Jay Silverman author page

So clearly, I was that kid who spent a lot of time listening to his parents' music growing up.

The idea for this puzzle grew out of a different, unrelated money-themed idea I was working on. I stumbled on YOUNG BUCKS and PETTY CASH, quickly added WONDER BREAD, and found a fun revealer in SOUND CHECKS to tie it all together — and then spent an inordinate amount of time searching for another option that fit. Has anyone else in human history ever spent so much time flipping back and forth between the Wikipedia entry about Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame inductees and the Thesaurus.com entry on slang terms for money? I'm guessing no.

I wanted someone with the same cachet as the other three artists, and struggled to find another entry that felt like it was solid enough for inclusion after stumbling through some weak options that I won't even bother to share here. I'd rather have included both a female artist and someone whose music I like much more than Barry White's (with all due respect to the man) — I considered options like (Billie) HOLIDAY BONUS or (Carole) KING'S RANSOM or (Darlene) LOVE NOTES and had to discard them for various reasons — but eventually concluded that WHITE PAPER made for the best, tightest puzzle for solvers. Such is life.

Hope you got a kick out of my NYT debut and, more importantly, hope you all liberally borrowed your parents' CDs like I once did.