I admit it now, I was once an avid lis­ten­er of the sooth­ing new age music of Enya. At the time, in my musi­cal cir­cles, this was not cool, and at the time I cared about such things. So Enya was my guilty secret. I didn’t need to work that hard to hide my affec­tion. I only lis­tened to Enya at night, as I lay in bed alone and drift­ed off. I used my Enya cas­sette tapes (yes tapes), you see, to put myself to sleep.

I’ve had oth­er sleep favorites. Beethoven, Mozart, Bach… inter­pre­ta­tions of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach by syn­the­siz­er wiz­ard Wendy Car­los…. It may seem dis­parag­ing to say that a cer­tain composer’s music lulls one to sleep, but I think it’s just the oppo­site. So does com­pos­er and musi­cian Max Richter, who has cre­at­ed an eight-hour piece called “Sleep” that is “meant to be slept through,” says Richter. (There’s also a one hour ver­sion that’s more read­i­ly avail­able for pur­chase.) Its gen­tle waves of strings, voice, piano, and synths are like a musi­cal Lethe one floats on into obliv­ion.

Richter has per­formed the piece with oth­er musi­cians, just recent­ly overnight on a Sep­tem­ber 27th BBC Radio 3 broad­cast, “the longest live broad­cast,” writes The New York­er, “of a sin­gle piece of music in the station’s his­to­ry.” The small audi­ence in atten­dance most­ly stayed awake. One mem­ber report­ed­ly hal­lu­ci­nat­ed. The com­po­si­tion con­sists of thir­ty-one themed move­ments (Hear “Dream 3 (in the midst of my life)” above). Lovers of mod­ern min­i­mal­ist com­posers like Philip Glass and William Basin­s­ki will notice sim­i­lar uses of drone notes and rep­e­ti­tion in “Sleep.” You may even hear a touch of Enya….

Richter’s is the per­fect music to accom­pa­ny me into dream­land; even those move­ments that include a vocal­ist use the voice as a word­less, ethe­re­al instru­ment, as so many ambi­ent musi­cians do. I’ve come across more than a few favorite ambi­ent and min­i­mal­ist com­posers late at night, when Spo­ti­fy begins rec­om­mend­ing sleep playlists. “Sleep,” it turns out, “is one of Spotify’s most pop­u­lar cat­e­gories,” accord­ing to Bill­board. How­ev­er, the “world’s favorite choice when choos­ing music to unwind” may sur­prise you: red-head­ed Eng­lish singer/songwriter Ed Sheer­an.

I’m not per­son­al­ly a fan of his music, but even if I were, I can’t imag­ine lis­ten­ing to it as I set­tle down to sleep. Nonethe­less, mil­lions of peo­ple stream Sheer­an’s songs on repeat at bed­time, along with oth­er pop artists like Ellie Gould­ing, John Leg­end, Sam Smith, and Rihan­na. To each their own, I guess. Hear a playlist of the most-streamed “sleep” music on Spo­ti­fy above. (If you don’t have Spotify’s free soft­ware, down­load it here.) If none of these tunes do it for you, con­sid­er giv­ing iTunes’ 27th most pop­u­lar pod­cast, Sleep With Me, a chance. Or, let us know in the com­ments below what music, if any, helps calm your nerves and soothe your tired brain as you climb into bed after a long day.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stream 58 Hours of Free Clas­si­cal Music Select­ed to Help You Study, Work, or Sim­ply Relax

Music That Helps You Write: A Free Spo­ti­fy Playlist of Your Selec­tions

Free Audio: Go the F–k to Sleep Nar­rat­ed by Samuel L. Jack­son

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

If you’ve ever had any doubt, for some rea­son or oth­er, that rock and roll descend­ed direct­ly from the blues, the video above, a his­to­ry of the blues in 50 riffs, should con­vince you. And while you might think a blues his­to­ry that ends in rock n roll would start with Robert John­son, this gui­tarist reach­es back to the coun­try blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Black Snake Moan” from 1928 then moves through leg­en­dar­i­ly tune­ful play­ers like Skip James and Rev­erend Gary Davis before we get to the infa­mous Mr. John­son.

