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Kandia Crazy Horse

Kandia Crazy Horse

Kandia Crazy Horse is a Manhattan-based rock critic, and the editor of Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock & Roll (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). She was formerly an associate editor at Creative Loafing, and her work has appeared in numerous publications including the Village Voice and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She was the 2008-2009 recipient of the Anschutz Distinguished Fellowship in American Studies at Princeton University. Kandia released her album Stampede in 2013.

Kandia on the RBP podcast

57 articles

List of articles in the library

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The Black Crowes, Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic: Freebirds All: Southern Rock's Undying Appeal

Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 December 1998

SOUTHERN ROCK'S masterworks show this century a viable southern heroism: the quest to overcome the dread of Jim Crow and the pall of ruined empire. ...

The Black Crowes: Black Magic From The Amen Corner: The Black Crowes’ voodoo resurrection

Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, Creative Loafing, 9 January 1999

Jesus of Nazareth Chris Robinson ain't. Some detractors drew a purely visual comparison along these lines in recent years, when the Black Crowes' singer/songwriter wore ...

Donny Hathaway: Half-life in the Bush of Ghosts: Come back, Donny

Retrospective by Kandia Crazy Horse, Creative Loafing, 17 April 1999

MY RECENT THEORY is that if the late soulman/scribe Donny Hathaway had been white he would be as (cult) famous as Cosmic American Gram Parsons; ...

Drive-By Truckers: They Caught Me Smilin' Agin: Drive By Truckers at Brownie's, NYC

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 15 December 2001

FORGED IN THE fabled hamlet of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the Drive-By Truckers are magnificent in concert. ...

Another Badass Blue-Gum White Man: Essays Honoring STANLEY BOOTH On The Occasion Of His 60th Birthday

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, January 2002

"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire." - Charles Bukowski ...

The Last of the Voodoos: A Rock & Roll Retrospective

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, January 2002

This essay was originally published in NYU Africanist Manthia Diawara’s Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire [Vol.3, No.2, Spring 2001]. Since the very weird period when I wrote ...

Rufus Wainwright: Acting Casanova: Rufus Wainwright at the Town Hall, New York City

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, 23 February 2002

LIKE MEMPHIS crooner Al Green before him, Rufus Wainwright is L.O.V.E. To see him in concert, as we did last week in Manhattan, is to ...

North Mississippi Allstars: The North Mississippi Allstars: Irving Plaza, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 22 March 2002

AT THIS POINT, going to witness the North Mississippi Allstars live in performance is somewhat akin to seeing god. Now a four-piece including guitarist/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist DuWayne ...

Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 1 May 2002

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This tour journal is the last testament of the lost expedition of Mayfair. Last reported near the Grand Canyon, the members of the ...

Joi, Kelis, Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Joi/Ndégeocello/Kelis: Walk on Gilded Splinters

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 1 May 2002

Joi: Star Kitty's Revenge; Me'Shell Ndégeocello: Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape; Kelis: Wanderland ...

Allman Brothers Band: Song O' The South: How the Allman Brothers made a Redneck Negress out of me

Special Feature by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, June 2002

AN UNORTHODOX daughter of Dixie, born in the year of their classic Fillmore East live album, my life truly began when I heard the exotic, ...

Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Irving Plaza, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 12 June 2002

Two Tribes (Go to War) ...

Dickey Betts & Great Southern: BB King's Blues Club, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 27 June 2002

THE ALLMAN Brothers Band has been the central musical group of my life, their œuvre most vital to my worldview. ...

Marah: Mercury Lounge, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 17 July 2002

Independence Day ...

Cody Chesnutt, Etta James, Joi, Raphael Saadiq, Res: Etta James/Joi/Res/Raphael Saadiq/Cody Chesnutt: BB King's Blues Club & Grill, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 24 July 2002

Flight to Amazonia (Slight Return) ...

Richie Havens: Bottom Line, NYC

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 7 August 2002

MOST OF MY generation ("X") peers - especially indie rock & dance music critics - and a wide swathe of bitter boomers relentlessly disparage veteran ...

Earth, Wind & Fire: Earth Wind And Fire: Beacon Theater, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 15 2003

MY TRAGEDY AS a music fanatic has always been one of being a spirit out of time. I have spent a goodly portion of my ...

Nightbirds: Blueprint for a Mixtape

Guide by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 5 February 2003

'IN MEMORY OF ELIZABETH REED'/THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND ...

