Other
Bob Dylan: The First Interview
Press Release by Billy James, (Columbia Records), October 1961
DYLAN: Well, let me say that I was born in Duluth, Minnesota – give that a little plug. That's where I was born and, uh, ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Pop Weirdies Set Out To Play It Grim
Profile by Chris Welch, The Bexleyheath & Welling Observer, January 1964
OF ALL the sensational groups to hit British pop music since the advent of the Mersey Sound and the rhythm 'n' blues revival, the weirdest, ...
Doors, The: Paul Rothchild Speaks, March 1967
Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, Outlaw Blues, 1967
This interview was taped in Englewood, New Jersey, in March 1967, shortly after the release of the first Doors album, which Paul Rothchild produced. Last ...
Bob Dylan: Tom Paine Himself: Understanding Dylan (July 1966)
Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, Outlaw Blues, 1967
PERHAPS THE FAVOURITE indoor sport in America today is discussing, worshiping, disparaging, and above all interpreting Bob Dylan. According to legend, young Zimmerman came out ...
Deviants, The: The Deviants: Ptooff! (Deram)
Sleevenotes by Miles, Deram, 1967
FROM THE DEPTHS of London's secret UNDERGROUND headquarters, fully equipped with complex electronic machinery, a 20th century bohemia illicitly recorded, furtively edited at great cost ...
Monterey Pops! An International Pop Festival
Report by Michael Lydon, unpublished, for Newsweek, June 1967
Reporting for Newsweek took me to Monterey. I'd gone to work for Newsweek right out of college in 1965 – I was a reporter in ...
Monterey Pops! An International Pop Festival (2)
Report by Michael Lydon, unpublished, for Newsweek, June 1967
Part TwoDAY TWO was over and Sunday came grey and cold, but the excitement was still there and growing. Could anyone believe what had happened, ...
Earth Opera, Joni Mitchell: The Way We Are Today
Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, The Age of Rock, 1969
Joni Mitchell: Joni Mitchell (Reprise)Earth Opera: Earth Opera (Elektra) ...
Karen Dalton: Bi•og'ra•phy: Karen Dalton
Press Release by uncredited writer, Capitol Records, September 1969
ALL KAREN Dalton has to do to create her own legend is sing. When she does, in a voice that belongs to no specific time ...
Jimi Hendrix: The Final Interview
Interview by Keith Altham, interview transcript, September 1970
On the evening of Friday, September 11th, 1970, Jimi gave what was to be his final interview at his Cumberland hotel suite. The interview was ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead (and the New Riders), part 1 (1970)
Interview by Ted Alvy, KPPC-FM 106.7 Pasadena, December 1970
Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir from the Dead, plus New Riders David Nelson and Marmaduke, talk about Workingman's Dead and the birth of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, while DJ Ted Alvy spins tunes and tries to keep order. Originally broadcast on KPPC-FM Pasadena in December 1970.
File format: mp3 File size: 24.5mb Interview length: 26 minutes 43 seconds Sound quality: ****
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead (and the New Riders), part 2 (1970)
Interview by Ted Alvy, KPPC-FM 106.7 Pasadena, December 1970
...in which Garcia, Weir, David Nelson and Marmaduke break out the guitars and have themselves an impromptu hootenanny hosted by DJ Ted Alvy, playing some of your country-gospel favourites amidst much studio chaos. Originally broadcast on KPPC-FM Pasadena in December 1970.
File format: mp3 File size: 30.7mb Interview length: 33 minutes 31 seconds Sound quality: ****
Retrospective by Lester Bangs, Excerpts from letters to Charlie Gillett, 1971
CREEM,187 South Woodward Avenue, Suite 203Birmingham, Michigan 48011(313) 642-8833[Autumn 1971] ...
Paul McCartney: The Paul Perplex: A British Commentary
Book Excerpt by Richard Williams, Giants of Rock Music, 1971
And here’s another clue for you allThe Walrus was Paul. ...
Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, Outlaw Blues, 1971
WHEN DAVID ANDERLE AND I BEGAN our discussion of Brian Wilson, we had just finished listening to Wild Honey (the Beach Boys, Capitol Records, November ...
Amon Düül: Amon Düül: A Science Fiction Rock Spectacle
Sleevenotes by Lester Bangs, unpublished, for Dance of the Lemmings, 1971
Part One: The Aluminium Revolution IT HAD TO HAPPEN! It's been some seven years now since the impact of American popular ...
Pink Floyd's Nick Mason and Rick Wright (1971)
Interview by Ted Alvy, KPPC-FM 106.7 Pasadena, October 1971
A splendid radio interview with Messrs. Mason and Wright in which they talk to DJ Ted Alvy about Meddle, the Zabriskie Point soundtrack, their quadraphonic p.a. system, and playing live. Originally broadcast on KPPC-FM Pasadena in October 1971.
