For a limited time, get our North Carolina Music Issue (2018) and our South Carolina Music Issue (2019) for just $20. Both editions come with a supplementary compilation CD and digital download card. That must be music to your ears! 

Our 20th Annual Music Issue features more than 25 stories exploring the history and legacy of North Carolina music. Among the contributors are novelists Jonathan Lethem, Jill McCorkle, and Wiley Cash, and the beloved North Carolina musicians Rhiannon Giddens and Tift Merritt. Nina Simone, one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, is the cover artist and subject of a feature essay written by poet Tiana Clark. The CD features NC legends like Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, James Taylor, Elizabeth Cotten, and many others. 

Our 21st annual Southern Music Issue features more than 25 stories and poems exploring the history and legacy of South Carolina music. Among the many notable contributors to the 2019 Southern Music Issue are National Book Award–winning poet Nikky Finney; fiction writers Thomas Pierce and George Singleton; musicians Marshall Chapman and Melvin Gibbs; and essayists John Jeremiah Sullivan and Zandria F. Robinson. The CD features tracks ranging from a 1937 field recording of the gospel choir the Plantation Echoes to Gullah-Geechee revivalists Ranky Tanky’s 2019 single “Freedom.” In signature Oxford American style, the compilation also includes beloved artists such as Reverend Gary Davis, Linda Martell, Shovels & Rope, and Iron & Wine.