London: Icon Books, 2017
337 pp., $12.04

If you think of Jane Austen novels as light, fluffy romances—think again. Through her happy endings, she imparted essential moral themes, such as the fact that happiness requires knowing when to trust your own judgment (Persuasion) and acting on principle (Mansfield Park).

Such lessons are useful on their own, but many Janeites like to point out that Austen was also a social commentator, mocking and subtly criticizing certain norms and institutions of her day. However, few Austen fans have gone as far into understanding and explaining the substance and mechanisms of that criticism as Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical. Kelly begins by observing two relevant facts about Austen’s life: 1) We don’t know much about it, because few letters or other documentary evidence remain, and the family reports are unreliable (the most famous was written by her nephew four decades after her death); and 2) for most of Austen’s life, Britain was at war.

Most Janeites point out these facts as a matter of mere curiosity or perhaps to highlight a few details of how soldiers and navy men play a role in certain Austen novels. But Kelly homes in on a particular effect of this context: Due to the wars, the British government increased censorship. She explains:

Treason was redefined. It was no longer limited to actively conspiring to overthrow and to kill; it included thinking, writing, printing, reading. Prosecutions were directed not just against avowedly political figures, such as Paine, the radical politician Horne Tooke, or the theologian Gilbert Wakefield, but against their publishers. . . . There can hardly have been a thinking person in Britain who didn’t understand what was intended—to terrify writers and publishers into policing themselves. (22–23)

For this reason, Kelly argues, readers ought to look very closely at the text and at the historical context it was written in, because criticism would have had to be subtle to be allowed at that time. For example, Austen doesn’t criticize the Church of England outright—but nearly all the clergymen she depicts in her works are lazy, gluttonous, pompous, or straight-up ridiculous. The self-important Mr. Collins, for instance, provides excellent comic relief in Pride and Prejudice—but no serious Christian would want him as his pastor. Kelly argues that this context alone justifies a closer look at the text and also quotes Austen’s letter to her sister in which she declared, “I do not write for such dull Elves As have not a great deal of ingenuity themselves” (124).1^[1] Austen wanted her readers to be thoughtful and focused enough to take in the layers of meaning she offered, and Kelly aims to show what such focus, combined with some contextual knowledge, can yield.

The Secret Radical’s key strength is its clearly presented, well-researched analysis of the political elements of Austen’s works, based on Kelly’s thorough understanding of the debates and economic policies of the day, relevant British history, textual evidence from the novels, contemporary reviews, and the few remaining letters from Austen herself. Kelly examines each of Austen’s six full-length novels—Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion—in this way, aiming to work through them in the order Austen wrote them to provide a rough sketch of Austen’s intellectual development as well as to keep the history chronological. (Kelly acknowledges difficulty in dating with certainty when Austen wrote certain novels and explains her reasons for taking them in the order that she does.) In the best cases, the interpretation she offers enables readers to appreciate the work under discussion on a deeper level.

For example, Kelly argues that Pride and Prejudice should not be seen as only an interpersonal drama with lessons for individual behavior but also as a pattern for how people of different classes at the time should behave toward each other in order to reform society without violent revolution. “Elizabeth and Darcy,” she writes, “were written to be not just characters, but symbols as well” (167). Mr. Darcy, the wealthy nobleman, shows himself to be ready to learn, even from those of lower status than himself, and to correct his manners when necessary. He also symbolically removes the military presence and its associated potential for conflict at the end by arranging a position far away for Mr. Wickham, a militiaman.

Likewise, Elizabeth, a gentleman’s daughter, is willing to speak her mind and learns to judge people only on firm evidence of their character. Mr. Bingley is a straightforwardly sympathetic character who earned his money through trade, a point modern readers may not question or even notice. In the early nineteenth century, the nouveau riche were by no means accepted in many social circles. By showing him not only in a positive light but as being sought after by the Bennet girls and befriended by Darcy, Austen was encouraging the acceptance of such self-made men. Kelly’s interpretation not only integrates with the novel’s central theme (that one shouldn’t allow emotions to distort one’s rational, evidence-based judgment)—it adds a layer of complexity to it. One’s emotions, and especially one’s initial reaction to a situation, are often shaped by the attitudes one has been taught—one’s prejudices (according to some accounts, Austen considered naming the novel First Impressions). Austen encouraged her readers to consider carefully whether that immediate reaction is justified, taking into account not only one’s vanity but one’s social context.

Kelly deals significantly with the political context in which Austen lived and wrote. Politics necessarily affects individuals’ lives and thus often is present in fiction to some degree. But it is one thing to identify these aspects of the background, another to trace how they affect various characters’ motivations, and a much different task to interpret their degree of relevance to the theme of the work. In this last endeavor, Kelly occasionally errs by overemphasizing the relevance of politics to Austen’s themes. For example, she claims that Emma is about poverty created by a rapidly expanding population and worsened (at least in the short term) by enclosure, the controversial practice of landowners getting permission from Parliament to build fences and hedges to stop poor people from gathering firewood, roots, and so on from the land they or their families had been granted by the government. Kelly cites many lines and scenes that refer to enclosure and its effects, such as gypsies being camped in an unexpected place leading to an unsuspecting young woman being accosted by them and twisting her ankle in her attempt to get away. However, Kelly fails to establish that enclosure is anything more than a background force in the novel. Emma is primarily about a young woman learning to better weigh the evidence she has around people’s emotions and not to interfere in others’ affairs of the heart—that each person must choose what is best for herself. This is an important theme that stands alone. Knowledge of enclosure is not necessary to grasp this theme, though such knowledge helps to set up certain aspects of the plot.

Similarly, Kelly’s discussion of Sense and Sensibility focuses on the unfairness of primogeniture, the legally enshrined practice in which, in the vast majority of cases, the oldest son inherited everything when a man died, and any other children and his widow were dependent on that son. Once again, this is extremely relevant to the setup, as it explains how the Dashwood ladies find themselves in the situation they are in—once Mr. Dashwood dies, they depend on the charity of a distant relative to find a decent place to live and must learn to live frugally. They also cannot depend on large dowries to help with their marriage prospects. But the bulk of the action is about the eldest two sisters learning to harmonize their reason and their emotions, one having tended toward self-indulgent emotionalism and the other toward stoic rationalism. Primogeniture, though certainly a target of Austen’s criticism, is not the theme of the novel.

