Inhaltsverzeichnis für May 2020 in Rolling Stone

“When I get to heaven, I’m gonna shake God’s hand/Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand/Then I’m gonna get a guitar and start a rock & roll band.”—JOHN PRINE, “When I Get to Heaven” THIS IS THE first issue of ROLLING STONE we have ever produced without being in the same room together. Magazine making is an intensely collaborative effort among writers, editors, researchers, designers, and photographers — yet in March, and now into April, we, like many Americans, are forced to work in isolation, communicating over phone, email, Slack and Zoom, as we adapt to this terrifying, temporary new global reality. As I write this, many staffers have been working for weeks alone in a hushed and fearful New York City, with ambulance sirens as…

[JOHN PRINE, 1946—2020] ON JOHN PRINE’S FINAL TOUR, he played everywhere from Radio City Music Hall to Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where his parents are from. But as he planned the itinerary for the last leg, there was one place he knew he still needed to hit: Paris. The city had never seemed to care for Prine. His down-to-earth folk songs had spread to Ireland, England, and even Scandinavia, but a promoter told his touring manager Mitchell Drosin that there was no point in booking France; he’d lose money if he brought his band. “John said, ‘I don’t give a shit. I want to play Paris and stay at the George V,’ which is one of the most expensive hotels in the world,” says Drosin. Drosin booked a show for…

The End of October Lawrence Wright KNOPF TEN YEARS AGO, Lawrence Wright was sitting at his desk thinking about the end of the world. The Looming Tower, his book about the rise of Al Qaeda and the events that led to 9/11, had won a Pulitzer, making him the go-to guy for penning tales about catastrophes of epic proportions. So it was no surprise when director Ridley Scott called him up one day to talk about The Road, Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic literary masterpiece. “Ridley’s question was, ‘Well, what the fuck happened?’” Wright, 72, tells me over the phone from his home in Austin. “I thought that was an interesting question: ‘What would have caused civilization to crack and crumble?’” Wright set to work creating a screenplay to answer that…

THE COVID-19 CRISIS WHILE AMERICANS DIED of the modern plague, President Trump sang happy birthday to a fading Fox News personality. On March 7th, a who’s who of the Republican establishment gathered at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s lavish retreat in Florida, for the 51st birthday party of Kimberly Guilfoyle, one of the former co-hosts of The Five, and now the girlfriend of Donald J. Trump Jr. All the usual suspects were there, including Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham; Tiffany Trump; Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner; and Trump’s younger son Eric and his wife, Lara. They sang happy birthday to Guilfoyle and lit a big sparkler. At the end, she pumped her fist and shouted “Four more years!” ✪ This is what passes for a cozy family celebration…

Rema A 19-year-old charmer from Nigeria who makes irresistible pop-rap hits WHEN REMA THINKS about the past two years of his life, a time in which he’s rocketed from Benin City, Nigeria, to global stardom, he’s reminded of the biblical story of David. “He took care of the sheep,” says the 19-year-old rapper and singer, citing the ways he’s tried to provide for the other artists in his hometown. “On the fateful day David went to give food to his brothers and he saw Goliath, that was the same way I fought through all my struggles.” It started in 2018, when Rema — real name Divine Ikubor — recorded a viral freestyle over “Gucci Gang,” a local hit by Nigerian artist D’Prince. Sitting in a car, wearing a maroon…

Who are your heroes? Nelson Mandela. I knew him at the end of his life when he came out of prison, and I was so taken aback that he embraced love instead of hate. When I first met him, he came to me, and his line was, “Young man, I’d like to thank you for your lyrics [and] your music because it helped me through many years of being in prison.” And I started crying in front of him and could not stop. Richie has launched his own fragrance collection, Hello by Lionel Richie. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? My dad used to always say, “What is the similarity between a hero and a coward? Both were scared to death. It’s just that one stepped forward and…

“Thank you, Greta, for leading by example. Each of us who feels weak and small will stand by you, and together we will be large and heard.”—Judy Faint Christopher, via Facebook Greta’s Crusade Activist Greta Thunberg appeared on the cover of the special Climate Crisis issue of ROLLING STONE [“Greta’s World,” RS 1338] in April. Senior writer Stephen Rodrick traveled to Stockholm to see where her movement started and witness the teenager in action. At one of her signature school strikes, Thunberg opened up about her life and what drives her. Thunberg’s vulnerability and steely resolve inspired thoughtful reflections from readers. “As a woman, I am incredibly excited to hear the word ‘emotional’ being described as a strength,” wrote Olivia Binette. “Greta is an inspiration to girls and women…