Big Bill Broonzy is, as he should be, rep­re­sent­ed. Oth­er coun­try blues greats like soft-spo­ken farmer Mis­sis­sip­pi John Hurt and hard­ened felon Lead Bel­ly, “King of the 12 String Gui­tar,” are not. Say what you will about that. The record­ings these artists made with Okeh Records and Alan Lomax, despite their com­mer­cial fail­ure in the 30s, mid­wifed the blues revival of the fifties and six­ties. Hear Lead Bel­ly’s ver­sion of folk bal­lad “Gal­lows Pole” above, a song Led Zep­pelin made famous. Lead Belly’s acoustic blues inspired every­one from John Foger­ty to Skif­fle King Lon­nie Done­gan, Pete Seeger to Jim­my Page, as did the root­sy coun­try blues of Light­nin’ Hop­kins, who is includ­ed in the 50 riffs. As are John Lee Hook­er, Mud­dy Waters, Howl­in’ Wolf, and BB King’s elec­tric styles—all of them picked up by blues rock revival­ists, includ­ing, of course, Jimi Hen­drix.

Hendrix’s “Red House” riff makes the cut here, as we move slow­ly into rock and roll. But before we get to Hen­drix, we must first check in with two oth­er Kings, Fred­die and Albert—especially Albert. Hen­drix “was star struck,” says Rolling Stone, “when his hero [Albert King] opened for him at the Fill­more in 1967.” For his part, King said, “I taught [Hen­drix] a les­son about the blues. I could have eas­i­ly played his songs, but he couldn’t play mine.” See King play “Born Under a Bad Sign” in 1981, above, and hear why Hen­drix wor­shipped him.

Mis­sis­sip­pi blues moved to Mem­phis, Chica­go, New York and to Texas, where by the 70s and 80s, ZZ Top and Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an added their own south­west road­house swag­ger. (No John­ny Win­ter, alas.) Many peo­ple will be pleased to see Irish rock­er Rory Gal­lagher in the mix, and amused that The Blues Broth­ers get a men­tion. Many more usu­al sus­pects appear, and a few unusu­al picks. I’m very glad to hear a brief R.L. Burn­side riff. The White Stripes, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and Joe Bona­mas­sa round things out into the 2010’s. Every­one will miss their favorite blues play­er. (As usu­al, the pow­er­house gospel blues gui­tarist Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe gets over­looked.) I would love to see includ­ed in any his­to­ry of blues such obscure but bril­liant gui­tarists as Evan Johns (above), whose rock­a­bil­ly blues gui­tar freak­outs sound like noth­ing else. Or John Dee Hole­man, below, whose effort­less, under­stat­ed rhythm play­ing goes unmatched in my book.

Like so many of the blues­men who came before them, these gen­tle­men seem to rep­re­sent a dying breed. And yet the blues lives on and evolves in artists like Gary Clark Jr., The Black Keys, and Alaba­ma Shakes. And of course there’s the prodi­gy Bona­mas­sa, whom you absolute­ly have to see below at age 12, jam­ming with exper­i­men­tal coun­try speed demon Dan­ny Gatton’s band (he gets going around 1:05).

If you’re miss­ing your favorites, give them a shout out below. Who do you think has to be includ­ed in any his­to­ry of the blues—told in riffs or otherwise—and why?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Thrill is Gone: See B.B. King Play in Two Elec­tric Live Per­for­mances

R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Coun­try Fea­tures 114 Illus­tra­tions of the Artist’s Favorite Musi­cians

Watch Rock Pio­neer Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe Wow Audi­ences With Her Gospel Gui­tar

Zep­pelin Took My Blues Away: An Illus­trat­ed His­to­ry of Zeppelin’s “Copy­right Indis­cre­tions”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

In mod­ern times, we don’t regard female musi­cians as in and of them­selves unusu­al. Our ros­ters of favorite rock­ers, pop-stars, solo singer-song­writ­ers, and what have you might well fea­ture as many women as men — or, depend­ing on the sub­genre, many more women than men. But those of us who lis­ten to a great deal of clas­si­cal music might feel a tad sheep­ish about how much more heav­i­ly male our playlists slant, at least in terms of the com­posers. For a vari­ety of his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al rea­sons, the clas­si­cal canon can feel like a man’s world indeed.

But it does­n’t have to! The Spo­ti­fy playlist above, “1200 Years of Women Com­posers: From Hilde­gard To Hig­don,” reveals that women start­ed shap­ing what we now know as clas­si­cal music far longer ago than most of us real­ize. (If you don’t have Spo­ti­fy’s free soft­ware, down­load it here.) The playlist, which con­tains over 900 pieces and will take you days to lis­ten to, begins in medieval times with the Byzan­tine abbess, poet, com­pos­er, and hymno­g­ra­ph­er Kas­sia (shown above) and ends with female com­posers from around the world not only liv­ing but (espe­cial­ly by the stan­dards of those who write orches­tral music) still young, like Mis­ato Mochizu­ki, Hele­na Tul­ve, and Lera Auer­bach.