Calexico: Bowery Ballroom, New York City

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, March 2003

IN MY OLD AGE, I am trying to get hip. So I have temporarily relinquished my inner redneck. Left that twang-and-trash loving gal on the ...

Jesse Malin: Troubadour, Los Angeles, March 6th

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, March 2003

GOTHAM HAS BEEN re-christened New Rock City due to its current vogue of garage rock acts and assorted weirdo ensembles straight outta Brooklyn, to incongruously ...

Sigur Rós: Radio City Music Hall, New York City

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 26 March 2003

THERE IS A BEE GEES song that goes, "I started a joke which started the whole world crying." This lyric highlights one of two overriding ...

Maplewood: Lads of the Canyon: Maplewood at the Knitting Factory, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 8 April 2003

ONCE UPON a time not so long ago the musical sub-genre variously known as alt-country / y'allternative / No Depression / cosmic country / cosmic ...

Drive-By Truckers: Decoration Day (New West)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 13 June 2003

COME HEAR ME real well, boogie chillun, for I'ze 'bout to spin this chronicle of a death foretold. The death of truth, justice, and the ...

Donnie: Bowery Ballroom, New York

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 22 July 2003

The Love Manifesto ...

Arthur Lee, Love: Love with Arthur Lee: House of Blues, Los Angeles

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 19 August 2003

SOMETHING STARDUST and sunshine had characterized those days of flowers and civil unrest in the western canyons of America's other neverland of dreams, Los Angeles. ...

Rufus Wainwright: Chelsea Mourning: Wanting Rufus Wainwright

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, September 2003

YOU’RE WALKING, you’re virtually running, exhilarated, exultant, across West 23rd Street, away from Chelsea where you’ve tripped the Apocalypse of Rufus Wainwright and at once ...

Bubba Sparxx, Kentucky Headhunters: Bubba Sparxxx: Deliverance (Interscope); Kentucky Headhunters: Soul (Audium/Koch)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 10 September 2003

SO THE GRAPEVINE has Hollyweird pondering a film based on late-1970s TV Dixiana The Dukes of Hazzard. The Grandfather Clause prevents me from voting for ...

Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Neil Young: Farm Aid: Germain Amphitheater, Columbus, Ohio

Report by Kandia Crazy Horse, PopMatters, 23 September 2003

I WAS EATING Neil Young when the highest points of my sojourn to this year's Farm Aid benefit concert occurred: veteran Crazy Horse bassist Billy ...

Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse (Slight Return), Part One

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, November 2003

Welcome to Rock City, where voodoo economics and soul providers shadowbox at the Crossroads. Kandia Crazy Horse on The Band, Big Star and white boys ...

Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse Pt 2

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, November 2003

KANDIA CRAZY HORSE continues her scintillating sermon on the curious relationship between White Boys and Black Soul. This week: from Traffic thru’ Eddie Hinton on ...

Outkast: It's a Double Standard, Kemosabe

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, africana.com, 25 February 2004

Whatever led André to think that even an inkling of "redface" would be any more acceptable than blackface minstrelsy has been to Americans of African ...

Van Hunt: Van Hunt

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 27 April 2004

PREENING, CONFESSING, aloof Atlanta R&B phenom falls short ...

Hanson: Underneath

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 8 June 2004

HAVING PASSED out during Hanson's historical 1999 Bob Weir summit at the late Wetlands, this critic can attest to the inexorable power of the towhead ...

Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz: Crunk Juice

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 30 November 2004

"EYE-UNH!," "Hunh!," and "Hiuiiii!" were universally accepted as James Brown lyrics before crunk king Jonathan "Lil Jon" Smith was conceived. Dave Chappelle may have elevated ...

Duane Allman, Southern Bitch: Apocalypse in the American Bush: R.I.P. Muscle Shoals Sound, Sheffield, Alabama

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Perfect Sound Forever, April 2005

Feels so good inside myself Don't wanna move Feels so good inside myself Don't need to move –'Luv 'N Haight', Sly & the Family Stone ...

Mofro: The Pageant, St. Louis, Mo.

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Paste, 18 June 2005

PERHAPS THE RED, white and blue spotlights at St. Louis's Pageant should've served as trickster clues. Or the snide remark of a toasted, aging frat ...

Gnarls Barkley, Jonny Lang, John Legend, Robin Thicke: The Nu Sincerity

Guide by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 12 December 2006

JAMES TAYLOR'S early-'70s status as the king of sensitive male vocalists is mere VH1 countdown fodder now. Yet in 2006, more than a few male ...

