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Yazoo Records. Stax Records--the Memphis Horns hit me right where I like getting hit. Luaka Bop Records--for Shuggie Otis and for being my inroad to Tropicalia. What Delicate Records. Atlantic's R&B Records. Sweet Soul Music in general.

I like Steve Reich, Stockhausen, and the 70s Miles Davis (and the 60s, 50s, and 40s Miles too). The Talking Heads still speak very clearly to me. They make me nod, both in rhythm and in agreement.

I deeply admire, envy, and respect my peers and am grateful for everything I've learned from them: The Rude Staircase. Jim White. Don Chambers + GOAT. The Blue Eyed Blacks. Bill Doss. The Drive-By Truckers.

I am fond of the Acoustic and Electric Guitars. Jazz music, both free and less free. The Meters...man I don't know where Zigaboo Modeliste and Leo Nocentelli learned to subdivide time the way they did, but it's Einsteinian--Porter and Neville, too, but those syncopations in the guitar and drums give me the joyful fear of music. I love New Orleans R&B, Allen Toussaint, Dr. John.

I love Country Music.

I don't know if there needs to be a much better song than "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. Oh, which reminds me: I saw Jeff Buckley's last show in Memphis. He was talking some weird stuff and playing guitar all crazy.

I watched Neil Young at the Ryman on my in-laws' DVD and was deeply moved. I was moved partially because I named my daughter after that building (Nora Ryman Hargon), and the images of the room stir me. That room--the circle of the pews, the light in the stained glass windows--everything about it gives a clear, clean glimpse of the heights of the spirit that music can aspire a person to. But what moved me about the performance was this self-realization: half of my emotions I discovered while listening to Neil Young. There are some emotions that I cannot feel beyond a certain point without hearing a harmonica.