Despite this occasional overemphasis on politics, the context Kelly provides is remarkably useful in enabling readers of Austen to avoid being a “dull Elf” and thus to better enjoy her timeless works. The book is written in clear, accessible language but is scholarly in the way it synthesizes a vast quantity of information from a wide variety of sources. In addition, although it assumes familiarity with all of Austen’s novels, a thoughtful reader with that knowledge will benefit from the demonstration of how to apply historical and political context combined with careful reading to better understand the satire and social commentary in other novels. Readers can certainly enjoy Austen’s works without Kelly’s additional context that enables wider integrations, but it is very helpful.

Jane Austen, the Secret Radical opened my eyes to the interesting, often subtle ways in which this influential author challenged the premises of the world around her. For those who want to get more out of literature, it’s well worth the time.

As an avid music fan, I’m constantly searching for good music. But I only find exceptional bands—the kind that blow my mind and join my all-time favorites—once or twice a decade.

Recently, one band—The Protomen—excelled beyond anything I’ve heard in the past fifteen years or so. To try to describe this band in terms of genres is somewhat futile. Their sound fuses elements of country, hard rock, electronica, progressive rock, blues, and several other genres. They took influence from Queen—a band they started their career by covering—by focusing on expressing their own artistic ideas rather than trying to fit into a particular genre. “Queen was independent in that they didn’t care about genre, they just wrote good songs,” said a band member in one interview. “In the end, no matter what genre or how you play the song, it’s still gonna sound like you.”1

The more useful way to describe what The Protomen make would be something like “story rock” or “rock opera.” Their three main albums are as much works of fiction as works of music; The Protomen (Act I), Act II: The Father of Death, and Act III: This City Made Us together form a grand dystopian story that can only be fully appreciated on repeat listenings while reading the lyrics. The band included passages of prose among the lyrics (found in the CD liner notes or online)—these are designed to be read during the instrumental and soundscape sections of the albums, moving the story along between the lyrical sections.

Each album has a distinct style and tells a separate chapter of the overall story, so it’s worth looking at each in turn to get a sense of the richness, musically and philosophically, that The Protomen offer.

The Protomen (Act I) (2005)

The first album throws us into a dystopian world loosely based on that depicted in the Mega Man video games. But whereas the games follow the titular superhero as he battles the robot army of the evil Dr. Wily in an effort to restore peace to an embattled world, The Protomen establishes a much darker setting—a city in which the population has given up on freedom. The opening narration sets the scene over an accelerating beat:

No one was left who could remember how it had happened
How the world had fallen under darkness
At least no one who would do anything
No one who would oppose the robots
No one who would challenge their power
Or so Dr. Wily believed . . .

That sets off the opening track, “Hope Rides Alone,” in which we meet Wily’s former associate Dr. Light, “an eccentric and brilliant man . . . a loner, a thinker, a man of ideas—ideas forbidden in Wily’s society.” Light creates the part-man, part-machine Protoman, a hero “hell-bent on destroying every evil standing between man and freedom” to save the city from Wily’s robotic tyranny.

Toward the end of the song, the core theme of the album starts to come through. Light wants to save the city, but the people don’t want saving—they are too apathetic and dejected to fight for freedom. They stand by and watch Protoman get pummeled by Wily’s robots, and the song ends with a crowd chanting “We are the dead”—a direct reference to George Orwell’s 1984—as they look upon the beaten hero who could have saved them.

In the third track, “Unrest in the House of Light,” we follow a grief-stricken Light as he sings about his previous “son”—Protoman’s forerunner, Mega Man—who suffered much the same fate. Light tries to dissuade Protoman, who wants to continue the fight:

For if you leave now, you will be fighting
For a people that refuse to comprehend
They have chosen their own end

Unlike the opening two tracks, which have a lo-fi, almost industrial sound symbolizing the mechanistic inhumanity of Wily’s regime, the third track is a gently swinging country song with the sombreness befitting Light’s dismay at the people’s continued lack of appetite for freedom and his remorse at his part in creating this society (detailed in Act II). Throughout the rest of the album, the style continues to change, although generally returning to an alt-rock sound reminiscent of early Muse. Also adding to the variety are the different singing and speaking voices that the band members use to capture the characters of Wily, Light, Protoman, and Mega Man, who often exchange dialogue during the songs.

Thematically, the album continues to explore the questions of whether a hero should fight for people who don’t want saving and whether a few voices for freedom can overcome a mass who willfully live at the feet of a dictator. Those people rouse, not at the appearance of a hero, but at the regime’s broadcast chant of “We have control, We keep you safe, We are your hope.” All three albums are, in their own ways, tragedies, and the tragedy of the first album is that Light is trying to use technology—Protoman—to solve a philosophic problem: the apathy of the city’s population.

Act II: The Father of Death (2009)

With Act I depicting a society clearly unready for change, one might expect its sequel to progress the story to a later stage, but instead Act II is a prequel, showing how Wily’s society came to be in the first place. After a short instrumental, it opens with “The Good Doctor,” a far cleaner track than any on the first album that signals this album’s higher fidelity production. The song is a slow, melancholy ballad backed up by a somber string section that follows a conversation between Light and Wily, both inventors looking to change a society in which many (including Light’s father) work to their deaths in toxic mines. They design robots capable of replacing men in the mines and extracting far more of the resources the city needs, but whereas Light is content with this, Wily wants to turn the robots into tools for controlling people and achieving his vision of an orderly, centrally planned society.