File format: mp3 File size: 33.8mb Interview length: 36 minutes 52 seconds Sound quality: ****
Press Release by uncredited writer, RCA Records, November 1971
THE SUMMER IS probably the best time to go down there, to the far reaches of the west West village. It's really calm, quiet and ...
Live Review by Miles, New York Dolls/Glam Rock, 1972
"It’s a fact that LA soft rock has been stomped on by glittering lurid day-glo platform shoes worn by a female impersonating, posturing hard-rock singer... ...
So You Wanna Be a Rock'n'Roll Writer (Keep a Carbon!)
Guide by Charlie Gillett, Rock File 1, 1972
My favourite music magazine is called Creem. It's published in Detroit, Michigan, and every month the first thing I see is a statement next to ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Pye Records, 1972
Tex-Mex rockabilly is synonymous with Buddy Holly and it’s impossible to write of Buddy Knox without reference to his more famous namesake. ...
Frankie Lymon: Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Pye Records, 1972
Black vocal groups once sang for enjoyment on street-corners throughout ghettos in each of the big American cities. Late into the night they harmonised together, ...
Profile by Ben Edmonds, Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival program, November 1972
"Howlin' Wolf, man...he's the guts of America spilling out on the floor, that's all."Greil Marcus/CREEM ...
Profile by Metal Mike Saunders, bio, Capitol Records, 1973
"The live concerts, that’s what we enjoy most of all. You see the group, you see a performance, and that’s where we’re at." (Mark Farner) ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties: Excerpt from Chapter 8 – At Large
Book Excerpt by Ellen Sander, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973
IN THE wake of Chicago, David Crosby and Stephen Stills were moping around in Crosby's Los Angeles home one morning as summer was drawing to ...
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Boogie Lightning (Da Capo), 1974
Everything I know I taught myself.– Bo Diddley ...
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, 'Boogie Lightning' , 1974
IN THE FALL OF 1966 the Action were at their zenith, one short step above complete obscurity. For one all too brief moment they had ...
David Bowie: How to Become a Cult Figure in Only Two Years
Profile by Steve Turner, Unpublished piece for Nova, 1974
Mickie Bloomfield is a 16-year-old shipping clerk who lives in a tower block off the Old Kent Road and who in order to ‘be great ...
Raspberries, The: The Raspberries
Profile by Metal Mike Saunders, Biography for Capitol Records, 1974
YOU KNOW the group's story by now: how the Raspberries came out of nowhere in Summer 1972 to score with their million selling single, 'Go ...
Press Release by Richard Cromelin, Island Records, 1974
There isOne artNo moreNo lessTo doAll thingsWith art-Lessness– Piet Hein ...
Aretha Franklin: A Spirit in the Dark: Aretha Franklin at Fillmore West, 1971
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Boogie Lightning, 1974
IT WAS A NIGHT of nights. Tower of Power set the mood: 'You Got To Funkify', and then King Curtis and his Kingpins and the ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Smiley Smile and Friends
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Reprise Records, 1974
Oddly enough, while thumbing through my record collection for these two albums, so that I might fashion a more perfect set of introductory notes, I ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Wild Honey and 20/20
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Reprise Records, 1974
Somewhere right now someone is listening to the Beach Boys for the very first time. And somewhere else, someone is playing a Beach Boys record ...
Press Release by uncredited writer, Ardent Records, February 1974
IN SEPTEMBER, 1972 Ardent Records released Big Star's first album, Number One Record. The group consisted of Alex Chilton – guitar, keyboards, and vocals, Chris ...
Press Release by uncredited writer, A&M Records, October 1974
TOM JANS is a native Californian with a life-long love for music and language. He crammed his adolescence full of books, sports, and music, playing ...
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, unpublished, for Rolling Stone, 1975
Photographs of Mike Oldfield show him to he a tight-lipped introvert with hardly a trace of emotion present in his face. The interviews, when granted, ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
HARRY CHAPIN IS probably the most novelistic of our songwriters. Using techniques most often found in prose, he has created a series of story songs, ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words', 1975
ALTHOUGH PRIMARILY considered a composer, Frank Zappa's lyrics reflect his unique approach to rock 'n' roll almost as well as his music does. Combining a ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE came to prominence during the folk era, hoisted to underground approval on the virtue of her classic ‘Universal Soldier’ and her first album ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
ALTHOUGH AT FIRST he may sound like an early incarnation of Bob Dylan, lyrically John Prine has a voice all his own. Fusing his country ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
THE FIRST MAJOR black lyricist who comes to mind, circa 1955, is Chuck Berry. To many, Berry is rock 'n' roll. His lyrics, however, spoke ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Loudon Wainwright
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
ANOTHER OF THE new breed of songwriters – sharp, witty, terse, incisive – Loudon Wainwright III arrived on the Greenwich Village scene just as it ...
