Boston Phoenix
Joe Tex: The Soul Of An Underdog
Profile and Interview by Joe McEwen, Boston Phoenix, May 1977
THE SHOW was held at South Philadelphia's Spectrum, still a brand-new facility in 1969, but it could well have been the fare at North Philly's ...
Band, The: The Weight: The Band's Anthology
Review by Dave Marsh, Boston Phoenix, 1978
IT'S NOT HARD to understand the release of Anthology, the second repackaging of Band material in two years. The group made only eight albums (one ...
David Bowie: Boston Garden, Boston
Live Review by Deborah Frost, Boston Phoenix, May 1978
DAVID BOWIE borrows identities and musical ideas the way teenage girls borrow their best friends' clothes. But no matter whose duds Bowie puts on, with ...
Television: Knock, Knock, Knocking: Television's Adventure
Review by Deborah Frost, Boston Phoenix, June 1978
HE'S THE KID in the back of every high school classroom - the one you never thought could talk. The one you try to remember ...
Sniff 'n' the Tears: Fickle Heart
Review by Deborah Frost, Boston Phoenix, September 1979
BACK BRISTLING, fangs bared, the black cat on the cover of Fickle Heart stares into the cold blue of the gun that's just wasted its ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Boston Phoenix, April 1980
DEAR BOB: It's about your album. A funny thing happened to you on the way to the pantheon. You forgot you wrote most of the ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Boston Phoenix, October 1980
ALL A friend remembers about the Split Enz gig at Paul's Mall a couple of years back was the sign announcing the coming attraction: Tom ...
Special AKA, The: Special Aka: In The Studio (original version)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, August 1984
THE 2-TONE ska era was never more than another passing Anglo hip trip in America, but the Specials represented the pinnacle of the idealistic phase ...
Captain Beefheart: The Legendary A&M Sessions
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, October 1984
SINCE HIS ear-bending 1969 breakthrough, Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart's reputation as rock's most unvarnishedly unconventional artiste has overshadowed the earthy R&B roots of his ...
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, October 1984
SINCE THE DEATH of Bob Marley, the union of message music and popular appeal that he forged for reggae has undergone a widespread breakdown. ...
Chaka Khan: I Feel For You (Warner Bros.)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, November 1984
CHAKA KHAN'S quest to distance her solo work from Rufus' sly, slinky funk led her into an electronic embrace with producer Arif Mardin Two albums ...
Jeffrey Osborne: Don't Stop (A&M)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, December 1984
MAINSTREAM BLACK pop embodies the 'It ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it' principle; and so success is measured by a ...
Motorhead: No Remorse (Bronze/Island)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, January 1985
IF THE HEAVY-METAL aesthetic boils down to regular Joes recasting themselves in larger-than-life molds, ring up a sterling success for Motorhead, who play the nightriding ...
Review and Interview by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, February 1985
"THE GOVERNMENT is trying to lure me into participation in the politics of Nigeria now but that doesn't really mean my situation is very cool ...
Skatalites, The: The Skatalites: Scattered Lights (Alligator)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, February 1985
FOUR YEARS AGO, the Two-Tone ska revival raced through America as another Anglo hip trip, a six-month passing fancy that disappeared in a swirl of ...
Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Eric Clapton: Can Blue Boys Play The Whites Revisited?
Retrospective by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, March 1985
ANYONE WHO TAKES the crapped-out lethargy of his recent output as proof positive that Eric Clapton never played a worth while lick in his life ...
Ry Cooder's Mood Indigo Meditations: Paris, Texas
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, April 1985
SOUNDTRACK ALBUMS – the genuine article, not song collections assembled in executive suites with an eye for tapping the teen demographic – are inherently strange ...
Burning Spear: Resistance (Heartbeat)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, June 1985
A FULL DECADE after the landmark Marcus Garvey (Island) album, the voice and vision of Burning Spear (the nom de stage of Jamaican singer/songwriter Winston ...
Knitters, The, Danny and Dusty: Old Punks At Home: The Knitters and Danny & Dusty
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, July 1985
THE MOST VIGOROUS Los Angeles rock in the past five years has been staunchly traditionalist, the work of true believers rallying around and expanding upon ...
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, August 1985
SOME PEOPLE MAY cherish Holy Cow! (Arista) for making readily available a single-volume collection of Lee Dorsey's irresistible, sublimely lazy '60s hits like ‘Ya Ya’ ...