The first chorus is sung by Light, but the second features Wily responding to him—an example of a technique The Protomen often use called “overlapping polyphony” in which two voices deliver the same section at the same time, offset enough that each can be understood but with some overlap as though the two voices are competing to dominate the song:

They’ve waited so long for this day
(They’ve waited so long for this day)
Someone to take the death away
(There is no price they wouldn’t pay)
No son would ever have to say
(For someone else to lead them)
My father worked into his grave

As the song concludes, the two characters get to the root of their philosophic disagreement—their differing views of human nature:

I only want to help . . .
(You are a fool!)
You underestimate the character of man
(They are weaker than you think!)
You think that they’ll surrender
If you bind their working hands
But they are strong!
(Just wait and see . . .)
We will build cities in a day
(Men would cower at the sight!)
We will build towers to the heavens
(Man was not built for such a height!)
We will be heroes!
(We will BUILD heroes!)

The two singers “playing” the two characters imbue them with different qualities, helping accentuate their differences. Raul Panther III (all Protomen members use stage names) gives Light a deep, reflective, Johnny Cash-esque voice whereas Turbo Lover gives Wily a shrill, barely controlled style in which his madness regularly breaks through. This album also introduces Gambler Kirkdouglas, who not only adds a female voice (voicing Light’s girlfriend and Wily’s heartthrob Emily) but brings a more operatic style to the mix, her vocals soaring above the male voices at times while bringing a raspy, hard-rock energy to other parts. Her character’s inclusion personalizes the human cost of Wily’s regime and of Light’s efforts to oppose it, which place her in the line of fire. Later in the album, the two men’s conflict becomes as much about her as about the city itself.

With this album, the band’s Nashville roots come through strongly. In place of the first album’s industrial sound, this one features more acoustic guitar, piano, and slide guitar, giving it a much more Southern sound that also drifts into Ennio Morricone-esque Western territory at times. As the story progresses, more styles come into play, often capturing the spirit of the character each song is focusing on. “The Hounds” (focusing on the increasingly maddened Wily) features circus-like trumpets blasting over a danceable, pulsing rhythm, after which “The State Vs. Thomas Light” returns to a thoughtful, orchestral sound. Later, as the conflict between Light and Wily intensifies, the songs get faster and adopt more of a 1980s-inspired synthwave style, exemplified best in the songs “Break Out” and “Light Up the Night.” This sound points the way to the band’s third album, for which fans—aside from a tantalizing preview in the form of the 2022 stand-alone single “The Fight”—would have to wait seventeen years.

Act III: This City Made Us (2026)

Act III is the culmination of The Protomen’s story—not just of the literal story that the three albums tell but also of the band’s musical growth. Here, they perfectly realize their fusion of upbeat hard rock and expansive, synthwave electronica. Taking place some years after the events of Act I, it introduces a new, unnamed character: a budding revolutionary (also voiced by Gambler) who, much like Light before her, is determined to bring about a change for which the passive masses aren’t prepared to fight.

The story kicks off with “Hold Back the Night,” a galloping revolutionary anthem driven as much by Gambler’s energetic, soaring vocals as by the driving guitars, synths, and percussion. After each verse describing her struggle to survive in Wily’s world, she opens each chorus by bellowing “But I know a hero will come!” This refers to the aging Light, whose distant figure she has seen observing the increasing disorder as some of the young people start to oppose Wily’s control. Eventually, after she finds Light during a slowed-down instrumental interlude, he bursts into the song with a counterpoint to her optimistic choruses, driven by his deep regret over his part in creating Wily’s world:

But all of your heroes are gone
And the blood that they spilled is on my hands
A darkness will block out the sun
Not a thing can be done with so few men
That a hero couldn’t do!

She responds to his guilt with an appeal to his sense of responsibility:

When the voice from the shadows calls you
When the wind whips past your ears
Will you stand when the weight is upon you
Or will you go to your knees in fear?

There’s a chance, though I know it’s a long shot
And the city’s out of time
All for naught if your heart stops beating
’cause you’re the only one that keeps it alive
God, keep it alive!

Then, in the final chorus, the two voices debate in another instance of overlapping polyphony, driving the song to a powerful release of energy in its conclusion.

Following the example of “Hold Back the Night,” most of the album is brighter and more upbeat than its predecessors. Whereas the previous albums focused heavily on the consequences of widespread apathy about freedom, this album focuses more on the fact that hope endures as long as some are willing to fight.

With fifteen tracks, This City Made Us is a rock opera in its own right, taking us on a whole journey of a grassroots revolution and a state’s efforts to suppress it. This is The Protomen at their most Orwellian (a descriptor the band readily embraces), with the full apparatus of Wily’s regime directed at not merely suppressing the dissidents but also turning the masses against them with false-flag attacks and incessant, inescapable propaganda.

The dramatic story that The Protomen tell across their three-album series is a tale of individuals with a vision of freedom fighting against collective apathy. In a recent interview, the band members expressed their sadness that real events have paralleled the story they set out to tell in 2005, demonstrating the difficulty of motivating people to stand up for important values in a society driven by groupthink and emotionalism:

Our storyline that we’ve been writing all these years is happening all around us now. . . . As a human being in the year 2026, I didn’t know that I could get more jaded with society than in 2005.

Our first record is very much about the failure of mankind as a whole to rise to heroism or to rise to the place that they needed to be—the lowest level of making an effort. So we started out from that place and I think as we’ve gone through the acts, we try to keep hope alive. Even if it perhaps gets more and more difficult to do it, it’s still there. You have to search for the hope. That’s really what it comes down to.2

The Protomen’s rock opera series is a musical voyage exploring responsibility for one’s choices, the human cost of tyranny, and the nature of heroism. It ultimately conveys the theme that whatever physical strength a hero may possess, freedom depends on a substantial number of people understanding its importance. On the surface, it’s a riveting story told through colorful, complex, emotionally charged music. On a deeper level, it’s a warning to stand up for freedom and human life before it’s too late.

