Rollin' and Tumblin'

Out of the Vinyl Deeps” performs two canon-changing acts for the literature of popular music criticism. One, by collecting for the first time Willis’s music reviews and essays, it once and for all proves her importance as a whip-smart (albeit often overlooked) force when that field of letters was emerging. Two, this selection of 59 articles, primarily from the late ’60s to mid-’70s, offers a fresh look at that era’s well-documented music. Yes, Willis’s perspective is, mostly, decades old. But as she was one of the few women writing about pop at that time, and for many years to follow, it’s also determinedly different.