This comes arranged by Spo­ti­fy Clas­si­cal Playlists, whose site describes how the playlist offers not just an anthol­o­gy of women com­posers, but also “a brief his­to­ry of west­ern clas­si­cal music. It’s real­ly fas­ci­nat­ing to hear music con­stant­ly rein­vent­ing itself from the mono­phon­ic and deeply spir­i­tu­al medieval chant of Hilde­gard [of Bin­gen] all the way into Hig­don’s lush and ultra-mod­ern per­cus­sion con­cer­to.” And before you begin this epic lis­ten, bear in mind the quote from Faust that appears there: “Das Ewig Weib­liche Zieht ins hinan” — “The eter­nal fem­i­nine leads us upwards.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Sev­en Hours of Women Mak­ing Elec­tron­ic Music (1938- 2014)

Stream 58 Hours of Free Clas­si­cal Music Select­ed to Help You Study, Work, or Sim­ply Relax

Hear All of Mozart in a Free 127-Hour Playlist

Hear Clas­si­cal Music Com­posed by Friedrich Niet­zsche: 43 Orig­i­nal Tracks

Col­in Mar­shall writes else­where on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, and the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future? Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Pop­u­lar music has a rich tra­di­tion of lit­er­ary song­writ­ers, including—to name but a few—Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Pat­ti Smith, Kate Bush, and even Alan Par­sons, who released not one, but two con­cept albums based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe. And then there’s the inim­itable Tom Waits, who does­n’t just work in a lit­er­ary vein, but is a suc­ces­sion of pulpy char­ac­ters, each one with the abil­i­ty to light up a stage. Waits proved as much in 1988 when he toured his album Big Time, as alter-ego Frank O’Brien, a char­ac­ter he described as “a com­bi­na­tion of Will Rogers and Mark Twain, play­ing accordion—but with­out the wis­dom they pos­sessed.” The Big Time tour, writes Dan­ger­ous Minds, was “like enter­ing a sideshow tent in Tom Wait’s brain.”

In a review of the con­cert film of the same name, also released that year, the New York Times described Waits as a “gang of over­lap­ping per­sonas, a bunch of derelict philoso­pher-kings who rasp out roman­tic metaphors between wise­cracks,” inhab­it­ing “a seedy urban world of pawn­shops and tat­toos, of cig­a­rette butts and poly­ester and triple‑X movies.” It’s hard to know, lis­ten­ing to Waits in the inter­view above from the year of Big Time the album, tour, and film, how many of his per­son­ae emerge from the wood­shed and how many spring from griz­zled voic­es in that sideshow brain, which must sound like a cacoph­o­ny of old-time waltzes and scur­rilous rag­times; boozy big-band num­bers carous­ing in louche cabarets; pianos drunk­en­ly falling down stairs. Waits can tell sto­ries beau­ti­ful and ter­ri­ble, in talk­ing blues, bro­ken bal­lads, and sprechge­sang, rival­ing the best com­po­si­tions of the Delta, the beats, and sailors and hoboes.

Or he can tell stories—as he does above—about moles, build­ing under Stone­henge “the most elab­o­rate sys­tem of mole cat­a­combs,” being reward­ed for “hav­ing the courage to tun­nel under great rivers,” stag­ing exe­cu­tions. Then he shifts the scene to New York, and a Mer­cedes pulls up in a pud­dle of blood. “I think you just write,” says Waits, “and you don’t try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.” Waits gets it in vivid, sur­re­al­ist images, one bizarre and sor­did detail after anoth­er. To hear him speak is to hear him com­pose. You can read the tran­script of the short inter­view, record­ed in Lon­don by Chris Roberts, but the effect of Waits-the-per­former is entire­ly lost. Bet­ter to hear his cracked inflec­tion, his dri­est of com­ic tim­ing, and watch the excel­lent ani­ma­tion of PBS’s Blank on Blank team, who have pre­vi­ous­ly brought us amus­ing car­toon accom­pa­ni­ments for inter­views with B.B. King, Ray Charles, the Beast­ie Boys, and even Fidel Cas­tro. Tom Waits, I think, has giv­en them their best mate­r­i­al yet.

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Tom Waits, Play­ing the Down-and-Out Barfly, Appears in Clas­sic 1978 TV Per­for­mance

Tom Waits Reads Two Charles Bukows­ki Poems, “The Laugh­ing Heart” and “Nir­vana”

Watch Tom Waits’ Clas­sic Appear­ance on Aus­tralian TV, 1979

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness