News

Paul Beasley, a tenor who has sung with the Blind Boys of Alabama for the last decade, died Monday. A rep for the group confirmed the news to Rolling Stone, though the cause of death remains unknown. He was 78.

Beasley, who’d had a long career in gospel music with stints in the Gospel Keynotes and the Mighty Clouds of Joy, joined the Blind Boys after losing his sight in 2013. His first recording with the vocal group was their album, I’ll Find a Way, produced by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.

Starting with In the Family’s discreetly told story of a family trauma, Wang’s films, seen together, showcase a civically minded vision that demands attention

Fittingly for self-distributed works by a true American independent, Patrick Wang’s four features to date stand tall with a graceful and tenacious outsiderdom. Their handmade quality and occasional rough edges may have made them a hard sell, but this seems unfair. There’s a collectivist spirit, moral conviction and self-taught experimentalism at work here – the latter given increasing room to express itself as Wang has gradually untethered himself from realism – that demands attention.

Especially impressive is Wang’s 2011 debut In the Family (****) – starring Wang himself as Joey Williams, a Texan interior designer whose partner Cody (Trevor St John) is killed in a car accident. Cody’s will, written long before their relationship, states that his sister Eileen (Kelly McAndrew) should act as guardian...