Truly the father of Chicago blues, Muddy brought his Mississippi sound up from the Delta, combined it with the electric guitar, and redefined the genre. Waters taught himself how to play the blues by listening to Robert Johnson records. Eventually, he left Mississippi to play and sing in the Silas Gr

Gritty, Primal, Visceral

Flannery O'Connor, in the preface to the second edition of her first novel, "Wise Blood" (1952), described herself as "an author congenitally innocent of theory, but with certain preoccupations." The preoccupation she refers to is religion. O'Connor was a Catholic writer, and her work was perpetua

Kaleidoscopic, Melancholy, Pathos, Religious, Southern gothic, Visceral

Tricky, the Bristol-born rapper, producer, and malcontent, is credited with bringing the trip-hop genre to fame with his 1995 debut release, "Maxinquaye" (although the artist himself has rejected the label trip-hop as a musical category). Listeners first heard Tricky's vocals on tracks he wrote for M

Distorted, Moody, Trip-hop, Trippy, Visceral

In 1963, the Puerto Rican painter Francisco Rodon began his series of works on Argentinian writer Jorges Luis Borges, who said, "It's the best portrait ever painted of me." Lest Rodon become too flattered, Borges added, "It's the only one so far." Rodon began to make art at age nine, when he sketc

Composed, Death, Geometric, Moody, Portraiture, Visceral