Christian John Wikane Is Ready To Go Beyond His Imagination

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Chrisitan John Wikane is a NYC-based music journalist and essayist. Since 2003, he’s interviewed more than 600 recording artists, songwriters, and producers, including Paul McCartney, Janelle Monáe, Donna Summer, Pete Seeger, Annie Lennox, Maurice White, Jimmy Scott, Carly Simon, and Kenny Gamble. He is currently a Contributing Editor for 'PopMatters’ an online magazine of cultural criticism and contributing writer for PEOPLE. He co-produces the video series ‘Unscripted: Conversations with Christian John Wikane’ with filmmaker Sekou Luke, which features interviews with Oscar, GRAMMY, Tony, and Emmy-winning artists, plus a live edition they’ve presented at the Apollo Theater and City Winery, and the American Songbook series at Lincoln Center. He’s had the honor of contributing to the Emmy-nominated Tina Turner documentary, TINA (HBO), as well as ‘Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over’ (CNN) and ‘Love To Love You, Donna Summer’ (HBO).

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Chrsitian has had the privilege of curating and moderating several events at the Apollo Theater for Apollo Education’s ‘Live Wire’ series, including ‘Legendary: A Conversation with Dionne Warwick and Melba Moore,’ ‘Bold Soul Sisters,’ a panel discussion featuring Nona Hendryx, Ruth Pointer, Kathy Sledge, and Rochelle Fleming, and ‘She’s A Rebel: An Interview with Martha Reeves, Sarah Dash, and Joshie Jo Armstead.’

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Since 2010, Christian has authored extensive liner notes for more than 200 album re-issues by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, GRAMMY winners, and other icons of R&B, rock, dance, pop, and jazz. He’s also conducted interviews for several BBC Radio documentaries, Sirius XM’s Studio 54 channel, Chase Bank (‘Inside Access’) and hosted/produced more than a dozen concerts at Joe’s Pub (the Public Theater), the Blue Note, Iridium Jazz Club, and Wölffer Estate Vinyard. He’s guest lectured for Barnard College’s ‘Harlem Semester’ Program and presented at EMP Pop Conference, the Parrish Art Museum, Apollo Education’s ‘Master Class’ Series, and NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Music. He’s the sole author of ‘Casablanca Records: Play It Again’ a 50,000-word oral history that documented the 35^th anniversary of Casablanca Records, and co-author of ‘What The Band Wore: Fashion & Music’ (2023) with Alice Harris for ACC Art Books.

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Alan Mercer:  Christian, can you tell me a little bit about your upbringing?

Christian John Wikane:  Sure, I’ve lived in New York City for 20 years, but I grew up in East Hampton on Long Island for the first 18 years of my life. I attended Northeastern University in Boston where I worked and went to school full time. It took me seven years to graduate because I changed my major five times!

AM:  Did you major in journalism?

CJW:  Kind of. I was a journalism major for one day. I felt to overwhelmed at 18 to have to read three newspapers a day. That’s what was expected. I had too many interests and I wanted to explore what those interests were. I was able to create my own major and ultimately that’s what I did with media, culture and society. I was able to combine my love of music with sociology and communication. Music is such a powerful reflection of those fields.

AM:  How did you turn into a music journalist?

CJW:  I grew up reading music books like 'The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock' and all of the 'Billboard' chart books. I was reading these books from eight or nine years old. I loved going to the bookstore. I just wanted to have photos of all the artists I loved. If I saw Tina Turner on a book cover, I just wanted that book. It didn’t matter what it was.

AM:  Do you remember what the first book you got was?

CJW:  The first book I ever got was 'The Top 100 Albums From 1955 to 1986.' That was the first time I had an awareness that you could write about music in a way that I’ve been writing about now for 20 years. By the age of 12 or 13 I was writing artist bios on my sister’s typewriter. I enjoyed reading so I thought, let’s see if I can do this-writing-as well.

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Going back to my earliest memories of her, I listened to the "diana" (1980) album by Diana Ross constantly when I was a young boy. Alfa's among the background vocalists on that album so it's amazing for me to consider how her voice has been a part of my life since I was two years old. I'm a huge fan of CHIC, plus the records that Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards wrote and produced for other artists, and Alfa's definitely a constant thread throughout their most seminal work. Alfa's lead vocal on 'I Want Your Love' is truly one of the finest moments in CHIC's history.

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With original CHIC vocalists Norma Jean Wright and Luci Martin

Another amazing moment ... joining Alfa, Norma Jean, and Luci when they performed at the Night of 1,000 Gowns gala in New York. Debbie Harry and Jody Watley were also part of the gala. They each had such high regard for Alfa and I'm thankful I was able to get some photos of them together. 

In the weeks since Alfa's passing, it was a privilege to accompany Norma Jean Wright and Luci Martin at Westbury Music Fair where they included a tribute to Alfa during their set. I carried a memorial portrait of Alfa onto the stage and I honestly felt her spirit there with us throughout the whole night. I know I can speak for other friends when I say that we will continue to celebrate Alfa and all the joy she brought us over the years. 