Linda Creed, Thom Bell: Philly’s Lyric Queen: Linda Creed
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
IN THE ‘70S THE most popular form of music is, once again, R&B, also known as Soul. Emanating primarily from Philadelphia, it is a laid-back ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
THIS HUSBAND-AND-WIFE country songwriting team have been at it for more than twenty-five years, proving the old adage, the family that plays together, stays together. ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
MELANIE EMERGED on the music scene, a tiny figure in the rain at Woodstock in 1969, alone onstage with her guitar and her songs. She ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
FOR A LONG PERIOD of time in Greenwich Village, Phil Ochs served as a sort of town crier. Each month at the Sunday Songwriters Workshop ...
John Sebastian, Lovin' Spoonful, The: John Sebastian
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to describe the feeling, being away from the Village for the first time, living in San Francisco in the summer of 1965, ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
DOC POMUS (with Mort Shuman), Jerry Leiber (with Mike Stoller), Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and a handful of others were the seminal figures during the ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books) , 1975
ALONG WITH HIS first wife, composer Carole King, Gerry Goffin has been responsible for some of the most memorable and enduring music of the early ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
FIRST TOM SANKEY brought The Golden Screw to off-off Broadway. Then, summarizing rapidly, Al Carmines applied his lyric touch to the outrageous Home Movies and ...
Grateful Dead, Robert Hunter: Robert Hunter
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
ROBERT HUNTER is the resident lyricist for the Grateful Dead, rock eminences of the San Francisco scene. An underground poet with a solo album, Tales ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, In Their Own Words (Collier Books), 1975
SLOWLY BUT SURELY, almost against his will, Randy Newman has become a legend in his own time although not too many people know it, or ...
Badfinger: The Breaking of Badfinger
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, unpublished, for Rolling Stone, July 1975
"I used to think the Beatles were in a mess," says Bill Collins, personal manager to Badfinger for the past nine years, "but let me ...
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, unpublished, for NME, 1976
He has one of those haircuts favoured by Americans not yet accustomed to the artistry of male hair-styling: shiny, lank and equal length all over. ...
Crosby Stills Nash and Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: High Mass At Wembley Stadium
Book Excerpt by Mick Gold, Rock On The Road (Futura), April 1976
THE AUDIENCE IS fairly well defined. There are few blacks, and the young dudes are out at other football grounds. The number of people over ...
Crosby Stills Nash and Young: Mel Bush: The Man Who Hired The World
Book Excerpt by Mick Gold, Rock On The Road (Futura), April 1976
A PROMOTER IS THE middleman between a musician and an audience. A promoter hires a venue, books an act, organises the publicity, is responsible for ...
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion, 1977
THE SEX PISTOLS made their debut at St Martins School of Art on Friday 6th of November 1975. The irate social secretary cut the power ...
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion, 1977
"I want more bands like us. I want people to go out and start something, to see us and start something, or else I'm just ...
Damned, The: The First European Punk Rock Festival
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', (Omnibus), 1977
VERY LITTLE ABOUT the festival turned out as planned. Initially the Heartdrops (now the Clash), Richard Hell, the Sex Pistols and Graham Parker and the ...
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977
WHEN I FIRST interviewed the Clash in their barrack like studio in Chalk Farm, they had yet to sign a record contract, although they were ...
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977
Monday, September 20th: The Sex Pistols, the Clash, Subway Sect, Siouxsie and the Banshees. Tuesday, September 21st: The Damned, Chris Spedding and the Vibrators, the ...
Sex Pistols, The: The Sex Pistols
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977
THE RECORD INDUSTRY is waking up. In October there were rumours about huge deals on the horizon, and Polydor look set to be the first ...
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977
ONE OF THE arguments trotted out to minimize punk rock was that however good or bad the sound was live, it would be impossible to ...
Stranglers, The: The Stranglers
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977
THE STRANGLERS slogged through over four hundred gigs in two years building up an ever-increasing following. They did not jump on the punk bandwagon but ...
Book Excerpt by Caroline Coon, '1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion', 1977
IN OCTOBER 1976 Nick Lowe produced the single 'New Rose' in an eight-track recording studio. It was the first U.K. punk sound on vinyl, preceeding ...
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
ON MAY 5, 1973, A CAPACITY CROWD OF 56,800 paid $309,000 to watch Led Zeppelin perform for nearly three hours in a Tampa, Florida, football ...
