“In Air Split Open, Addie Mahmassani gazes at old rock territory from a perspective that has previously been entirely absent from the discourse. The result is so fresh, so insightful, and so beautifully written it feels like she is breaking open a whole new vein of scholarship. It’s a book that will undermine your assumptions about music while simultaneously reaffirming them, making it much like the work of the artists she is observing. It is a true reading pleasure.”—Gina Arnold, author, Half a Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella

“Air Split Open is the captivating story of the two ‘Queens of Folk,’ and how they shaped the broader American folk movement. But in analyzing their stories, it also digs into fundamental questions about human development: How do we learn to love what we love, want what we want, and ignore what we ignore? Like the music she examines, Mahmassani’s writing weaves between personal and political, heart-wrenching and hilarious, intimate and expansive. Air Split Open is not just for folk aficionados, but for anyone wanting to better understand the way that cultures and subcultures meld to construct our unique identities.”—Leah Donnella, editor, NPR’s Code Switch