Every once in a while an artist like Sarah McLachlan comes along who not only creates great and lasting music, but also great and lasting change. It’s the kind of change that happens with an inordinate amount of personal investment, sacrifice, good will and the ability to lead.

With the exception of Bob Dylan, no other artist has so successfully fused a poet’s sensibility to rock’s visceral energy than Patti Smith.

It’s easy to see the profound influence the great blues players had on Bonnie Raitt, who to this day carries with her an unmatched soulfulness in all aspects of her life.

—By Lydia Hutchinson When the times were a-changin’, Tom Paxton was there. A true pioneer of the 1960s folk movement, Tom sang regularly at Greenwich Village’s infamous Gaslight Club, and helped blaze the trail for a whole generation of singer-songwriters while...

Stories behind Elvis Costello’s songs “Watching the Detectives,” “Man Out of Time,” “Everyday I Write the Book,” “So Like Candy,” “Mistress and Maid,” and “Indoor Fireworks.”

Rosanne Cash’s essay for Performing Songwritert on how important art is in our lives, and how vital it is for us to be truthful when we’re creating.

A working definition of Stevie Wonder’s brand of soul music could be optimism in the face of heartbreak. His life has been full of both.

The stories behind Loretta Lynn’s songs “Honky Tonk Girl,” “Your Squaw Is On the Warpath,” “Fist City,” and “Dear Uncle Sam.”