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977
"I FIRST MET HIM IN 1962," SAYS STEVE Cropper who co-wrote two of Otis's hits, 'Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa, Fa' and 'Dock Of The Bay', ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
THEY HAVE PARTICIPATED IN AND provoked the transformation of the morals and manners of their generation so effectively that to future social historians the Rolling ...
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977
FINDING AN UNDISCOVERED TONE ON THE soul scale in the early seventies was almost like inventing a new color, but Al Green scanned the high ...
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
ON THE WALL OF HIS NORTHERN CALIFORNIA home, a note announces to friends and visitors that "Van Morrison the person only sometimes has anything to ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977
THE GRATEFUL DEAD ARE A LIVING HIPPIE monument, lysergic storm troopers who have carried "the Message" across continents and psychic thresholds, oblivious of all laws ...
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
THIS IS NEWARK, THE NIGHT AFTER MARTIN Luther King's assassination. Jimi Hendrix is playing the Symphony Theatre to a crowd of white, modishly dressed hippies. ...
Four on the Floor: The Motown Sound
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977
IT WAS EVER MORE THAN A RECORD LABEL. At its zenith, during a span that dominated most (if not all) of the sixties, the hit ...
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
THE TEEN DREAM LIES AT THE CORE OF rock & roll and no group has explored, projected and interpreted the turbulent substances of teenage craniums ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977
OBVERSE, REVERSE, INVERSE, PERVERSE. A whiplash girl-child waits in the dark, splintered in blue fragments, pinpricks of white heat. The Velvet Underground cauterized their time, ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
IN THE BEGINNING... WERE THE BEACH BOYS. Under the avalanche of the English Invasion, the Psychedelic Apocalypse, supersonic guitars and flash, it is almost forgotten ...
Elvis Presley: Rock 100: Elvis Presley
Retrospective by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
"THAT'S FINE, MAN," CHORTLES SAM Phillips over the studio intercom at 760 Union Avenue, Memphis. "Hell, that's different. That's a pop song now." ...
Beatles, The, Bob Dylan: I Don't Believe in Zimmerman
Book Excerpt by Mark Shipper, Paperback Writer (New English Library), 1978
THE FIRST few months of 1966 were pleasant ones for the Beatles. Meat The Beatles remained at the top of the charts all over the ...
Interview by Howie Klein, KSAN San Francisco, April 1978
The deeply batty Mr Erickson terrorizes KSAN's presenters, shouts at listener's phoning in, and breaks into "song".
File format: mp3; file size: 41.1mb, interview length: 44' 48" sound quality: ****
Essay by Lester Bangs, Stranded (ed. Greil Marcus), 1979
VAN MORRISON'S Astral Weeks was released ten years, almost to the day, before this was written. It was particularly important to me because the fall ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Sea's Endless, Awful Rhythm & Me Without Even a Dirty Picture
Book Excerpt by Nick Tosches, Stranded, Ed. Greil Marcus, December 1979
CALL ME Gilligan. As I confront in earnest the problems of divine retribution, way-out sex, and the value of the Folk Mass, so I confront ...
The Frontier Ethic of Anti-Fashion
Overview by Cynthia Rose, The Virgin Yearbook, 1980
THOUGH THE dictionary defines it as "the prevailing customs and usages of upper-class society, especially in dress", fashion is really a way to re-spell thievery. ...
Profile by Garry Bushell, Dance Craze, 1981
I WAS STUCK on a five hour train journey from Glasgow to London in the summer of '79 with no buffet and with only the ...
Kingston Trio, The: The Kingston Trio
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, from the book 'When Rock Was Young', 1981
IN THE PARKING LOT of the high school, the ageing greasers stood by their late model gas guzzlers, trading sips of blackberry brandy washed down ...
Throbbing Gristle: The Tape Decays: Throbbing Gristle
Sleevenotes by Jon Savage, , 1981
CUT UP END incantations. Click. Machines hum. Silence clears. Slowly, the tape recorders start to spin: the vortex is set in motion. IBM computer tape: ...
Mekons, The: The Mekons Story (CNT) 1982
Sleevenotes by Lester Bangs, CNT Records, 1982
THE MEKONS are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll. They are also the finest artists ever to have graced this ...
Donald Fagen Spins His Favourite Records
Book Excerpt by Charlie Gillett, Capital Radio broadcast, 1982
After the release of The Nightfly, Donald Fagen visited the U.K. to promote it, and one of the few "interviews" he permitted was with Charlie ...