The musical landscape of the 1970s was filled with artistic rule breakers, and singer-songwriter Lowell George was certainly one of them. His dynamic approach, a sort of controlled chaos, produced melodies and musical works that are still being performed and covered today. His devotion to creative freedom shaped his entire body of work and produced one of rock ’n’ roll’s most innovative, original bands. George’s career path was harder than most because of his uncompromising mindset. His wife, Elizabeth, alluded to the fact that for him the road less traveled was inevitable. “There was nothing regular about the guy,” she said while reflecting on his lasting legacy.^[1]

His group was called Little Feat, but George’s fusion of genres from folk to funk was anything but. He created momentous songs by pulling inspiration out of everyday experiences, including such classics as the band’s breakout single, “Willin.’” Trips to New Orleans were catalysts for George’s stylistic innovation, reaching a peak with the landmark album Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. Even lesser-known tracks from his repertoire show an artist determined to scale a musical summit of his own making. His enigmatic artistry spanned genres, and his label struggled to put his music in a mainstream stylistic box, making it harder to sell records. But dedicated listeners who showed up in droves to his shows with Little Feat helped him become one of rock’s unsung heroes. And his discography, showcasing melodic ingenuity, emotional depth, and artistic passion, made him one of rock’s most skilled explorers.

From Setback to Launch Point

In 1969, legend goes that George was fired by one of music’s most mysterious yet influential figures, Frank Zappa. George’s termination from Zappa’s group, The Mothers of Invention, was for good reason. Zappa thought the budding performer was too good to be in a supporting role in a band; he advised George to found one himself. And in the dawn of a 1970s Los Angeles music scene caught between the haze of the folk revival of the 1960s and the forthcoming progressive rock movement, George did exactly that. He teamed up with keyboardist Bill Payne, drummer Richie Hayward, and bassist Roy Estrada to form Little Feat.

In George’s own band, he encouraged and supported his bandmates’ creative experimentation with their instruments and musicianship as long as it stayed true to his overall genre-bending vision for soulful melodies and grooving rhythms. An excerpt from the Rock and Roll Doctor biography highlights Zappa’s influence:

George saw in Zappa’s management of the Mothers a model of how a band could be run. It was a model that worked, that was productive, and that allowed for individual creativity—but within the clear boundaries set by the bandleader. This idea of how things might be was to stay with him throughout his career.^[2]

By 1971, Little Feat released its debut self-titled album. It featured “Willin,’” an acoustic-based, easy-listening ballad about the adventures of a trucker and his perseverance and personal triumphs through the twists and turns of his journey. George came up with the idea for the song before forming his band. In his college days he often drummed up inspiration outside the classroom. “Willin’” was inspired by his time spent working as a gas station attendant, and it would become one of his signature songs.^[3]

George loved studying philosophy, and in interviews he sometimes quoted classical philosophers such as Socrates. For him, everything was interesting, and his insatiable curiosity made him a fount for songwriting and creative playing.

“Lowell quickly developed his own ‘sound’ which featured clean compressed notes played with precision and filled with sustain,” Gelinas writes:

Along with Lowell’s unique slide guitar, he was also developing a distinctive vocal style which employed the technique of melissima by which the singer melodically embellishes certain syllables within a [phrase]. This style of singing, much like Lowell’s slide guitar, would become a critical element of Little Feat’s musical identity.^[4]

After the group’s Sailin’ Shoes album in 1972, George especially wanted to expand the band’s artistic dimensions. Bandmate Bill Payne shared in an interview the talks he and George had when they first started playing together that reflected this creative desire:

We talked about the kind of band we wanted it to be. Should we have a horn section? What should the bass player play? Are we going to relegate ourselves to one style of music? We decided there shouldn’t be any limits to what we would do. If we wanted to play a waltz, great. If we wanted to play a straight-ahead song, fine.^[5]

By 1973, Little Feat’s third album, Dixie Chicken, featuring the popular title track and deep-cut-turned-cult-classic “Roll Um Easy,” marked the arrival of the sound that George had been experimenting with for years—a fresh integrated style he formed out of countless others. The album features an expanded sound (the band was now a six-piece) and boasted Cajun stylings, blues influences, and folk nuances, all with a classic rock ’n’ roll feel.

For a while, Little Feat averaged one album per year, made possible by George’s unrelenting work ethic. In a 1994 interview with Mojo, British musician Robert Palmer chatted about going on tour with Little Feat and how impressed he was with George’s commitment to his musical vision. “Lowell George was extremely bright, with a surreal sort of wit, and he was basically a workaholic. Day and night, all he did was make music.”^[6]

In 1974, Little Feat reached a peak with its critically acclaimed record, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now. The band hailed from California, but their sound was unmistakably southern-inspired. George took naturally to the stylings of New Orleans musicians when he and the band visited the bustling city. Present throughout each song were a horn section, syncopated rhythms common in Louisiana, and lyrical stories with equal parts glamor and grit.

Fearless Creative Approach

“We were very eclectic. We took a lot of chances,” George explained during an interview with Little Feat about his time.^[7] His penchant for creative risk-taking fostered the band’s innovative, wide-ranging sound. Journalist Elizabeth Nelson described his fearless approach to creativity: “Like a method actor, he had an eerie way of fully transforming himself into whatever a project required. Chamber music, blue-eyed soul, and avant-blues all came to him without inhibition.”^[8] Gelinas noted that the American musical landscape of the 1970s often featured “musical primitives with more enthusiasm than dexterity.”^[9]

But George possessed both, and for him, dexterity was more than a skill: it was a mindset, and he applied it to technology as much as his artistry. During the evolution of rock ’n’ roll in the 1970s, musicians embraced technological creativity while forging new sounds. Nowadays, digital audio interfaces make it easy to experiment with harmonies, instruments, and overdubbing—the process of recording different tracks over one another to create a layered final song. But when George was in the studio, he didn’t have any shortcuts. So, he helped pioneer a technique that became a defining recording tactic before digital recording software became available in the late 1980s—one he had begun toying around with during his days playing with Zappa. To layer tracks over one another, George physically altered the tapes he recorded onto by cutting sections with a razor blade and rearranging them with special adhesive. In a 1975 interview in zigzag magazine, George relayed his experimental approach with tape when he stated, “I use tape like someone would use manuscript paper.”^[10] Although this was time-consuming and costly, it was essential to his creative process. Tape splicing helped him come up with new ideas for songs and show bandmates how he wanted specific sections to be played. The editing technique helped add to Little Feat’s genre-blending, no-holds-barred style because it gave him ultimate control over the feel of the band’s sound, rather than experimenting for its own sake.