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, November 1985
ROCKABILLY AND COUNTRY have fit in right nicely with the white-boys-(and-girls)-making-white-noise ethos that underlies the return-to-sources rampage of recent Los Angeles rock. ...
Clifton Chenier: Live at the San Francisco Blues Festival
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, November 1985
ZYDECO, the musical marriage of Louisiana's indigenous Cajun and Southern R&B traditions, first crawled out from the bayous and oil derricks of southwestern Louisiana 30 ...
Joe Higgs: Triumph (Alligator)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, February 1986
OBSCURITY MAY become some legends most, but reggae singer Joe Higgs has taken that questionable tenet to absurd lengths. ...
Stan Ridgway's Rock Noir: The Big Heat
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, April 1986
IF YOU JUDGED him from his work as the mouthpiece of LA’s Wall of Voodoo, you’d be tempted to dismiss Stan Ridgway as an irredeemably ...
Solomon Burke: Soul Alive! (Rounder)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, May 1986
THE TRUE TRIUMPH of Solomon Burke's Soul Alive! (Rounder) was neither the spirited elan of performances that transcended mere revivalism nor the startling, albeit chart-invisible, ...
Pere Ubu: Beau Pere Ubu: Terminal Tower
Retrospective by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, June 1986
IT’S SHAME THAT Pere Ubu’s debut singles in 1975-’76 consigned the Cleveland band to the remote fringes of that pop reserved for the experimentally minded. ...
Thelonious Monster: Halfway Hilarity
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, August 1986
THELONIOUS MONSTER’S Baby...You’re Bummin’ My Life Out in a Supreme Fashion (Epitaph) is one of the all-time dream titles, right up there with ‘Death May ...
Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint: New Orleans Pianos: Talking Fingers
Film/DVD Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, September 1986
You don't have to be addicted to New Orleans piano style to savor the rich portrait of Stevenson Palfi's Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together ...
Sugar Minott: Inna Reggae Dance Hall (Heartbeat)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, October 1986
BOB MARLEY'S international breakthrough spawned a glut of Jamaican journeyman scrambling for the reggae rainbow's seemingly attainable pot of gold but an inevitable byproduct of ...
Los Lobos: By The Light of the Moon (Slash)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, January 1987
‘ONE TIME One Night’ kicks off Los Lobos's By The Light of the Moon (Slash) with such instantly riveting command and power that it seems ...
Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs: Blues Rooting: Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs
Interview by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, October 1987
THERE WAS A time (1980-81) when Top Jimmy (not just a figment of the Van Halen imagination on 1984) & the Rhythm Pigs (not the ...
Roger Troutman, Zapp: Roger Troutman: Unlimited! (Reprise)
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, December 1987
THE DAYTON, Ohio-based Troutman clan that has given us Zapp and now Roger has developed perhaps the most schizoid personality in black music. ...
T-Bone Walker: T-Bone Underdone
Book Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, December 1987
T-BONE WALKER occupies a peculiarly ambiguous place in blues history considering he’s the man credited with inventing the single-string style of electric blues-guitar playing. Virtually ...
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, March 1988
THE RECENT GLUT of African pop releases has now revealed a mesmerizing vocalist, one capable of reviving the hoary show-biz adage that he could excel ...
X: Live at the Whisky A Go Go on the Fabulous Sunset Strip
Review by Don Snowden, Boston Phoenix, May 1988
FOR ALL THE national accolades heaped on X throughout the '80s, the group never stopped viewing itself as an LA band stepped in the nitty-gritty ...
Fall, The: The Fall: The Praxis Of Punk
Essay by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, April 1989
Why The Fall continue to rise ...
Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam/Columbia)
Review by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, April 1990
Their Own Worst Enemy? Fear of a Black Planet; seductive music, muddled message ...
Profile by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, May 1990
Parsons's Grievous Angel returns ...
Comment by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, July 1990
2 Live Crew: Just what they wanna be ...
Yo La Tengo: Fakebook (Bar None)
Review by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, September 1990
Yo La Tengo's pop mother lode ...
Replacements, The: The Replacements: All Shook Down (Sire/Warner Bros.)
Review by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, September 1990
Refining the metal – The Replacements shake it down ...
Guide by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, December 1990
The perfect party tape ...
Led Zeppelin: Lead Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin (Atlantic box-set)
Review by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, December 1990
Dead Zeppelin: New Led box is full of hot air ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 1992
IF THERE'S ANYTHING all great rock-and-roll bands – from Muddy Waters' early-'50s Chicago electric outfits to Chuck Berry's Chess session players to the Rolling Stones ...
