Introduction: Needles and pens / Florence Dore
Let it rock / Michael Chabon
The genius and modern times of Bob Dylan / Jonathan Lethem
All the poets: Musicians on writing (interview with Scott Timberg) / Rhiannon Giddens
Chronicles: Volume one (excerpt) / Bob Dylan
Banjo interlude: An idle teen's life is saved by music / Daniel Wallace
Tonight we improvise (excerpt from Sag Harbor) / Colson Whitehead
Ubu lives!: Remembering punk and its stories / Rick Moody
By heart (excerpt from Eat the document) / Dana Spiotta
Precious resource: Rock and our generation of novelists (interview) / Jonathan Lethem and Dana Spiotta
Whack fol the daddy-o: How I learned to hate Irish music slightly less / Roddy Doyle
Dear Dylan (interview) / Lucinda Williams
Iambic pentameter and the blues (interview) / Steve Earle
Sir Patrick rocks! Dragging ancient ballads into the twentieth century, and what that can do to fragile young minds / Richard Thompson
Two blue suedes / Laura Cantrell
When we all get to Heaven / Randall Kenan
English as a second language / Warren Zanes
Cosmic ray / Peter Guralnick
Ain't it always Stephen Stills / Lorrie Moore
Black cowboys and Jimi Hendrix (interview) / Dom Flemons
Anatomy of a Canned Heat hit: "Let's Work Together" by Wilbert Harrison / John Jeremiah Sullivan
John Prine: The reluctant genius (interview) / Dave Jacques, Jason Wilbur, Fats Kaplin,and Pat McLaughlin
The day the live concert returns / Dave Grohl
Unknown band on a forgotten stage / Greil Marcus
Right on time (interview) / Amy Helm