George was a skilled musician and audio engineer, but his artistic perspective was as influential to his studio sessions as his technical prowess. Little Feat’s sound gave listeners welcome surprises. One could never quite predict when George would cue a bass solo or a drum breakdown, and his lyrics and song narratives were anything but formulaic. He understood that this liveliness needed to be contrasted with steadiness. And that steadiness could be found in the silence he left between notes.

“Space is a place” was his studio motto.^[11] As rock music got busier, sometimes producing noise for noise’s sake, George’s compositions were guided by breathing room as much as the notes themselves, making for a dynamic listening experience no matter the album. Because of this motto, his slide guitar solos sang rather than screamed; they didn’t demand attention: they beckoned listeners, pulling them in.

His ingenuity didn’t stop at the studio. When performing, he often played slide guitar with a spark plug socket wrench rather than a traditional bottleneck slide, allowing him to sustain notes longer. His slide setup also gave his playing a distinct texture that evoked some of his heaviest blues influences.

The Inspiration of Howlin’ Wolf

No other musician influenced the California songwriter more than black Chicago blues vocalist Chester Burnett. Better known as Howlin’ Wolf, he remains one of America’s legendary bluesmen, releasing such enduring classics as “Smokestack Lightning.” During his heyday in the 1950s, yodeling was still popular among genres such as country, blues, and folk, but Howlin’ Wolf couldn’t yodel. Instead, when he sang in falsetto, he created a vocal slide up to a note, then held it, adding plenty of vibrato to give his vocal runs a melodic howl in place of yodeling (artists such as Adele use this technique often nowadays, but Howlin’ Wolf helped pioneer it). George followed in his footsteps in creatively overcoming musical limitations. Due to a hand injury sustained while working on model planes, it was hard for George to fully fret all six guitar strings with his left hand. So, he mastered slide guitar instead.

George was so taken with Howlin’ Wolf that he created a litmus test in his honor, which he used to decide with whom he wanted to work. If someone mentioned a player who wanted to collaborate with him, George would ask, “Is he versed in the ways of Chester Burnett?”^[12] If the player didn’t know that Chester Burnett was Howlin’ Wolf’s real name, George wasn’t interested.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it was common for musicians who happened to be white to be influenced by the blues, a historically black genre. George covered Howlin’ Wolf live with such songs as “How Many More Years.” Some critics worried that these white artists were committing what some would now call “cultural appropriation,” the supposed co-opting of a “marginalized” culture by a “dominant” one. But in a 1967 interview, Howlin’ Wolf highlighted how foundational blues musicians could profit from their music becoming mainstream. When asked about the prevalence of musicians, including young, white musicians, recording blues music from the past, he responded by pointing out that music has the power to connect different musicians through the shared love of a melody. He explained, “It doesn’t matter no different who sang your song. They sang because of the way they feel.”^[13] Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset, he also remarked, “Well I’ll tell you, there’s nothing wrong with that. I want all of them to make my records, because I gets money out of it, see,” he said, referencing the royalty payments he would receive when someone covered his songs.^[14]

For George, Howlin’ Wolf’s catalog and the blues genre as a whole didn’t represent an opportunity for appropriation, but appreciation and innovation. In the blues he found artistic alignment and inspiration.

“What Is Success?”

Among their loyal following, the visionary rock group was known as a must-see live band for their energetic performances. While writing for Let It Rock magazine, journalist Mick Houghton highlighted the band’s tight-knit sound, a foundation that anchored performances through lengthy solos and various reimagined versions of their originals. “As musicians Little Feat are as compatible an outfit as you could hope to find,” he writes.^[15] But George also felt right at home in a recording studio.

“Lowell George’s distinctive style of slide guitar and vocalizing,” writes Gelinas, “helped create a style of music that was a unique blend of second-line funk, gospel, Chicago blues, jazz and country balladry that still stands today as one of the most unique developments in American popular music during the 1970s.”^[16]

For George, music was all about exploration. But for his band’s label, Warner Bros. Records, music needed to be about replication. It was hard for a label to promote a band it struggled to define stylistically. George would not renounce his artistic vision for anyone or anything. He understood the importance of being a profitable act. But for the visionary musician, profit had to be married to passion no matter the project. “What is success?” he asked during an interview. “It certainly isn’t money,” he answered. He then clarified, “Money helps. But doing something that you really like doing as a profession is really success to me.”^[17] After album release days, George would visit various stores in person, only to find their new record wasn’t stocked.^[18] Instead of changing his band’s sound to a more mainstream rock to boost sales and please the label, he and his bandmates toured extensively to make up the difference. The pressures of being a band manager, frontman, producer, and songwriter wore on George over the group’s ten years together from 1969 to 1979. As Little Feat disbanded due to personal differences and professional fatigue, George set out on a solo career. In March 1979, he released his debut solo album, Thanks I’ll Eat It Here. But poor health and substance abuse caught up with the dedicated musician. In June 1979, George passed away from a heart attack at the age of thirty-four. Although he battled and sometimes succumbed to vices, his artistic virtue eclipsed them.

Little Feat’s heroic legacy is not that of record label darling or radio-friendly band but of a group revered by record label darlings and radio-friendly bands. Little Feat was a band’s band, and George was a musician’s musician. Led Zeppelin founder and lead guitarist Jimmy Page once called Little Feat his “favorite American group.”^[19] His bandmate, singer and frontman Robert Plant, once got a slap on the wrist for playing Little Feat records too loud in a hotel. Both modern blues icon Eric Clapton and one of rock’s most famous bands, Van Halen, covered George’s originals live and on records. Folk-rocker Jackson Browne was so taken with George’s magnetism that he called him “the Orson Welles of rock.”^[20]

At Little Feat’s helm was an imperfect but ingenious captain who navigated and explored the islands of musical genres and built from his discoveries a new melodic world—a world today’s musicians continue to mine for their own artistic gold.

