Table of contents for November 2020 in Rolling Stone

IT’S LATE SEPTEMBER, and Keith Richards is back at work after a six-month pause. He boasts that his temperature clocked in at 97.8 degrees when he arrived at a Manhattan studio to resume work on the next Rolling Stones album. “At the moment, I’m just overjoyed to be working,” he says. “There’s not a lot of work out there, you know?” Earlier this year, the Stones released “Living in a Ghost Town” from the sessions, and he and Mick Jagger have been writing remotely — Richards in the U.S. and Jagger in Europe. “We’re communicating from across the Atlantic and waiting for a vaccine,” Richards says, then jokes, “I have thousands of songs. I got enough to keep me busy.” Another project that has occupied his time is a…

My Personal Hero RUTH IS GONE and I will miss her. But she’s leaving behind millions of fighters who will use their grief and their despair as fuel to protect her legacy and honor her memory by fighting for the things she worked for: A woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. Health care for millions of Americans. Dreamers who have made a home here. Voting rights. LGBTQ rights. Workers’ rights. Racial and economic justice. Our democracy. The list goes on. Justice Ginsburg left us with our marching orders: no Supreme Court confirmation until the next president is inaugurated. We must honor Ruth’s “fervent wish.” If we don’t, we risk our rights being snatched away by another right-wing lurch of the Supreme Court. We know exactly what…

The Tech Entrepreneur Building His New Reign GHAZI SHAMI FOUNDER AND CEO Empire GHAZI SHAMI made computers before hit records. “Tech and music have always been simultaneous for me,” says Ghazi, who, over the past 10 years, reared his own distribution and record company, Empire, driving hits from Migos, XXXTentacion, and Tyga. “I got my first real job right after high school building large-format servers — but I was still working on records till four in the morning.” The self-made exec, who prefers going by his first name, is obsessed with efficiency to the degree that he programmed custom software for Empire employees to cut faster deals. When his rising artist Money Man wanted a remix earlier this year, Ghazi hit up Lil Baby on Instagram. “I leapfrogged my…

“This might be the best Springsteen profile I’ve ever read. I can’t wait for this album. I feel lucky to have shared the planet with [him].”—Ellen Clair Lamb, via Twitter Springsteen’s Ghosts For our October issue, Bruce Springsteen appeared on his 16th ROLLING STONE cover. This time, he spoke with senior writer Brian Hiatt about the losses that have shaped his life — from his teenage bandmate George Theiss to E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons — and how their memories informed his new album, Letter to You [“Ghosts, Guitars, and the E Street Shuffle,” RS 1344]. Readers had much to say in response. “It’s hard to find things to be happy about these days,” tweeted Emily Chappell. “This Springsteen article, and his soon-to-be-released album, helped immensely.” Vicki Ann…

I think my husband is having an affair. I would know for sure if I got his phone and read his texts. Would it be wrong of me to spy on him like that? —Mary, Ohio If you have to feel that you need to do that, you’re in the wrong relationship. It’s a basic truth that you can’t love someone if you can’t trust them. I don’t have to check my wife’s phone. Earning that trust isn’t an overnight thing where you say, “Oh, God. You’re my savior. I trust you!” Bullshit. It takes years to earn my trust. I don’t give it up any other way. From what you’re telling me, I think you’re in a failed relationship already. I’m 18 and looking to go into a…

WE’VE LIVED FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS UNDER A MAN CATEGORICALLY unfit to be president. Fortunately for America, Joe Biden is Donald Trump’s opposite in nearly every category: The Democratic presidential nominee evinces competence, compassion, steadiness, integrity, and restraint. Perhaps most important in this moment, Biden holds a profound respect for the institutions of American democracy, as well as a deep knowledge about how our government — and our system of checks and balances — is meant to work; he aspires to lead the nation as its president, not its dictator. The 2020 election, then, offers the nation a chance to reboot and rebuild from the racist, authoritarian, know-nothing wreckage wrought by the 45th president. And there are few Americans better suited to the challenge than Joe Biden. It…

