[A] Although both my parents and for that matter my more dexterous maiden aunt Mildred played piano, I thought lessons were boring when I could have been playing stoopball outside, hence have zero formal knowledge of music. But the big living room radio console my fireman father splurged on was always part of my life, not least because it came with a phonograph he converted 78s to LPs when they became a thing. Plus I loved baseball, particularly the Yankees, which means my brother and I had a radio in the basement, where we slept. What I can no longer remember is whether WINS was the Yankee station back then, because it was the (first) Alan Freed station, and it was Freed who leaned down on the biracial pop music he dubbed rock and roll. Plus there was DJ Peter Tripp on WMGM nearby and at the upper end of the dial WWRL, a black-oriented (and Harlem-based?) station that played only r&b. My parents were also good dancers. And my beloved grandfather Tom Snyder was the first person I knew who owned a 45 RPM record player. So there was always plenty of music, especially pop music, in my life, and by the time I was 10 I was into it. At Dartmouth I hung out with the tiny bohemian clique insofar as they tolerated me, and they hipped me to jazz. By the time I was out of college I played pop radio all the time and also occasionally visited jazz clubs, where Thelonious Monk was my special fave. All of which is to say that not just that for most of my life I was a serious rock and roll fan. Add to that my night-gig boss, the painter Bob Stanley, who was glad to play the radio at F.I. Dupont where we filed margin calls and before too long the pop art movement was under way, which added an extra layer of validation to my attraction to pop music, which Bob liked too—there's a Shirelles piece of his hanging in my living room and a Ringo in the dining room. Aesthetically, the-"high"-art-to-pop-art switcheroo made it easier to write critically and with aggressive respect about pop music. Hence: rock criticism.

[A] Answer: none. Although sleeping I've had dreams about being in a band a few times, I find I have not the slightest interest in speculating about what band I'd most like to join. Professionally meeting John Lennon in particular was an honor and a treat. But I like being a writer, and I like being a critic. That's where both my talents and—work though both are—my pleasures reside.

[A] Because Carola named her novel The Only Ones (check it out!!) we retain a theoretical fondness for the band—when she's creating playlists for a reading she always sticks in one of their songs. But that Perrett solo album was a B+ by me, and sampling it again on streaming I soon decided that he came across better sonically as a group leader than as a solo artist. So though you might ultimately prove right about how good that solo album is, I'm not sure I'll dig on a nearly decade-old release to double-check.

[A] I never liked Wilco as much as I was supposed to. There was and still is something a little too sluggish about them. As for your snotty letter, I'm glad you changed your mind, but as I believe I've written somewhere, criticism is not a popularity contest. Which is not to say I don't feel contempt for all the Kansas and ELP fans who not only think I'm a fraud but underestimate my IQ.

[A] I presume with no memory of the facts that I didn't review Gentry's albums because I didn't think they were good enough. I did, however, once compare Laurie Anderson invidiously to "Ode to Billie Joe"—which is not to say I don't enjoy and admire Anderson.

[A] I gave As to every one of the albums you list. But you guess correctly when you figure I don't listen to many live rock albums, though JB's Sex Machine, which I've never been fully convinced is all the way live though that's its rep, is an exception. I do however listen to many live jazz albums. Coltrane's Live at the Vanguard, Ornette's Friends and Neighbors, Davis's Live/Evil and Monk's Palo Alto are four that come to mind as I wonder whether Monk's London albums are live or anyway part live and I bet there are others.

[A] I am now officially and more or less completely recovered from prostate aquablation, a notoriously slow-healing procedure for old men with enlarged prostates which as I understand it is seldom cancer-related and definitely isn't in my case.

[A] I'm not familiar with these, but a cursory glance suggests the Davis releases are archival and the Coltrane for completists (which I'm not). Instead let me recommend you investigate alto saxophonist and de facto inventor of bebop Charlie Parker, aka Bird, who seems to have gotten lost in the historical shuffle. Made his crucial breakthrough in the '40s. Check him out in the CG and you'll find two full A's and two A plusses. I've been playing Now's the Time around here a lot recently and it never gets tired.

[A] I paid more attention to the Dead live than most critics, but as the Deadhead subculture became a mass cult the physical strain became too much. Note however that I covered a Dead concert in Jersey that I wrote up in the Newsday offices in Nassau County and then drove further east on Long Island to join Carola on Shelter Island, where I made our romance official and surprised her by showing her my copy after we got out of bed. At that point I don't think she'd ever read a word I'd written. Pretty sure we saw them together at the Academy soon enough. Please also note that the review in question praises a 1990 live show for its "mesh of the tight and the shambolic that on their best nights rendered their music responsive and interactive"—there were good nights, not as many as there once were, but this was one. Parsing the exact moment when the good nights might have begun to dry up isn't worth my time, and probably not yours.