^[1] Mark Brend, Rock and Roll Doctor, Backbeat Books, 2002, 6, https://archive.org/details/rockrolldoctorlo0000bren/mode/2up.

^[2] J P Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection,” Furious magazine, August 2008, https://www.furious.com/perfect/lowellgeorge.html.

^[3] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[4] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[5] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[6] Paul Sexton, “Pursuing Atmosphere in Music: Robert Palmer in 20 Quotes,” udiscovermusic, 2006, https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/robert-palmer-in-20-quotes.

^[7] Earl Guthrie, “Lowell George Interview WXRT Chicago, June 15, 1979,”

.

^[8] Elizabeth Nelson, “Lowell George in Eight and a Half Songs, Oxford American, December 2021, https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-115-winter-2021/lowell-george-in-eight-and-a-half-songs.

^[9] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[10] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[11] “Lowell George: Feats First,” directed by Jon Storey, 2015, https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B078TNR4J9/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r.

^[12] Albert Corey, “Lowell George—Feats First,” Life since the Baby Boom, July 2023,

Life Since the Baby Boom

Lowell George - Feats First

IMDb page…

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3 years ago · 2 likes · Albert Cory

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^[13] Chris Stratchwitz, “Howlin’ Wolf Interview,” The Chris Stratchwitz Collection, Arhoolie Foundation, April 1967, https://arhoolie.org/howlin-wolf-interview-2/.

^[14] Stratchwitz, “Howlin’ Wolf Interview.”

^[15] Michael Houghton, “Little Feat Albums,” Let It Rock, March 1975, Rock’s Backpages, https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/little-feat-albums.

^[16] Gelinas, “Lowell George, Perfect Imperfection.”

^[17] Guthrie, “Lowell George Interview WXRT Chicago.”

^[18] Jon Storey, “Lowell George: Feats First,” Pride Studios, 2015, Amazon.

^[19] Jackson Maxwell, “Eric Clapton and Van Halen Covered His Songs, and He Led Jimmy Page’s Favorite American Band: Watch Overlooked Guitar Genius Lowell George Demonstrate His Slide Technique on German TV,” Guitar World magazine, July 2023, https://www.guitarworld.com/features/lowell-george-slide-guitar-german-tv-1977.

^[20] Maxwell, “Watch Overlooked Guitar Genius Lowell George.”

Written and directed by Luc Besson
Starring Caleb Landry Jones, Zoë Bleu, Christoph Waltz
Distributed by SND (France)
Running time: 129 minutes
Rated R for graphic violence and brief nudity

Author’s note: This review essay contains major spoilers.

Dracula: A Love Tale (2025), arguably director Luc Besson’s most mature and ambitious film to date, elevates itself above most modern movies in two critically important ways: It engages deeply and sincerely with fundamental human values, and it respects its audience rather than lecturing them. It deserves meaningful praise on these grounds, but its reach ultimately exceeds its grasp because it tries to tell a love story without understanding what love is.

Sometime in the 15th century, Romanian prince Vladislav of Wallachia (a fictionalized version of Vlad the Impaler played by Caleb Landry Jones) leads a small army to victory against Ottoman invaders. He takes the field reluctantly; he would much rather be at home with his wife, Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu). They are in their mid-to-late thirties, but their relationship is passionate and youthful in its simplicity. They clearly adore one another, and their conversations imply that they would give up their political power in favor of a simpler life if they could.

While Vladislav is engaged in battle, a small band of Ottoman assassins hunts down Elisabeta, whom he believes has safely escaped the area. Vladislav rushes to her aid when he hears of the attack from a witness, but he is too late to save her.

Vladislav, enraged, confronts the local cardinal and accuses him of failing to “pray hard enough” for God to protect Elisabeta. When the cardinal protests that he is only God’s humble messenger and cannot force God to do anything, Vladislav responds, “Good. I have a message that I want you to deliver to him. Tell your God that, until he brings me back my wife, my life no longer belongs to him.” He then murders the cardinal and desecrates the chapel. For this transgression, God curses Vladislav with eternal unlife as the first vampire, Dracula. Over the next four centuries, Dracula scours the globe, searching tirelessly for Elisabeta, whom he is convinced eventually will be reincarnated.

Like countless stories throughout history, Dracula equates intense passion with love, but these are not the same thing. In the movie’s opening scenes, we see that Vladislav and Elisabeta have strong feelings for one another, but we never see where these feelings come from. Without knowing (or at least being able to reasonably infer) why they love one another, we cannot even say with any real confidence that the story we’re being told is a love story; we can, at best, only take the storyteller’s word for it.

Consider Bonnie and Clyde, who are almost always presented as having been deeply in love with one another. Together, they murdered at least twelve people, threatened and assaulted dozens of others, and stole around $2 million (in 2026 dollars). Both of them were evil—full stop. Does it make sense to say that evil people can experience true love? Most people can sense that something is deeply wrong with such a claim, even if they can’t articulate why.

Now consider Aragorn and Arwen from Lord of the Rings, arguably one of the best examples of romantic love in fiction. Both are exemplars of outstanding moral character, and both fight to shield Middle-Earth from Sauron’s relentless malice. They treat one another and their friends with sincere affection, respect, and kindness. They want nothing more than to live a peaceful life together, but both are willing to die, if necessary, in defense of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Undeniably, the love that Aragorn and Arwen share is romantic love in its purest form—its only real form, in fact. Does it make any sense to use the word “love” both in reference to them and to Bonnie and Clyde?

The essential (but not the only) element of romantic love is deep admiration of and respect for another person’s rational, life-serving values and character. Romantic love is a combination of such admiration and respect, and of physical (usually sexual) attraction.^[1] Without the former, the latter is nothing but infatuation or lust.

Throughout Dracula’s two-hour runtime, we see very little of Elisabeta’s moral character. In contrast, we learn a lot about Dracula’s character—and most of what we see is not good. He is driven by obsession bordering on lunacy, utterly indifferent to the hundreds of lives he destroys in pursuit of his goal. Realizing that finding the reincarnated Elisabeta on his own is impossible, he creates dozens of vampires to aid him in a worldwide search spanning centuries, condemning each of those people to the same eternal, unbearable curse from which he himself longs to be released. Perhaps Vladislav was a good person before Elisabeta’s death; we should concede that that is possible, and her love for him may initially have grown from genuine and legitimate admiration of his character. However, even if Vladislav were deserving of love before her death, he certainly is not afterward.