PAUL GETS BACK TO THE COUNTRY McCartney returns to the pastorale sound of his early solo work for a laid-back gem Paul McCartney III CAPITOL EVERY DECADE should kick off with a Paul McCartney one-man-band album — and this one needs it more than most. McCartney III carries on his tradition of homemade solo records, in the mode of his acoustic 1970 debut and his 1980 synth-pop oddity McCartney II. Like its two predecessors, it’s Macca at his most playful. He’s not sweating about being a legend, a genius, or a Beatle — just a family man kicking back in quarantine, writing a few songs to keep his juices flowing. It’s the warmest and friendliest of quarantine albums — it’s basically Ram meets Folklore. Like the rest of us,…

How have you been handling quarantine? Probably like many other people, I have worked on my cooking skills. Cooking for one is … [Pauses.] Yeah, that sounds like a country song, but here we go, I’ve been cooking for one. Some of the dishes are really good, and some of them are real failures, but nobody needs to know. David Byrne’s ‘American Utopia’ performance film is out now on HBO. What do you do when you want to relax? I go for a bike ride. I’ve been soliciting others — friends and band members — to join me. We’ll go to Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, whatever, and just explore different neighborhoods. You’re not just sitting there. You’re seeing a new neighborhood and a place that you didn’t know about, expanding…

AMY LEE misses Brooklyn. She lived there for 12 years with her husband (and later their son, born in 2015), before they left their apartment for Nashville a year ago. “The perfect year,” she says with an eye roll over Zoom. Lee had hoped to be closer to her family in Arkansas and friends in Nashville when she moved, only to find herself stuck at home like the rest of the world. “We haven’t gotten [to see people] as much as we would have liked to because of Covid, but now we are here, and we will be set up for a better next year,” she adds optimistically. That’s not the only plan she’s had to readjust: Earlier this year, her alt-metal band, Evanescence, returned to the studio with…

If you haven’t heard of Flo Milli, ask the nearest teen to finish the line “I like cash …” They’ll almost certainly respond with a singsong-y “and my hair to my ass!” — the indelible opening line from her signature hit, “Beef FloMix.” Milli, 20, recorded it two years ago out of boredom, freestyling over a minor Playboi Carti hit that now sounds weary and washed-out compared with Milli’s vibrant, convincing remake. Soon her song was blowing up on TikTok and featured in countless fancams (compilation videos that fans use to pay tribute to their favorite celebrities), and racking up more than 54 million Spotify plays. “One day I was at college, and the next day I was in New York at label meetings,” says Milli, who studied business…

JEREMY STRONG is not a broken man. He comes from a good family — his mom a hospice nurse, his father a social worker. Strong went to Yale and picked up tips from Daniel Day-Lewis while serving as the actor’s assistant. He knows what he’s doing. Professionally, he is a favorite of Aaron Sorkin. Currently, he is happily ensconced in Brooklyn with his wife and two little kids. Alas, he plays a broken man on television. In fact, Strong’s Kendall Roy is one of the best broken men in the history of the idiot box. The fucked-up second-oldest son of media titan Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox) on HBO’s delightfully grim Succession, Kendall pinballs from patricidal thoughts to drug-addled Chappaquiddick moments to ill-conceived freestyle raps, with stopovers at…

BEFORE DONALD TRUMP got himself infected with the coronavirus, he had firmly secured his place as the worst president in American history. Now, after mocking Joe Biden at their first debate for mask wearing, Trump has proved to be a reckless superspreader, risking the lives of donors at a New Jersey fundraiser and the Secret Service agents sworn to protect him by demanding a bizarre motorcade photo op outside of Walter Reed hospital. One aide and associate after another of those exposed to him — and his wife — have fallen victim to the virus. Trump’s coronavirus policy, or rather the absence of it, had already been shown to have morbid consequences. Herman Cain, the former pizza king, could testify about that had he not died due to complications…

LONG AFTER THE MUSIC FADED OUT, she can still hear the hateful words. The year was 1969, and Linda Martell hoped to become one of country music’s breakthrough acts. She had a single on the charts, an album on the way, and the backing of a Nashville industry player. The next step was to play live, and her newly hired booking agent secured a gig in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, to work out her stage show. Martell had a warm smile, a stylish beehive, and a way with country phrasing, as heard on that hit, “Color Him Father,” a story-song about a hardworking stepdad who cares for a woman and her seven children after her husband is killed in combat. But Martell was a black woman, singing in a genre…