Profile by Barney Hoskyns, Boston Phoenix, July 1997
IT USED to be easy to dismiss Tindersticks - to deride them as boho poseurs, as wannabe Nick Caves, as provincial boys who came to ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1997
GREEN DAY have dropped another load of Dookie upon us. By which I mean the band have made a big pile of new songs as ...
Mike Watt: HMS Watt: Contemplating the Engine Room
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1997
WHAT BECOMES a punk-rock legend most? In the case of Mike Watt, it's love. His new Contemplating the Engine Room (Columbia) brims with the stuff. ...
Ruth Brown Keeps Deep R&B's Fire Blazing
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1997
MISS RHYTHM is on stage working the blues, and she's got the audience on a string. Sashaying up to the microphone in the ballroom of ...
Pixies, The: The Pixies: Death to the Pixies
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, November 1997
THE DOUBLE BILL looked great on paper: the Pixies and Throwing Muses at Avalon. Actually the Lansdowne Street club was called Metro then, back in ...
Metallica: Metal Memories: Ten years of close encounters with Metallica
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, November 1997
THE MONSTERS OF ROCK Tour in '87 was my wake-up call. Even if waking up in Akron is like rising with a hangover. ...
Obituary by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, December 1997
POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend than Robert Palmer, the critic and musician who died l POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend ...
Jimmy Bowen and Jim Jerome: Rough Mix (Simon & Schuster)
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 1998
JIMMY BOWEN is the music-biz sharpie who made Nashville's country industry what it is today -- a multi-billion-dollar-generating machine. For that, he's both loved and ...
John Lee Hooker: The Sound of Teardrops: John Lee Hooker
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 1998
HOW DEEP IS John Lee Hooker's blues? "You can't go no deeper than me and my guitar," he says. "I open my mouth, and it's ...
Robert Wyatt: Deep Shleep: Robert Wyatt Gets Personal
Interview by Mac Randall, Boston Phoenix, January 1998
"THE BIG PROBLEM I have with rock and roll is the rock end of it," says Robert Wyatt. "But I love the rolling. I'm into ...
Obituary by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, February 1998
CATS ARE SUPPOSED to have nine lives. Rockabilly cat Carl Perkins had at least three. The first got spent in '56. As Perkins was driving to ...
Marilyn Manson with Neil Strauss: The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, March 1998
MARILYN MANSON might be a cultural liberator, but he's certainly a shameless asshole. Well, not utterly shameless. In this autobiography penned with help from Rolling ...
High Llamas, The, Beach Boys, The: Pet Sounds and High Llamas
Review by Mac Randall, Boston Phoenix, April 1998
THERE CAN'T BE MANY classic rock albums that rock less than the Beach Boys' 1966 opus Pet Sounds. The fruity orchestral arrangements are about as ...
Producer in Paradise: Joel Dorn Revisits a Golden Age of Jazz
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 1998
JOEL DORN describes himself as "a stand-up guy. I grew up on the street corners and in the playgrounds, and I was raised to believe ...
Honeyboy Edwards: Delta Delight: Honeyboy Edwards, Country Bluesman
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, May 1998
THE BLUESMAN Honeyboy Edwards got arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1936. His crime was being a black man. ...
Down-home delights: The soulful blues of Malaco Records
Report by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, June 1998
THIRTY OR 40 YEARS AGO, the Jackson-based Malaco Records would have been called a "race" label. That was the tag for outfits like Specialty, King, ...
Absolute Kristal: CBGB's new punk rock label
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 1998
HILLY KRISTAL'S MAD AS HELL and he's not gonna take it anymore. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But the 66-year-old hipster who owns the New ...
The Hard Stuff: Almost a Dozen Reasons to Like Metal Again
Review by Chuck Eddy, Boston Phoenix, July 1998
A FEW YEARS AGO, bored by grunge and late speedmetal and still lamenting the loss of pretty glam in prettier haircuts, I thought loud guitar ...
Dale Hawkins: Rockabilly Hipster Dale Hawkins Returns
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1998
DALE HAWKINS'S FIRST HIT launched two of the greatest careers in rootsy American rock. But not without a left-field nudge from famed record producer Jerry ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Repackaging Stevie Ray Vaughan
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 1999
YEAH, HE NEVER played alternative rock, and to him hip-hop was something the Easter bunny did. He also wore his influences like a neon suit. ...
