The memorial service for Richard LaValliere on Feb. 16 gave relatives and friends an opportunity to share their thoughts about the wildly creative bassist and songwriter, the engine behind the Oil Tasters, who died recently in his Brooklyn apartment...

Whether it's called Mardi Gras or Carnival, the idea of a final blowout before the austere season of Lent has traveled widely across the world. In Armenia, the big party is called Poon Paregentan (literally, “Good Living”), and this weekend the Milwaukee celebration features the Wisconsin band MidEast Beat...

A Separation, which has already earned three prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival...

Mark Borchardt, the low- (or was it no-?) budget filmmaker documented in the 1999 cult favorite American Movie, hasn't stood still in the years since he first made a splash. He has appeared on “Late Show With David Letterman” and other...

Pleasure has a long history, and so do desserts in Michael Krondl's delicious account. The award-winning cooking instructor finds a sweet tradition going back thousands of years in India, where the ambrosia is described in Hindu scriptures, and archeological...

Denzel Washington is the reason to watch Safe House, an otherwise-by-numbers...

Scott Walker underestimated the people of Wisconsin. He probably imagined the usual dozen activists, plus a handful of trade unionists already dispirited from a quarter-century of retreat, would gather outside his office with the usual brain dead chant...

The narrow road winds through bleak country, devoid of life for many miles save the squawking sea gulls overhead...

The great and even ordinary soul singers of the '60s and '70s trained before live audiences—often in church. Ironically, the recordings they were known for were polished to a bright gleam in studio settings, making it hard to top the emotional heft when...

Cultural historians usually write off the “chitlin' circuit” that sustained African-American musicians from the 1930s through the '60s as a cruel, exploitative system. Preston Lauterbach thinks otherwise. In his endlessly fascinating and richly evocative account...