David Bowie, Thin Lizzy, T. Rex: Tony Visconti Talks
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Record Producers' (BBC Books), 1982
IN MUCH THE same way that George Martin is known for his work with the Beatles, anyone who has ever inspected the small print on ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Record Producers' (BBC Books), 1982
WHILE THE NAMES of George Martin and Mickie Most are probably the best known among British record producers, Glyn Johns was making hit records with ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Record Producers', BBC Books, 1982
IF ANY PRODUCER could be said to have an instantly identifiable sound, aside from the obvious case of Phil Spector, it would be Richard Perry. ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Record Producers (BBC Books), 1982
RUNNING NORTH off Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood is a steep road which twists and turns upwards into the Hollywood Hills. ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Record Producers (BBC Books), 1982
ELVIS PRESLEY was the King of Rock'n'Roll – anyone who might care to dispute that should try reading another book, for without Presley, neither we, ...
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, The Record Producers (BBC Books), 1982
THE END OF 1981 sees Chris Thomas, ex-student of the Royal Academy of Music and also producer of the earliest (and best) Sex Pistols' records, ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Record Producers, 1982
CAREERS IN POPULAR music are often notoriously short, particularly in the most creative areas of activity, therefore it is of more than passing interest to ...
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, The Record Producers (BBC Books), 1982
WHENEVER THE subject of record producers is discussed by anyone born before 1960, one name will always surface, that of Phil Spector. ...
Blondie, Suzi Quatro, Sweet, Mud: Chinn and Chapman
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Record Producers', 1982
THE YEARS BETWEEN 1971 and 1975 were tucked between psychedelia on the one hand and punk rock on the other, and while they featured country ...
Profile by John Tobler, Virgin Yearbook, 1982
A THEORY was circulating during the last two or three years to the effect that the acts dominating the US album charts, and therefore the ...
Profile and Interview by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, The Record Producers, 1982
THERE HAVE been numerous record producers who have started their own label, including Phil Spector, Richard Perry, Tony Visconti and Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman. ...
Profile and Interview by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, The Record Producers (BBC Books), 1982
IN MUCH THE same way as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were the first American record producers, that accolade in Britain belongs to the man ...
Interview by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Record Producers' (BBC Books) , 1982
WHEN SIFTING through the potential candidates for a book such as this, it is obviously essential to reflect the present and future, as well as ...
Madness: A Brief Case History Of Madness
Book Excerpt by Mark Williams, Proteus Books, 1982
Their condition as carriers of a fast reggae hybrid, ska, was first diagnosed in 1979. This nutty sound was then transmitted to an increasingly larger ...
Monkees, The: Peter Tork: The Monkees and After
Interview by Bruce Pollock, When The Music Mattered, 1982
IT WAS PROBABLY late 1966 or early 1967 when word first began to circulate through the Village. "You know the Monkees, that plastic-fantastic pop ...
Eagles, The, Joe Walsh: Bill Szymczyk
Interview by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Record Producers', 1982
THERE CAN'T BE too many people whose surnames have eight letters, none of which is a vowel, but it hardly needs to be said that ...
Interview by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Guitar Greats', BBC Books, 1983
IT MAY BE that American readers of this book may wonder ‘Why?’ And even perhaps, ‘Who?’ It is an unfortunate fact that Ry Cooder, a ...
Interview by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Guitar Greats (BBC Books), 1983
In 1969, The Who toured Britain, dragging around a support act who were, to say the least, an unknown quantity to all but a very ...
Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore: Scotty Moore
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Guitar Greats' (BBC Books), 1983
THERE CAN BE few more graphic illustrations of the fact that rock'n'roll music is no longer some here-today-gone-tomorrow speck of lint in the wind than ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Guitar Greats (BBC Books), 1983
IN CONSIDERING the dozens of potential candidates for this book, one essential ingredient was a representative of the blues/R&B heritage, for without the inspiration of ...
Hank Marvin, Shadows, The: Hank B. Marvin
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Guitar Greats' (BBC Books), 1983
TO DEMONSTRATE to any potential unbelievers the importance of Hank B. Marvin, we must go back to 1977, when a TV commercial was screened showing ...
Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin: Jimmy Page
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Guitar Greats' (BBC Books), 1983
THERE ARE CERTAIN guitar players without whom this book could not claim to approach completeness, and, of course, one of our criteria for inclusion was ...
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, The Guitar Greats (BBC Books), 1983
AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST once described Jeff Beck as having an oversized heart and soul, which elevates him above most other guitarists and compared him in ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Guitar Greats (BBC Books), 1983
AT THE START of the 1980s, the rock band which was generally accepted, if not as the most popular group in the world, then as ...
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, The Guitar Greats (BBC Books), 1983
PETE TOWNSHEND NEEDS little introduction – he is, although he would perhaps reject the term, a celebrity. Pete was born on 19 May 1945, in ...