[A] I don't review every album on release; in this case, a collection made an impression many years after it appeared, and I reviewed it in the April 2024 Consumer Guide. So the half a century thing made sense in context. As for the A shelves, one problem with being known for grading things is that people get literalistic about it. Please allow me to use the term "A shelves" the way any normal person would—the shelves where I keep the important stuff as opposed to "housing only albums graded A." Credence, for example, was one of those major bands whose catalogue included a B and B+, but at a certain moment in history I wanted to keep it all in one place. Haven't played them in years though bet they'd sound pretty OK if I did.

[A] I liked these sets in 1982 (ahem: "the finest major-label reissue anthologies since Atlantic's long-lost History of Rhythm & Blues"). I see no reason I wouldn't like them now. That said, for better or worse I play very little vinyl. CDs keep me busy enough unless I'm doing research or Carola or a visitor puts in a request. If the label were to send me the CDs in the mail I'd probably revisit them. But that is highly unlikely these days.

[A] Monk's Misterioso, The Beatles' Second Album, The Rolling Stones Now, something picked blind from my two dozen or so Armstrong CDs, maybe the longtime Bob and Carola fave Manfred Mann's Earth Band (although obviously that's not a timeless classic except for us who played it plenty when we were becoming a couple and the guys who made the record).

[A] It depends, right? So say "rock," as it's called: electric guitar. Jazz: saxophone. Funk, etc.: drum kit. "Rock and roll": human voice. Folk: "human voice." Jazz: also piano. Trumpet doesn't fit anywhere despite Satchmo.

[A] She didn't slip under my radar. But while I've found her interesting as an artist, she's never seemed quite compelling. Just played the new one and thought it sounded like a B plus. (Also thought the Erotica comparison an overstatement.) That said, I'd need to listen more before it sinks in enough to finalize that informed conjecture.

[A] I edited all the critics you cite above and was fond of all of them as people—even Leighton, a sweet man who was inevitably late with his copy. Sandow and especially Johnson proved good friends and I always respected Gann. Moreover, John Rockwell—who started at the NYT as a classical guy before becoming the chief pop critic—is one of my closest pals; he and his wife were here for dinner a few nights ago. But with a few exceptions I've cited before—Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Beethoven's C Sharp Minor Quartet—I have little active interest in "classical" music. Not a judgment, though I could transform it into one. My ears are very happy as they are—and by the way are in pretty good shape for 83.

[A] Seems like you've done a more than adequate job of pinning things down. Having always thought they were absolutely overrated—dud, C+, dud, B+, B-—I recommend you put this false step behind you and give, oh, Jefferson Airplane a visit.

[A] I'm pretty sure I met Boyd on one U.K. venture or another, although I don't recall the details. But I sure know his name and was so flattered when he called me and Carola up in NYC that we invited him and his wife over. They proved exceptionally interesting and sociable people, and I was quite flattered when he complimented me in the frontispiece to his book. Reading the book, however, is another matter for me, because I tend to read on my back in bed and have a bad left elbow that puts a 960-page tome like this one out of my range physically. Carola, however, has gotten into it. She's impressed by his knowledge of various "folk" and international styles, and as a resident of London for much of the late '60s found Boyd's knowledge of its bohemian variants accurate and evocative.

[A] From a limp-dick like you, that's a compliment. Thanks for caring.

[A] In my family lore the name Christgau is either North German or Danish—there is a Danish coffee brand of that name, an empty bag of which hangs on my office door. And huzzah huzzah, as noted in a strange coincidence you can find below but as I've long known, Minnesotan Victor Christgau was an early director of the Social Security Administration, which is something for all Christgaus to be proud of. Plus, oops, a Minnesotan jerkola named, oops, Robert Wayne Christgau was once arrested for driving his pickup with a young kid on the roof. Hope he did hard time for that.

[A] The answer, obviously, is that they're two different but related experiences, with the recording generally more foundational, although it happens a lot that seeing a performer you've never heard before live inspires you to buy his/her/their recordings. One nice thing about records is that they tend to be a lot cheaper; another is that by familiarizing the listener with the artist's material they generally render the performance more revelatory. And of course, many artists make more money on the road than they do from royalties.