Because he’s written so many great tunes for other performers, some people might get the wrong idea about Marshall Crenshaw. He’s also a fine singer. No matter how many celebrity vocalists have tackled his stuff, nobody puts more into a Marshall Crenshaw song than the man himself. If you somehow have overlooked the music of this 55-year-old Detroit native, you should immediately dive into the pond with the 2006 double-CD of his early stuff, Marshall Crenshaw: The Definitive Pop Collection (Rhino), then fast-forward to his new one, Jaggedland (429). Naturally, the voice sounds a little more lived-in almost 30 years later, but the songs are every bit as finely crafted. Crenshaw is guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Crenshaw: I’ve read about 1,300 pages of the 1,600-page Reclaiming History: The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy, plus a couple of other books on the JFK assassination, and I now don’t believe, in any way, shape or form, that this particular crime was carried out by the U.S. government or any agents thereof. Once upon a time, and for a while, I leaned toward believing otherwise. Also, for my money, Lee Harvey Oswald’s actual biography—and the evidence against him as a lone actor—is altogether a far better and more interesting story than any conspiracy theory that I’ve ever read or heard. We all have to decide for ourselves what does or doesn’t seem to ring true, but I think that the facts are solidly on Vincent Bugliosi‘s side.