Elvis Presley, Rick Nelson, James Burton, Emmylou Harris: James Burton
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Guitar Greats' (BBC Books), 1983
ONE OF THE GREAT rock'n'roll guitarists of the 1950s, but a man who remained virtually unknown to all but the cognoscenti until comparatively recently, is ...
Deep Purple, Rainbow: Ritchie Blackmore
Book Excerpt by Stuart Grundy, John Tobler, 'The Guitar Greats' (BBC Books), 1983
ONE REASON for the selection of ace heavy metal guitarist Ritchie Blackmore as one of our subjects relates to a previous, slimmer and somewhat inferior ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Guitar Greats' (BBC Books), 1983
CARLOS SANTANA has continuously led the band that bears his name for nearly fifteen years, and maintained a substantial worldwide popularity, something which requires an ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, 'The Guitar Greats', 1983
WHEN WE MET Steve Miller in the Seattle studio where he mostly works these days, he was planning to make more than one album – ...
Book Excerpt by Danny (Shredder) Weizmann, 'Hardcore California', 1983
IN 1978 THE suburbs of Los Angeles (Anaheim, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Redondo Beach etc.) were still a home for Disneyland, Movieland Wax Museum ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvets Hit Hollywood
Book Excerpt by Victor Bockris, Gerard Malanga, Omnibus Books, 1983
An extract from Uptight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris & Gerard Malanga, first published by Omnibus Press in 1983. (Currently available as a ...
Book Excerpt by John Tobler, Stuart Grundy, The Guitar Greats, BBC publications, 1983
Out of the long list of potential candidates for this book, very few names were obvious and automatic choices, but one certainty for inclusion was ...
Cat Stevens: The Making of Cat Stevens
Book Excerpt by Chris Charlesworth, Proteus Books, 1984
An extract from Cat Stevens by Chris Charlesworth, originally published by Proteus Books in 1984 but now out of print. ...
Smiths, The, Morrissey: The Year Of The Smiths
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, The Virgin Yearbook, 1984
GAY MEN PAVED pop’s way this year. With Boy George’s wardrobe fully open, all the closet cases came spilling forth: Burns and The Bronskis, Frankie ...
Laurie Anderson Goes For The Throat
Interview by Mark Dery, High Performance, 1984
FORGET the Pippi Longstocking coyness that led Newsweek to dub her "a cybernetic Lily Tomlin." Forget the dimples and the I-had-an-argument-with-10,000-volts-and-lost hairstyle. When Laurie Anderson ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Ace Records, 1984
JACKIE WILSON, pioneer showman of the old rhythm and blues school, possessed the most acrobatic voice in black music. ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Ace Records, 1984
DURING THE early '60s, Arthur Alexander wrote a famous clutch of compact, well-crafted country-soul songs. Stories of inconstant love and private gloom, they were covered ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Saxonograph Records sleevenote, 1985
IN AUGUST 1983 Big Jay McNeely flew to London for the R & B Jamboree at Camden 's Electric Ballroom where he topped a bill ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Charly Records, 1985
BILLY WARD'S DOMINOES, from whose personnel Clyde McPhatter and Jackie Wilson later emerged as star soloists, were the founding fathers of gospel-oriented doowop with a ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records, 1986
No 'bout a doubt it, Mr. A has shaken a lot of action. He cut his first hit, a nifty nine-million seller, at fifteen, wrote ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records, 1986
Hey, come on in. Glad you could make it. Gonna be a great party (take your coat?) Lesley'll be here in a minute. She's over ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Edsel Records, 1986
It was no Sun Records. It wasn't Philles or Dimension, or Cameo-Parkway or even Big Top. But Autumn Records surely qualifies as one of America's ...
Interview by Mick Brown, promo for 'No Guru, No Method, No Teacher', 1986
Musical Roots ...
Frankie Valli, Four Seasons, The: The Four Seasons: 25th Anniversary
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records, 1987
"... He turned on his record player, dressed up in his sharpest clothes, and practiced dancing as if as long as Kookie Byrnes or Cousin ...
Chuck Willis: The Great Chuck Willis
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Official Records, 1988, 1988
OF ALL THE artists brought into prominence by Atlantic Records in the mid-1950's, Chuck Willis had perhaps the most potential to become a great Soul ...
Clyde McPhatter, Drifters, The: Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Atlantic Records, 1988
FROM THE MOMENT the lights were dimmed in the old St. Nicholas Arena for Alan Freed's first New York Rock And Roll Show in January, ...
Sleevenotes by Simon Witter, Jack Trax/Indigo Music, 1988
2009 NOTE: I wrote a few album sleevenotes in the 80s, but none that I was more chuffed to have been asked to do than ...