After four hundred years, Dracula’s search comes to an end when he meets Mina Murray, who looks identical to Elisabeta but is engaged to Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid). He inserts himself into Mina’s social life, carefully observing her mannerisms to ensure that she is indeed Elisabeta reincarnated. Once he is certain, he gives her a music box that he originally gifted to her before her death, and the melody reawakens her memories of her past life. When she learns what Dracula has become and of the atrocities he has committed in her name, she responds not with moral revulsion but with desperation: She begs him to turn her into a vampire so that they can be together forever.

Here, Dracula displays a glimmer of moral clarity for the first of only two times in the film. He initially refuses to turn her, saying “You have your whole life ahead of you, and I only offer death.” When she persists, he relents, condemning the woman he supposedly loves to the same endless pain he originally brought on himself and has since forced on so many others. It should go without saying that true love precludes inflicting horrendous, long-term suffering on one’s partner, no matter how great the immediate temptation or perceived short-term gain. True love requires thinking deeply and carefully about the long-term well-being of oneself and one’s partner, and about what is required to achieve and maintain the well-being of both partners in reality, in harmony with one another and without contradiction or rationalization. It requires taking all of this seriously and acting accordingly, consistently over time. True love is a profoundly emotional experience, but it is not solely an emotional experience; it depends on and requires rational thought. “Love” that defies reason—and thereby inevitably undermines or even destroys the well-being of either partner or of anyone else—is not love in any meaningful sense.

When Dracula retreats to his castle with Elisabeta, Harker and an unnamed priest heavily implied to be Van Helsing (Christoph Waltz), who has been hunting Dracula for decades, gather a small army of Romanian soldiers and assault the castle. Dracula kills dozens and vows to kill all who come after him or his wife. When only Van Helsing is left standing, he and Dracula share the best dialogue in the film:

Dracula: So you are the priest who has chased my people for so many years.

Van Helsing: Yes—but rest assured, I didn’t come to fight you.

Dracula: Nor I. I fight God; I’m not interested in his servants.

Van Helsing: No. You’re not fighting God, my son. You’re fighting yourself.

Dracula: No. No, no. I fought and I killed in his name.

Van Helsing: We live and we breathe in his name. Why would he want us to destroy his creation? Man kills in his own name—and you’re doing it again.

Dracula: That is all just very fine words. God sent you here to kill me.

Van Helsing: God sent me here to save you.

Dracula: So God wants to save me now, after he denies me the right to die for centuries?

Van Helsing: But this is not a punishment. This is an opportunity. Repent, Dracula, for your salvation.

Dracula: She is my salvation.

Van Helsing: But you are her damnation.

They are interrupted when more soldiers arrive and renew the assault on the castle. Dracula, appearing to seriously consider Van Helsing’s words, kills more soldiers but ultimately surrenders when the priest corners him once more and says simply, “Save her.” Dracula allows Van Helsing to mortally wound him, which breaks the curse of vampirism and makes Elisabeta human once again, along with the other surviving victims of Dracula’s power.

As Dracula is dying, Elisabeta, beside herself with grief, asks why he would choose to leave her behind just as they finally have been reunited. His last words to her are: “Because I love you.”

Narratively, Dracula’s sudden change of heart doesn’t work because it’s unearned; it happens too quickly and with far too little internal struggle on his part. Such an extreme one-eighty does not believably transpire in a matter of minutes after four hundred years of single-minded obsession.

Rushed ending aside, Dracula does have something important to say, although its message has little to do with love. Dracula’s final act, morally speaking, is not nearly enough to redeem his past sins—but it’s not nothing, either. The film makes important points about free will, partial atonement, and imperfect justice, but it ultimately fails as a work of art because its actual theme diverges sharply from its intended theme. Its actual theme—the central idea that integrates and follows logically from the events of the plot when all the characters’ actions are considered in full context—is something along the lines of “Not all evil men are completely beyond redemption.”

The movie’s intended theme—something like “the power of love as a force for good”—could not have followed from the events of the plot nor been earned artistically, even under the best of circumstances, because Besson (who also wrote the screenplay) does not understand what love is and what it is not.^[2] Love—real love—is one of the highest and most precious values possible to man, and consistent moral virtue is the only foundation on which it can be built. A single act of sincere atonement at the end of a lifetime of wanton butchery is not morally worthless, but neither is it remotely akin to an act of real love.

Despite its fatal thematic flaw, Dracula is a well-acted and beautifully filmed tale of obsession, hope, regret, and justice (mostly with respect to Harker and Van Helsing in the latter case). It’s worth watching, and it’s one of the better films of 2025—it’s just not a love story. Even though it fails to show us what love is, it shows us with inadvertent clarity what love is not, and that, too, is a valuable lesson.

^[1] Romantic love can exist without mutual sexual attraction, but this is exceedingly rare.

^[2] It’s possible that Besson understands what love is but nonetheless chose to fundamentally misrepresent it in his screenplay for some reason, but this seems highly unlikely.

The 1960s and ’70s were replete with glamorous spy shows and movies. Many, from the James Bond movies to Danger Man, focused more on style than substance, offering simple storylines that served primarily as vehicles for an escape into a world of suave spies, international intrigue, and indulgence in all manner of pleasures.

However, a few delivered richer stories interwoven with valuable ideas. A stand-out example of this is The Persuaders! (1971), a short-lived series telling the story of two wealthy hedonists who gradually discover the values of justice, purpose, and friendship.

