What Bruce Springsteen Taught Me Then—And Teaches Me Now

On 40 Years of Listening to the Sonic Squall from the Boss’s Soul

Bruce Springsteen was the first artist I saw in concert—in 1976, when I was 15. He had recently graced the covers of Time and Newsweek, and journalist Jon Landau, who would later become his manager, had dubbed him “the future of rock ‘n’ roll.” His early Dylan-esque reveries of streetwise characters on the margins, songs like “Sandy” and “Spirit in the Night,” felt lived-in and alive, and evoked charm and scruff. By the time he came out with 1975’s Born to Run, his music’s ever-bigger sound propelled working-class frustration and …

The Black Songwriter Who Took Nashville by Storm

Before Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” Won Song of the Year at the CMAs, Hit Maker Ted Jarrett’s Music Topped the Country Charts

Singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman made history last year when she became the first Black artist to receive the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year Award, after Luke Combs remade a …

Our Favorite Essays of 2023 | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Our Favorite Public Programs of 2023

It Was a Year of Hard-Hitting Conversations, a Traveling Public Square, and Even a Dance Party

 

It’s Zócalo’s 20th birthday, and we hit the two decade milestone running—we hosted 21 events in 2023 to fulfill our mission of connecting people to ideas and to each other.

At …

Hearing America in Matches, Police Whistles, and Percussion | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Hearing America in Matchsticks, Police Whistles, and Clanking Coins

‘How Do We Hear America?’ Concludes Zócalo’s 2023 Public Programs Season on a High Note

“American Ledger no. 1” sounds different each time.

That’s by design, MacArthur fellow Raven Chacon told Zócalo before a performance of his ambitious sound and visual retelling of the nation was …

Tupac Was an Imperfect Prophet | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Tupac Was an Imperfect Prophet

A Contested Figure, the Rapper Championed a ‘Thug Life’ Meant to Liberate Black Americans

Hailed as a truth-teller and a champion of Black empowerment, disparaged as a hoodlum with a hot temper whose lyrics glorify violent behavior, the late rapper and actor Tupac Shakur …

tktk | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Raven Chacon Makes Noise

As Zócalo Presents His Work in ‘How Do We Hear America?,’ the Composer Shares His Liner Notes on Composition, U.S. History, and the Los Angeles Music Scene

Raven Chacon has been making noise, literally and otherwise, since he was a youngster growing up in New Mexico. Fascinated by instruments of all kinds (those he’s bought and those …