Scritti Politti: Making Provision: Green speaks
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Virgin Records press release, 1988
THREE YEARS of silence are finally broken this week as Scritti Politti release the first single off a new album. Featuring the inimitable trumpet of ...
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Unpublished, written for Q, 1988
Who do people think Johnny Cash is? "A conservative country singer who lives down in the South somewhere," according to the Man in Black himself, ...
Joe Tex: The Clown Prince of Soul
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, 'The Very Best of Joe Tex' (Charly Records), May 1988
WHEN NASHVILLE publisher-producer Buddy Killen first met Joe Tex in 1961, the singer already had six years of recording and performing under his belt. They ...
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Charly Records, August 1988
JOE SIMON IS one of soul’s great deepies, possessor of a richly mellow voice that puts him up there with such deep-throated greats as Jerry ...
Sleevenotes by Jon Savage, Mantra Records, 1989
There are still plenty of real Londoners who sleep the night in London as well as work the day there - some in love, some ...
Four Seasons, The, Frankie Valli: Frankie Valli and the Four Lovers
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family Records, 1989
IF ‘CHICAGO AIN'T Nothin' But A Blues Band’, then Newark ain't nothin' but an Italian quartet. It's a safe bet that the northern New Jersey ...
Bobby Womack: Doin’ It His Own Way: Bobby Womack
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, 'Womack Winners', 1989
WHEN BOBBY WOMACK called his seventeenth solo album The Last Soul Man and set out on 1987’s quasi-missionary tour of the same name, he was ...
Lucinda Williams: Happy Woman Blues
Sleevenotes by John Morthland, Smithsonian Folkways, 1990
THE DAUGHTER of an English lit professor, Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and spent most of her youth moving from college town ...
Irma Thomas: Something Good: The Muscle Shoals Sessions
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA Records, 1990
CHESS WAS pre-eminently a blues label and Chess was most definitely a Chicago-based label but Chess was also a hit-seeking label and that fundamental fact ...
Brook Benton: 40 Greatest Hits
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Polygram Records, 1990
BROOK BENTON'S music was a study in contrast. The lushness of the backings was juxtaposed against the contained passion in his voice. On ...
Johnnie Ray: The Johnnie Ray Story
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family box set, 1990
THE LONG WHITE limousine is rocking like a rowboat, engulfed by a stormy sea of screaming bobby-soxers. Waves of petticoated and sweatered girls break against ...
Madonna: The Immaculate Collection
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sire Records, 1990
"The Coolest Queen of White Heat"... "An outrageous blend of Little Orphan Annie, Margaret Thatcher and Mae West"... "Narcissistic, brazen, comic... the Goddess of the ...
Flatlanders, The: The Flatlanders: More a Legend Than a Band
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Rhino Records, 1990
AS THE FLATLANDERS DROVE TO NASHVILLE IN March 1971 to cut their lone album, Tammy Wynette was sitting atop the country charts with 'Bedtime Story'. ...
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Charly, July 1990
LITTLE WILLIE JOHN's is one of the saddest stories in the book of soul. A pintsized hipster from the Motor City, he notched up 14 ...
Esther Phillips: 'Little' Esther Phillips: Better Beware
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Charly, July 1990
OF ALL the blues-shouting earth mamas who dominated the distaff side of R&B in the early '50s, easily the most disarming was Little Esther, born ...
Grateful Dead: Reporting Live from Deadland
Essay by David Gans, KPFA Folio, July 1990
I'M DANCING with my notebook in my hand at the Shoreline Amphitheater on Friday, June 15, 1990. I've been avoiding this Folio article for two ...
Albert King, Otis Rush: Albert King/Otis Rush: Door To Door
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess Records, Fall 1990
CERTAINLY IT made sense for Chess to release an album combining the handful of songs recorded by Albert King and Otis Rush during their short-lived ...
Doors, The: James Douglas Morrison, 1943-1971
Essay by Nick Tosches, Foreword to David Dalton's 'Mr. Mojo Risin'', 1991
JERSEY CITY, June 1968. 'Hello, I Love You'. I remember not only where I was but also whom I was with when it came through ...
Bobby 'Blue' Bland: Two Steps from the Blues: The Gospel According to Bobby 'Blue' Bland
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, From a Whisper to a Scream (Fontana Books), 1991
WHEN HOWLIN' WOLF left Memphis for Chicago in late 1952, Sun Records' Sam Phillips was left with a crop of younger blues singers who in ...
Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Hank Williams: Redneck Soul: George Jones and the White Man's Blues
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'From a Whisper to a Scream' (Fontana), 1991
NO ONE IS FONDER of saying that country music is "the white man's blues" than black artists like B.B. King, Etta James and Bobby Womack. ...