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AM:  Are you a singer?

CJW:  I did sing. I was a tenor, and I played Tony in 'West Side Story' in high school. That's a muscle I haven’t flexed in a long time. It was during the latter part of my time at Northeastern that I started to think I should see about writing professionally.

AM:  What was your first writing job?

CJW:  Writing for the online publication, 'PopMatters' in 2006.

AM:  How did that happen? It’s hard to get started.

CJW:  A friend of mine forwarded me an article by a writer that I instantly admired and respected, Mark Anthony Neal. He’s a professor at Duke University. He had written this brilliant article about contemporary R&B Music for 'PopMatters'. There was something about the website that I loved. They covered all genres of music and also movies and television. The more articles I read on the website, the more I realized I could write for them. They had a call for writers, and I submitted a sample review. At the time Diana Ross had her “Blue” album out and that was the album I reviewed. They automatically placed that as a headline review on the website, so I was hired. 

AM:  They were really impressed with you.

CJW:  Another thing was the artists that I loved to my soul, for so many years, weren’t given that kind of platform to be written about in the same way younger artists were. Thinking back 20 years ago, from what I experienced, mainstream outlets preferred covering Beyoncé  versus Diana Ross, though clearly there should be room for both artists. From my point of view, Diana Ross is a legend and people were still listening to her in 2006.

AM:  Diana Ross is worth covering through her entire career.

CJW:  Exactly, and 'PopMatters' understood that. They sensed my passion.

AM:  You were the perfect fit at the perfect time and filled a niche.

CJW:  I was lucky. I started writing CD reviews and then I went to artist interviews. That’s when I realized I didn’t enjoy reviewing albums, But I loved telling stories about the artists. So, I cultivated that. The major professional turning point was when I wrote an oral history about Casablanca Records in 2009 in honor of its 35^th anniversary. That oral history was a weeklong series, and it got the attention of record executives who were looking for people to write liner notes. They saw that I could tell a story in a concise format. I had the passion, along with a particular specialty in terms of the style of my writing. It also coincided with a lot of albums that were originally released on Casablanca coming out again. All I did for 10 years was write liner notes for reissues for different record companies.

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AM:  How did you get involved with your recent coffee table book, 'What The Band Wore' with Alice Harris?

CJW:  I met Alice Harris through Donna Summer at an event for XM Radio in 2008. I was covering Donna’s album, 'Crayons' at the time so the record company invited me to this event that was a mini-concert and an interview. I walked into the room and sat in the front. There was this woman sitting behind me with this red hair, this smile and an effervescent personality. That was Alice Harris. I had to know who she was, so I introduced myself and it turned out she was one of Donna’s best friends and she used to work at Casablanca Records. She had been a photo stylist. She coordinated the 'Once Upon A Time' album cover shoot with Scavullo. We became friends.

Back in the 90s, Alice started a series of beautiful coffee table books. She asked me to write the introductions for two of her more recent books. Then she called up in 2022 and asked if I would write the text to a book about fashion and music. That turned into 'What The Band Wore' which took me nine months to research and write, and also work with Alice on photo selections.

AM:  You’ve done a great job promoting it, hopefully there is going to be a second printing. What can you tell me about any future projects you are involved in?

CJW:  I do have a major book project that I’ve been working on since August 2023 that should be published at the beginning of 2026. I can’t wait to share that! I was also a consultant on a forthcoming documentary produced by Audible. What I can share is that I recently wrote the liner notes to a 40^th anniversary re-issue of 'Cats Without Claws' (1984) by Donna Summer that will be released in April. One of the bonus tracks is an incredible remix of 'Forgive Me' by Steve Anderson that was released in December. It’s an honor to have written essays for so many projects released by the Estate of Donna Summer with Crimson Productions.

AM:  We will all be looking forward to that. Do you have any specific goal you want to achieve?

CJW:  The other major joy in my life is working on 'Unscripted' which is the interview series I started with my production partner, Sekou Luke, in 2020 just a few weeks before the pandemic. That’s developed into three seasons of interviews that we feature on YouTube. We’ve also done live events at the Apollo Theater, two at City Winery and then last April, we were part of Lincoln Center’s 'American Songbook' Series where I interviewed Kathy Sledge and Melba Moore. The work that I’m doing with Sekou is really what I would like to see grow into something that is beyond our imagination, in terms of the platform and building the audience.

In fact, for the most recent live events, we premiered two short films, 'In The Writer’s Room' which explored what I’ve learned, as a writer, from the songwriters we’ve interviewed, and 'New York Nights,' which celebrated disco, and its significance for several artists we’ve featured as part of 'Unscripted' as well as the place disco has had for me since age two. For both films, Sekou and I had the best time converting ARRI Studio into everything from my apartment to a movie theater to a discotheque…Doing on location shooting around New York was a blast. Sekou is the consummate collaborator, so I’m excited to see what’s next! 

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