Lest young readers misunderstand, the term “progressive rock” does not refer to music made in support of Antifa or Black Lives Matter.

Rather, it refers to a style that mashes up psychedelia, Western classical, and jazz, often with a dash (and sometimes dollops) of “mystical” pseudo-poetry where proper lyrics should be. It ruled the late-night FM-radio roost throughout the ’70s. New bands tend its pulse even now.  

The original generation, however, isn’t ready to pass the baton.

The great Catholic short-story writer and novelist Flannery O’Connor is in the news again—and for the same reason that it seems she’s ever in the news anymore: racism.

O’Connor was no racist. But you’d never know if your only information source were The New Yorker, which recently published an essay by Paul Elie bearing the question-begging title “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” Feel free to skip to Jessica Hooten Wilson’s rebuttal in First Things and Justin Lee’s at Arc Digital for succinct explanations of why Elie’s thesis leaks like a sieve. 

Heart’s Ease by Shirley Collins: Buoyed by the warm reception greeting her 2016 comeback, Lodestar, this British folk heroine returns with a dozen more explorations of the traditional and the neo-traditional songbooks.

Of all of the snark that ensued upon the Dixie Chicks’ rebranding themselves “the Chicks,” none was funnier than this observation from the libertarian gadfly Tom Woods: “Now that’s a relief. I think everybody assumed they supported slavery with that earlier name! And when they eventually get told that the word ‘chicks’ trivializes women’s lives, well, we can look forward to new releases from ‘The.’”

What is not a laughing matter is the Chicks’ new release, Gaslighter (Columbia). Would that it were.

Shine On: Badfinger 1974 by Badfinger: Ultimately, nothing—not the power-­poppy “No Matter What,” not the radiant “Day After Day,” not the as-featured-on-Breaking Bad “Baby Blue”—dispels the pall that has hung over this tuneful foursome ever since its dissolution amid litigation, infighting, chicanery, and suicides.

Thomas Fortmann: Gimme Twelve by various artists: Fortmann is the kind of composer about whom it’s tempting to say that he’s “still finding his voice.” On the evidence of these seven neo-impressionistic chamber pieces, however, he’s probably not looking. Other than their adherence to the chromatic scale, little unites them, resulting in a stylistic eclecticism made even more striking by the employment of five different ensembles and one solo organist to do the performing.

The great Charlie Daniels was 83 when he died from a stroke two days after celebrating one of his favorite holidays: the Fourth of July. Who else but a proud, fiddle-­playing lover of the Red, White, and Blue would have recorded enough patriotic songs to release a 15-song compilation titled Land That I Love as Daniels did in 2010? It’s almost as if he’d foreseen Donald Trump’s problems with getting permission to use the music of liberal rock stars for his rallies and said, Here, Mr. President. You can use these instead.