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About Bradley Morgan

Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and the author of "U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America." He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM, serves as a co-chair of the associate board at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and volunteers in the music archive at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Morgan has written music features for CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM's award-winning blog and Discogs. He is an avid reader and enjoys hiking.

Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America. He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM, serves as a co-chair of the associate board at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and volunteers in the music archive at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Bradley Morgan on Twitter.

Bradley's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Bradley:

Music September 19, 2023

Living Colour's Time's Up

Kimberly Mack

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Listen:
The iconic Black rock band Living Colour's Time's Up, released in 1990, was recorded in the aftermath of the spectacular critical and commercial success of their debut record Vivid. Time's …
Music August 14, 2023

Rocking in the Free World

Popular Music and the Politics of Freedom in Postwar America

Nicholas Tochka

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Listen:
Progressive and libertarian, anti-Communist and revolutionary, Democratic and Republican, quintessentially American but simultaneously universal. By the late 1980s, rock music had acquired a dizzying array of political labels. These claims …
Music July 9, 2023

Alien Territory

Radical, Experimental, & Irrelevant Music in 1970s San Diego

William Perrine

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Listen:
Alien Territory: Radical, Experimental, & Irrelevant Music in 1970s San Diego (Billingsgate Media, 2023) is the untold story of a sleepy Navy town that became the unlikely gathering point for …
Music June 22, 2023

Song & Dance Man

The Art of Bob Dylan - Vol. 1 Language & Tradition

Michael Gray

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Listen:
Song & Dance Man is an established classic, available again for Dylan fans and scholars alike on the 50th Anniversary of the original edition. The work in these three volumes …
Music June 7, 2023

The Future of Rock and Roll

97X WOXY and the Fight for True Independence

Robin James

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Listen:
In 1983, an Ohio radio station called WOXY launched a sonic disruption to both corporate rock and to its conservative home region, programming an omnivorous range of genres and artists …
Music May 12, 2023

Breaks in the Air

The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City

John Klaess

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
In Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City (Duke UP, 2022), John Klaess tells the story of rap's emergence on New York City's airwaves …
Music April 30, 2023

Lady Gaga

Applause

Annie Zaleski

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
As one of the world's best-selling musicians, Lady Gaga has set the musical bar high. Since her debut album, The Fame (2008), she has sold more than 124 million records …
Film April 13, 2023

Sylvia Kristel

From Emmanuelle to Chabrol

Jeremy Richey

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
A trailblazing figure in film and popular culture, Netherlands native Sylvia Kristel became one of the biggest stars in the world as Emmanuelle in 1974. Alongside her most famous role …
Music March 16, 2023

The Fascist Groove Thing

A History of Thatcher's Britain in 21 Mixtapes

Hugh Hodges

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
This is the late 1970s and '80s as explained through the urgent and still-relevant songs of the Clash, the Specials, the Au Pairs, the Style Council, the Pet Shop Boys …
Music February 6, 2023

Long Road

Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation

Steven Hyden

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene three decades ago with their debut album, Ten, they have sold 85M+ albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of …
Music January 18, 2023

Rock & Roll in Kennedy's America

A Cultural History of the Early 1960s

Richard Aquila

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
In the early 1960s, the nation was on track to fulfill its destiny in what was being called the American Century. Baby boomers and rock & roll shared the country's …
Music December 11, 2022

Britney Spears's Blackout

Natasha Lasky

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Britney Spears barely survived 2007. She divorced her husband, lost custody of her kids, went to rehab, shaved her head and assaulted a paparazzo. In the midst of her public …
Music November 18, 2022

The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer

Radicalism, Resistance and Rebellion

Gregor Gall

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Joe Strummer was one of the twentieth century's iconic rock'n'roll rebels. As frontperson, spokesperson and chief lyricist for The Clash, he played a major role in politicising a generation through …
Music October 18, 2022

Joy and Fear

The Beatles, Chicago and the 1960s

John F. Lyons

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
For many, the Beatles offered a delightful alternative to the dull and the staid, while for others, the mop-top haircuts, the unsettling music, and the hysterical girls that greeted the …
Music September 20, 2022

Unrequited Infatuations

A Memoir

Stevie Van Zandt

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
What story begins in a bedroom in suburban New Jersey in the early '60s, unfolds on some of the country's largest stages, and then ranges across the globe, demonstrating over …
Music September 7, 2022

Her Country

How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be

Marissa R. Moss

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
It was only two decades ago, but, for the women of country music, 1999 seems like an entirely different universe. With Shania Twain, country's biggest award winner and star, and …
Music August 30, 2022

Who by Fire

Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

Matti Friedman

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to the chaos …
Music August 1, 2022

Blackstar Theory

The Last Works of David Bowie

Leah Kardos

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie (Bloomsbury, 2022) takes a close look at David Bowie's ambitious last works: his surprise 'comeback' project The Next Day (2013), the off-Broadway …
Music July 5, 2022

It Ain't Retro

Daptone Records and the 21st-Century Soul Revolution

Jessica Lipsky

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Soul is the most powerful expression of American music--a distinct combination of roots, migration, race, culture, and politics packaged together for your dancing pleasure. But if you thought the sounds …
Music June 3, 2022

Virtual Music

Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era

Shara Rambarran

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Virtuality has entered our lives making anything we desire possible. We are, as Gorillaz once sang, in an exciting age where 'the digital won't let [us] go…' Technology has revolutionized …
Music May 4, 2022

Move On Up

Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power

Aaron Cohen

Hosted by Bradley Morgan
Curtis Mayfield. The Chi-Lites. Chaka Khan. Chicago’s place in the history of soul music is rock solid. But for Chicagoans, soul music in its heyday from the 1960s to the 1980s …