Michael Gira, Swans: Black Saint: Michael Gira Goes Solo
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, May 1999
FIRST IMPRESSIONS do last, so I'll always remember Michael Gira as the "revenant black saint" he goes on to describe himself as in the lyrics ...
Deep River: The Bounty of Alan Lomax
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, June 1999
THE CD STARTS with a banjo picker burning on a hoedown called 'Cripple Creek,' progresses along a chain of mountain songs to 'Arkansas Traveler,' and ...
Kelly Joe Phelps: Zen Guitar: Kelly Joe Phelps Heads East
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 1999
KELLY JOE PHELPS is a traveler. With a pair of acoustic guitars in his car's trunk and notepads scattered about its seats, he drives across ...
Newport Notes: How the Jazz and Folk Festivals made history
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
"WELL, THIS IS real bullshit!" yelled Eddie Condon. ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
BRITISH SINGER-SONGWRITER Kevin Coyne is a strange one. As influenced by the rough-and-tumble sounds of Mississippi blues as by his job as a counselor to ...
Kim Richey: Her Country: Kim Richey's Nashville fusion
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
THERE SEEM TO BE four kinds of country music these days. There's the pop stuff, a mix of up-tempo numbers and sugary ballads plied by ...
Wilson Pickett: Still Wicked: Wilson Pickett's Raw Return
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1999
THE HOWL is unmistakable. Raw as fresh meat, gritty and powerful as sandblasting. That's Wilson Pickett shouting thunder over the fatback grooves of a new ...
Hall-of-Fame Hitter: Drummer Earl Palmer gets his due
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 2000
LIKE ANY GOOD GRANDFATHER, Earl Palmer has tried to find interests to share with his grandkids. So far, coin collecting has been a favorite. It's ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 2000
LIKE THE ALEWIFE and the manatee, Lou Reed has enjoyed a sort of protected status in the wake of punk rock. The truth is, he's ...
Jesús Alemañy, ¡Cubanismo!: ¡Cubanismo!: Jesús Alemañy goes beyond Buena Vista
Report and Interview by j. poet, Boston Phoenix, April 2000
IT'S BEEN EASY to get the impression over the past couple of years that Cuban music starts and ends with the Buena Vista Social Club. ...
Ali Farka Toure: Connections: Ali Farka Touré's Cross-Cultural Blues
Profile by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 2000
THE BLUES CAME to America in chains, contained within the hearts of the enslaved people of Africa. Two hundred odd years later it went back, ...
Ramones, The: Joey Ramone's 50th Birthday Bash: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Boston Phoenix, May 2001
IT'S FUNNY HOW memorials often take on the character of the person they honor. The sold-out "Life's a Gas – Joey Ramone's 50th Birthday Bash" ...
Mission of Burma: Burmese Days
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 2002
MEMORIES OF THE MISSION: Roger and Clint back in the days when ‘Academy Fight Song’ and ‘That's When I Reach for My Revolver’ blared out ...
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Review by Wayne Robins, Boston Phoenix, May 2004
I’M THUMBING through the March issue of Uncut, the comprehensive and entertaining British music monthly, when I hit the front of the review section and ...
Merle Haggard: Branded Man: Merle Haggard Brings The Bakersfield Sounds East With Dylan
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 2005
WHEN BOB DYLAN CALLS, other musicians listen. Even when they're icons and gifted songwriters in their own right. ...
Diamanda Galás Prepares To Perform A New Defixiones
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, September 2005
DIAMANDA GALÁS has had a talent for plucking beauty from the maw of horror for more than 20 years – right from her first solo ...
Review and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, May 2006
The idea of fall and redemption is thousands of years old, and it’s laced into the new Godsmack album, where singer Sully Erna’s lyrics spin ...
The Gun Club, Cramps, The, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds: Kid Congo Powers
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, September 2006
THE LATE 1970s were a time of ignition. Punk rock set a fuse that burned through every aspect of the arts, and the lives of ...
back to LIBRARY
Best Databases: RBP is Runner-up in Best Niche category
Video: Johnny Marr talks about Rock's Backpages
download eBooks and audio interviews
RBP on Spotify: The genius of Judee Sill
RBP Album Club in Chicago, June 30th: Paul Yamada and Liam (Plush) Hayes celebrate a Curtis Mayfield classic
Essential Listening: Roy Trakin meets the Replacements in '87
Essential Reading: Andrew Smith's history of the first dotcom boom
RBP Album Club, July 11th: Nick Hornby and Nick Coleman celebrate Southside Johnny's debut
Join the Facebook group now