WHEN THE KILLERS began work on their new album, Imploding the Mirage, they had virtually everything they needed: a batch of new songs, a seven-month break from the road, and a large home studio nestled away in Park City, Utah, where they could work and live without distraction. The only thing missing was their guitarist, Dave Keuning. Keuning started the band back in 2001, when he took out an ad in a Las Vegas newspaper looking for local musicians to play with. The first song he wrote with future Killers frontman Brandon Flowers after they met up was “Mr. Brightside.” But Keuning stepped away from the road shortly after the recording of 2017’s Wonderful Wonderful, citing factors including creative frustration, and he hasn’t played with the Killers in the…

How do you manage to keep such a positive and upbeat attitude in the face of illnesses over the years? I have had several serious health diagnoses, and there are days I just feel so less than I did five years ago, mentally and physically. How do you address these feelings? — Toni Leedy, NC Physical stuff is really tough. You have to find some core of strength within yourself to hold on to when you’re dealing with it. You have to believe that you can survive it. I did 72 days in UCLA hospital. I was dying. It was insanely difficult. You’ve got to find a positive core in yourself, otherwise you’re just going to be adrift. I was overseas a few months back, on business, and went…

ALICIA KEYS’ new book, More Myself, isn’t your typical celebrity autobiography. Keys charts her path from growing up in Hell’s Kitchen to winning 15 Grammys (and hosting the show twice), but she also calls in famous friends for help: Bono, Oprah, Jay-Z, and husband Swizz Beats each open up chapters with their favorite memories of the singer. Keys says the book is a testament to years of working to take down the “armor” she’s spent a lifetime keeping up. “I’m more open than I’ve ever been,” she says. “Allowing yourself to be who you are is a much more comfortable place to exist in.” Keys, whose next album, Alicia, is due out later this year, talked to us as she quarantined with her family at home in New York.…

THE GREAT LOST NEIL YOUNG ALBUM Recorded in the Seventies, his most personal LP is finally being released. It feels perfect right now Neil Young Homegrown REPRISE ONE LOS ANGELES evening in 1975, Neil Young gathered a few friends together at the Chateau Marmont to play them some music. He had two new albums in the can and wasn’t sure which one to release. There was Tonight’s the Night, his grueling, tequila-engorged meditation on fallen friends and the death of the Sixties. The other record, Homegrown, was harder to pin down; on the surface, it recalled the relaxed country rock that had made Young a star, but that warm exterior hid some of his most personal writing — so personal, in fact, that it was never released. “I think…

[BILL WITHERS, 1938-2020] BILL WITHERS was my first true idol. His debut album, Just As I Am, came out in May 1971, four months after I was born. When I first heard his songs, either on the radio or on my dad’s records, I knew that I was hearing something different. His music and his vocals were as down-to-earth as the earth itself. Too often, black artists get classified as otherworldly talents (Michael Jackson, Prince) or gritty, up-from-the-streets hustlers who are barely overcoming animal instincts (too many to name). Withers was something else: a black everyman, a superb, sensitive, soulful singer-songwriter who understood, and was able to communicate, the life that most of us live. He wrote about love, about loneliness, about anger, about sadness, about humor — all…

ON MARCH 1ST, New York reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19, after a Manhattan health care worker in her late thirties, who had visited Iran, tested positive at a hospital in the city. Six days later, that number had jumped to 89, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency. ✪ Two days later, Donald Trump tweeted, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” As the country faces a national emergency that is graver, for most of us, than any in living memory, a surreal split-screen response has been unfolding…

WHEN MARCH BEGAN we could leave our houses. We could go to work, vote, attend church, or buy groceries without thinking much about any of it. But by March 30th, more than 2,400 people were dead, some 150,000 were known to be infected, roughly 10 million had lost their jobs, and about 80 percent of the population was restricted to their homes. That same day, ROLLING STONE photographers were fanned out across the U.S., from Miami to Detroit, L.A. to Anchorage, Alaska, capturing a snapshot of the country over the course of 48 hours, from a Sunday morning to a Monday night, as more and more communities were pulled into the virus’s riptide. Even that was still just the beginning. “If we do things together well — almost perfectly…