, although a couple years ago I heard from Brian Morton that he was working on an update (wonder what happened to that?). That's about the point when the market for printed guides dried up: I have several shelves up to then, and virtually nothing later. (The last Christgau Consumer Guide book covered the 1990s. I could edit a more recent one, but there doesn't seem to be any interest in publishing such a thing. While there are obvious advantages to websites, I still don't get why there seems to be no interest in print guides.)

One more person I'd like to mention for serious study is Allen Lowe, who has several combinations of books with CDs, going back to his groundbreaking American Pop From Minstrel to Mojo: On Record 1893-1956 (1998). His latest is "Turn Me Loose White Man" or: Appropriating Culture: How to Listen to American Music 1900-1960 (2021), which seems pricey at $175, but includes 30 CDs and two volumes analyzing 800 performances. You could learn less getting a degree.

By the way, I also have a short stack of books on 21st century jazz (so far), which I hope to survey at some point: Rick Mitchell's Jazz in the New Millennium: Live and Well; Nate Chinen's Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century; Phil Freeman's Ugly Beauty: Jazz in the 21st Century. Unfortunately, I keep getting distracted by stupid wars and political scandals, but there's so much happening in jazz it's impossible for any writer (evidently even Brian Morton) to keep up.