Christine Ann Dickinson

Christine "Chrissie" Dickinson, an award-winning music and literary critic whose reviews appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Reader, the Boston Phoenix, New City and Off Our Backs, died May 19, 2022, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The cause of death was heart failure.

She served tenures as the editor of The Journal of Country Music at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and as the pop music critic at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Her essays appeared in several book anthologies including "Ring of Fire: The Johnny Cash Reader" (Da Capo Press). She is a recipient of a Charlie Lamb Award for excellence in country music journalism.

Chrissie was also a talented singer/songwriter, video maker, photographer and fiction writer..

Christine Ann Dickinson was born on February 8, 1960 in Gary, Indiana, and grew up on a farm outside Crown Point, Indiana, the youngest of eight children of Hedwig (Harriet) D’Lugai Dickinson and Russell Dickinson. Chrissie had an early love of horses and music and began playing guitar in high school.

Chrissie earned a B.A. in history at Indiana University, Bloomington, where she later formed her band Sally’s Dream, touring the Midwest and South opening for other new wave and rock bands of the 1980s, among them Romeo Void, Fishbone, 10,000 Maniacs, the Smithereens, Lone Justice, Shriekback and Get Smart. 

Chrissie is preceded in death by her parents and two sisters, Julie and Marta, and a brother, Johnny. She is survived by sisters Marie Dickinson and Lore Summers and brothers Neal and Paul Dickinson. 

Arrangements entrusted to Chicagoland Cremation Options of Schiller Park, Il.