At the start of the series, American street kid turned successful oil investor Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) and British aristocrat Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) are indulging in all the pleasures that the Côte d’Azur has to offer. After a chance meeting at Nice airport, the two clash like children, showing off to win over the same women, racing their sports cars along the Riviera, and even trashing a restaurant in a fistfight over how many olives should go in a drink. They are bailed out of jail by the retired Judge Fulton (Laurence Naismith) on the condition that they use their influence, wits, and resources to help him track down and expose a notorious criminal ringleader he was unable to put away during his legal career. In convincing them that the dangerous mission is preferable to sitting in a French prison, he admonishes the two men about their hedonistic lifestyles, delivering what doubles as a meta-critique of the playboy protagonists popular in spy shows of the time. Referencing Wilde’s past success in building his massive fortune from scratch, he remarks,

You were a nothing who became something. And now, you’re a nothing again. . . You have a remarkable talent. . . But what have you done with it? You just drift around the world, gambling and womanizing. . . Yours is the glib tongue at a hundred mindless parties. . . Two adult men, both with immense potential—and you fight over an olive!

Fulton talks them into using their connections, skills, and reputations to help him catch his target. Over the episodes that follow, Fulton regularly tasks Wilde and Sinclair with new missions as he works to settle his regrets about all the criminals who escaped justice during his time as a judge. As well as appealing to the two men’s egos, Fulton initially must remind them that he has the power to have them put away for their many legal transgressions in the pursuit of pleasure, but over time, they begin to savor their new sense of purpose. Eventually, they even begin some crime-fighting missions of their own, often motivated by the desire to rescue or protect an innocent person victimized by some kind of criminal operation.

Although this pursuit of justice drives the show’s action, the heart of its story lies in the friendship that develops between Wilde and Sinclair. Their relationship evolves from childish competitiveness and bravado into what in modern terms might be called a “bromance.” They continue to chide each other over everything from their backgrounds and dialects to their driving skills and drink choices, but that banter quickly shifts from derogatory to affectionate. Curtis and Moore excel at portraying a loving friendship hidden behind a veneer of masculine antics, making the two’s admiration and care for each other plainly visible even in interactions that otherwise would seem foolish and argumentative. The evolution of their relationship is a pleasure to watch, and it makes it natural and satisfying to see the two risk life and limb for each other when things get serious.

Wilde and Sinclair’s friendship, much like their crime-fighting escapades, fills their lives with purpose once again. This is what makes The Persuaders! such an extraordinary example among spy shows of its era: It’s really a story about discovering what’s important in life. At the same time, it’s a lighthearted adventure that oozes 1970s aesthetics—from cars to clothes and much more—and that revels in the more unrestrained attitudes of that time with its risqué humor, especially around Wilde and Sinclair’s constant attempts to woo the women they meet in the course of their exploits.

Like most classic spy shows, The Persuaders! is a fun opportunity to enjoy action, glamor, and intrigue—but unlike many, it has at its core a valuable message about why the pursuit of a life-serving purpose, not merely of pleasure, gives a man’s life meaning. Its fifty-fifth anniversary is a great time to revisit its short, twenty-four-episode run and enjoy how fun yet thoughtful TV shows once were.

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a live talk and has been lightly edited. It retains the cadence and idiosyncrasies of an oral presentation.

If I were to ask you to name the greatest American entrepreneur of all time, you’d probably think of all the business titans, those some people call the “robber barons”; most people are going to think of …

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Arka Serezh is the founder of Gondor Industries, a company pioneering robotically cut stone for architecture and sculpture. I interviewed him at the premises of The Stonemasonry Company in Stamford, England, where he has established his first robotic stonemasonry operation.

Thomas Walker-Werth: How did you get into stone masonry? When did you realize tha…

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Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, and Kali Reis
Written by Marco van Belle
Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios
Rated PG-13 for violence, bloody images, some strong language, drug content, and teen smoking.

Imagine that you are wrongly accused of murdering someone close to you. You don’t have an advocate to defend you or a jury to convince of your innoce…

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The Dream of Flight

Wilbur Wright

“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.”

Wilbur …

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Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a live talk and has been lightly edited. It retains the cadence and idiosyncrasies of an oral presentation.

Many of us tend to think of fiction as primarily fun or entertaining. Good stories are fun, and we should enjoy them. However, we can also get other benefits from good stories that are less obvious but no…

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Rush’s “2112” is no ordinary rock song. Released in March 1976, it’s a twenty-one-minute epic composed of seven movements telling a complete story about the mind-destroying natures of tyranny and collectivism. It’s a song that wouldn’t exist if not for the band’s dogged dedication to their artistic integrity. If their record label had had its way, “2112…

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Thousands of people—entrepreneurs, scientists, activists, diplomats, even astronauts—thank one TV series for inspiring them to pursue those careers: Star Trek.^[1] I count myself among that number; Star Trek inspired …

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If you’re looking for rich, thought-provoking cinema, a James Bond movie is probably not what you’re going to watch. Both Ian Fleming’s original novels and most of the twenty-five 007 films convey a general theme of heroism and patriotism, focusing on the defense of Western freedom and the British way of life from the Soviets and other threats. Beyond t…

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With Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein adaptation recently hitting movie theaters and streaming services, it’s worth revisiting Mary Shelley’s classic gothic novel (originally published in 1818 as Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus) and a persistent misunderstanding of the story’s meaning.^[1]

The idea that “man is the real monster” has long been a p…

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Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Christoph Waltz
Distributed by Netflix
Running time: 150 minutes
Rated R for violence, gore, and brief nudity

Author’s note: This review contains minor spoilers.

Few (if any) novels have been adapted and retold more than Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. By 2025, almost no take on t…

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Human history is replete with social and political systems that sought to subjugate the individual to the supposed needs or will of the group. Communism, fascism, and direct democracy are all examples of such systems.

Ultimately, however, the people who implement these systems can only control others through physical force; they cannot control what other…

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Starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn
Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Rated PG-13 for action/violence and some language.

Author’s note: This review contains spoilers.

The widespread obsession with superhero movies, which began sometime around Spider-Man (2002) and hit its peak during the Marvel Cinemat…

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Author’s Note: This article is adapted from a talk I gave at LevelUp 2025 in Orlando.

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Author’s note: This review contains spoilers.

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The Village Blacksmith

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands,
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long;
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet…

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