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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I created this article, and I am not 100% positive that the topic meets the notability criterion for biographies. I think he does, or at least I think he may. Tagg's partner in the 80s band, Brent Bourgeois, has an article devoted to him, and they were fully equal partners from every source that I see so far. (Not an analogous case to, say, Paul McCartney and Wings, where one partner is clearly the "lead". That's a bad example, since Wings had at least one other notable member, but I think the idea is clear.) So Tagg might be "notable" just on the basis of his work as a musician & songwriter in the 80s & 90s, and his equal-partner status in a mildly notable band with at top-40 hit. But the thing that gets me about this guy is that in this century he has emerged as an author of legitimate history books. I bought The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln, after reading Tagg's essay on CivilWar.org (reprinted from the Summer 2009 issue of the Civil War Trust's quarterly magazine), and was shocked to find that the author was a full-blown touring rock musician with albums etc. "Unpopular" is a real, honest-to-goodness work of history, with scholarly references to primary & secondary sources, etc. It's not one of those faux-history polemics you find: it's a real history. His other book was reviewed by historynet.com, who said that "Tagg has assembled information that readers previously had to pore through numerous books and documents to find" and that "minor flaws notwithstanding, ... [it] should find a home on the bookshelves of those readers whose special interest is Gettysburg."
So – that's pretty remarkable, a touring rock musician who is also a serious historian. I came onto wikipedia hoping to find out more about Tagg, found there wasn't an article, and pulled together some stuff to create one.
As I said, I am not 100% convinced Tagg meets the guideline. If someone wants to argue that he doesn't, I will listen. But he is at least an interesting figure. If we leave this up for a little while, maybe some other stuff will emerge to help us get a consensus. Jim Hardy (talk) 21:51, 1 December 2015 (UTC)Reply