Earl Greyhound: The Afrofuture of Rock

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 26 February 2007

I MOVED TO Manhattan in 1989 to see Earl Greyhound—but they didn't exist yet. At the turn of the '90s, in that aggressive-white- male space ...

Lily Allen, Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse: Digital Venuses: Lily Allen, Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 8 May 2007

CALL THEM the new British bitch pack: barefoot soul shouter Joss Stone and her ascendant sistren, skankin' Lily Allen and torchy Amy Winehouse (Corinne Bailey ...

Rufus Wainwright: Central Park Summerstage, New York, NY

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Harp, July 2007

FOR SOME of us, storming and misinformation almost derailed Rufus Wainwright's first Gotham appearance since his spring residency at the Gramercy Theatre. Yet it's a ...

Rufus Wainwright: Release the Stars

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 31 July 2007

FULL CIRCLE    ...

Bettye LaVette: Highline Ballroom, New York, NY

Live Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, Harp, 24 September 2007

WAKING UP every morning now with the Blues, so catching the divine Lady Bettye LaVette's recent Manhattan show at the Highline was a foregone conclusion. ...

Emmylou Harris: Songbird – Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems (Rhino)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 3 October 2007

EMMYLOU HARRIS tends to overwhelm with her beauty in flesh and in voice, so it's instructive to look to her new rarities collection, Songbird: Rare ...

Kid Rock: Rock of Ages

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, The Village Voice, 16 October 2007

The Detroit Cowboy tells his congregation about the world, flesh, and the Devil. ...

Tinariwen: A shot from the Sahel

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 30 October 2007

MANY MOONS AGO, when I moved as a child to Africa, my mother, my sister, and I resided in the Sahel. ...

Carolina Chocolate Drops: Digging the new-old roots

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 30 January 2008

YODELING IS AFRICAN? Well, one could certainly trace the practice from the Ituri of the Congolese rainforest, described as the first people by ancient Egyptian ...

Arthur Lee, Lightspeed Champion: Alone again, or

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 19 March 2008

In memoriam: Ike Turner, Buddy Miles, Teo Macero, and Arthur Lee ...

Earth, Wind & Fire, Janelle Monáe, Me'Shell Ndegeocello: Singing the cyber blues: Janelle Monaé's Metropolis

Overview by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 7 May 2008

AFROFUTURISM BEGAN in earnest with those "20 odd Negroes" brought to Jamestown. Truly, long-ago Africans brought to New World shores invented modernity on the fly, ...

Kathleen Edwards: Asking for Flowers (Zoe/Rounder)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 14 May 2008

BEING OF so-called American Indian and African descent, I have never believed in borders. These imperial lines have only wreaked havoc and sealed our fate. ...

Vampire Weekend et al: Scramble for Africa 3.0

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11 June 2008

AFRICA IS NOT a monolith. Africa is not even Africa: the outsider bastardization kicked off in earnest when the Roman misnomer of a finite North ...

Labelle: Back to Now (Verve)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 29 October 2008

A FEW weekends back, I rose at the crack of dawn to see Allen Toussaint perform at Joe's Pub in Manhattan for the venue's 10th ...

The Rolling Stones: Electric gypsies : Tommy Weber and friends

Book Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 6 May 2009

TOMMY WEBER (né Thomas Ejnar Arkner, 1938 — 2006) was a trickster, so I cannot help but love him. ...

Michael Jackson: The Thriller Is Gone: Michael Jackson

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, 26 June 2009

I LACK ANYTHING profound to say about the passing of Michael Jackson. ...

Neil Young: Out of the blue: Neil Young's archives

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 7 July 2009

THIS IS THE briar patch, the place from which all funky thangs flow. On the anniversary of the death of my Afro-Algonquin Southern (re)belle mother, ...

Jonathan Wilson: Son of the Source

Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 28 October 2009

CALIFORNIA MY WAY: Pacifica in all her roaring glory; 'Bluebird'; Gene Clark suffering for his art at the Troubadour; Arthur Lee perched atop Laurel Canyon ...

Valerie June, Whispering Pines: In the Whispering Pines

Report by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 25 February 2010

THIS IS THE YEAR when your scribing cowgirl returns wholly to the barn — or at least the fabled Cabin-in-the-Pines where folks used to pick, ...

Josh T. Pearson: Last of the Country Gentlemen (Mute)

Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 15 March 2011

SOME COWBOY angels have been crying into their beer for salvation; meantime, some of us singing cowgirls who are also in struggle push onward to ...

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