David Hajdu

The age of 14 is kind of a suspension. You’re not a kid anymore…but teenage growing pains are still a growth spurt or two away. Music critic David Hajdu says, that makes it the most important year in a music fan’s life. Hajdu is joined by musician and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin to explain why so many artists, performers and listeners are shaped by their teenage musical tastes.

Once more popular than Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, singer Billy Eckstine stole the show with sex appeal, sophistication and black machismo - all in an era of segregation. Music critic David Hajdu joins us to share Eckstine's tragic story, which appears in his new book, Heroes and Villains: Essays ...

In the 1950s, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham concluded that almost all comic books would cause antisocial behavior in their young readers. David Hajdu’s new book about the crusade against comic books is The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America.

Weigh in: How did reading comic ...