Barry White

Latest Articles

Loving Barry: What, exactly, makes Barry White so sexy?

“You realize it’s a fat 50-year-old you’re wrecking your life for ...”
Barry White always made me crazy. I'd hear him on the radio and I'd just melt. When he said breathe, I'd say how deep.
By ELIZABETH WEIL | July 03, 2010

Hearing voices

Dave Tompkins chases the Vocoder in his book How To Wreck a Nice Beach
Don’t be fooled by its textbook appearance — How To Wreck a Nice Beach (Melville House/Stop Smiling) is hardly a dry anthropological study of “The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop,” as the subtitle suggests.
By CHRIS FARAONE | May 14, 2010

Vegas and Jungleland

Paul Shaffer and the Big Man tell all
Paul Shaffer is a happenin’ cat. Pick an It Moment from pop culture over the past 30 years and Shaffer was there. He was an original band member on Saturday Night Live . He played hapless promo guy Artie Fufkin in This Is Spinal Tap . Disco? He co-wrote “It’s Raining Men.” And he helped David Letterman break ground as his glittery, ironic bandleader/sidekick.
By JOYCE MILLMAN | November 24, 2009

Carnal knowledge

Nick Cave’s bad Bunny
When I interviewed Nick Cave for the Phoenix three years ago and he told me — drolly, languidly, literarily — that his next writing project was about “a sexually incontinent hand-cream salesman” on the south coast of England, I assumed he was taking the piss.
By JAMES PARKER | October 06, 2009

Crossword: '''Tis the season''

For once, I hope you don't catch on
For once, I hope you don't catch on
By MATT JONES | November 05, 2008

30 lists

Looking forward and looking back, list-style
30 things mentioned in the first issue of the Newpaper, 30 things that we miss, 30 things that weren't around 30 years ago, and more.
By PROVIDENCE PHOENIX STAFF | October 23, 2008

Fallopian follies

While celebrity sages salivate over Hollywood babies, Beltway pundits are spinning the latest wave of ovarian escapades. Have girls really gone wild?
Speculating on celebrity baby “bumps” is Hollywood blood sport.
By KARA BASKIN | September 10, 2008

Retro active

The Regeneration Tour reheats the ’80s
The ’80s, pop culture’s most tenacious decade, were a mix of greed, technological breakthrough, and hope for a bright future.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | August 12, 2008

The million-dollar widow

Why is the Niki Tsongas juggernaut heading backward? Plus, ignoring global warming close to home.
The powerhouses of Massachusetts’s Democratic Party have rallied behind Niki Tsongas’s bid to succeed Fifth District US Congressman Marty Meehan.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | July 26, 2007

Who’s with whom

When John Kerry bowed out of the presidential sweepstakes, it freed Boston’s big Democratic brokers to find a favorite.
For Democratic presidential candidates, Boston is the ATM kiosk on the way to New Hampshire.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 29, 2007

Diamond in the rough

Jackie De Shannon’s eternal promise
If today’s pop-music business is, as it was in the ’60s, driven largely by songwriters and producers who choose singers to put across their latest concoctions hoping for a hit, why does so much current pop feel so utterly charmless? Jackie DeShannon live in London (YouTube)
By CHARLES TAYLOR | August 01, 2006

Screening sounds

Great music moments at the movies -- from Portland and beyond
Great moments in film have always relied upon great music — and often Hollywood’s most memorable scenes are birthed from that perfect juxtaposition of song and image.
By HOOTIE GIANGRECO | February 23, 2006