Salvation South

In which our Culture Warrior heaves anchor and explores a new album of sea shanties, among other oddities along the passage.

No metaphor represents Southern culture better than a bowl of gumbo.

Chattanooga, Tennessee, pays tribute to those wonderful folks who rescue us from breakdowns, mud holes and scary places in the middle of the night — the tow truck drivers.

For some, the food of the South has always been barbecue. For others pimento cheese, but in certain areas — and in a certain kind of weather — it is always gumbo.

Remembering Memphis drummer Howard Grimes, who backed Al Green, Ann Peebles, O.V. Wright, Willie Mitchell and others

Florida poet John Davis Jr. contributes “Crossing Middle Age” and two more powerful poems.

In his college admissions essay, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that he first experienced a discrimination-free life while he picked tobacco in a Connecticut field. This is how the story gets told in a car wash.

Yasmin Williams’ amazing guitar techniques have created a new genre that critics (well, at least one critic, ours) is calling shimmer

Chuck Reece says it’s time for kindness, damn it.

Jennifer Crossley Howard recounts her journey from the country club to food stamps — and how she found the grace to make a comeback.

Shelley Johansson shares the story of how sewing has sustained the women of her family for almost a century — from bandages during World War II to masks for the current pandemic.

Jordan Blumetti reflects on “Indigo,” the latest book from one of the South’s greatest living writers, Padgett Powell.