N.W.A.: Poison The Hood: Niggaz with Attitude
Retrospective by John Mendelsohn, unpublished, for Playboy, 1991
ON A SPRING EVENING in 1991, the late Eazy-E accepted the invitation of Dr. Dre, his fellow member of the notorious "gangsta" rap group NWA, ...
Retrospective and Interview by John Pidgeon, Classic Albums (BBC Books), 1991
IN 1983, AT THE age of 45, Tina Turner could lay claim to a handful of hit singles, the first of which had come in ...
Small Faces, The: Small Faces: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
Book Excerpt by John Pidgeon, Classic Albums (BBC Books), 1991
WRITTEN, PERFORMED and produced by musicians who, after three years of hit singles, were still not long out of their teens, the Small Faces' Ogden's ...
Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson on Aqualung
Book Excerpt by John Pidgeon, Classic Albums (BBC Books), 1991
Aqualung was Jethro Tull's fourth album since the group first gained attention with 'Song For Jeffrey' in 1968. Further hit singles had followed in the ...
Book Excerpt by John Pidgeon, Classic Albums (BBC Books), 1991
Kick and, specifically, the irresistibly rhythmic rock of 'Need You Tonight' turned Australia's INXS into a world-wide success overnight, except overnight success doesn't happen to ...
Book Excerpt by John Pidgeon, Classic Albums (BBC Books), 1991
IF ANYONE EVER gets round to compiling a list of the sources of inspiration behind big-selling records, major motorway tailbacks are unlikely to figure high ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sony/Epic Records, 1991
As with most successful artists, Screamin' Jay Hawkins career hung on lots of ifs... It might not have happened at all if his first manager ...
Dion: Bronx Blues — The Columbia Recordings (1962-1963)
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sony/Columbia Records, 1991
"Rock 'n' roll started as rebellious music. It had an attitude, and in that attitude was a lot of stuff: anger, frustration, joy, and that ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1991
THE AMERICAN RHYTHM & blues vocal group was a development of the Pop groups that enjoyed heavy popularity from the 1910's into the 1950's. When ...
Allen Toussaint: The Collection
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Reprise Records, 1991
BY THE TIME Allen Toussaint released his first Warner Bros. album, Life, Love And Motion, in 1972, it was already impossible to look at New ...
Professor Longhair: Mardi Gras In Baton Rouge (Rhino)
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Rhino, 1991
AHH, YES, THE virtues of the repertoire.Admittedly, it's a foreign concept these days, when artists are almost universally expected to write and perform fresh material ...
Koko Taylor: What It Takes - The Chess Years
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA Records, 1991
IT'S ALTOGETHER FITTING that Koko Taylor's first Chess single was ‘I Got What It Takes’. Nearly three decades in the blues business--years punctuated by a ...
Sleevenotes by John Morthland, Smithsonian Folkways, 1991
WHEN IT WAS first released in 1979, Ramblin' could not have been more out of step. Lucinda Williams, who did indeed have ramblin' on her ...
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess Records, 1991
HUNG DOWN HEAD was a profoundly shocking record when it was first released in 1970 as Chess LP 408. ...
Howlin' Wolf: Live and Cookin' at Alice's Revisited
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA Records, 1992
BY 1972, HOWLIN' WOLF was on the downhill side of his fabled career as one of the twin titans of Chicago blues. ...
Bobby 'Blue' Bland: Bobby “Blue” Bland: I Pity The Fool – The Duke Recordings, Vol. 1
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA Records, 1992
AN ENDURING IRONY of the periodic blues revivals that rear their heads is that each and every one has managed to pass by the ...
King Curtis: Blow Man, Blow! (Bear BCD 15670)
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1992
"BLOW MAN, BLOW!" The big man with the glittering horn sent showers of squeals and shrieks out over the heads of his ecstatic shouting audience, ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1992
JOHN GREER, one of the forgotten men of rhythm & blues, had all the talent necessary to succeed, and a few extra advantages besides. ...
Icicle Works: The Best of the Icicle Works
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Beggars Banquet Records, 1992
"TRY NOT TO listen to it all in one go, it'll do your head in." Sound advice? Maybe, but pretty unusual when you consider that ...
Roy Buchanan: Sweet Dreams – The Anthology
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Polydor Records, 1992
ROY BUCHANAN seemed to come out of nowhere in 1972 when a laudatory article in Rolling Stone was followed by his first album, but it ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1992
A LINE OF golden saxophones held carefully aslant over the showy blue and white "BJ" bandstands catches the eye first. Arrayed behind are trombones flanked ...
Keith Richards: Wingless and Angelic: Keith Richards in Jamaica
Book Excerpt by Victor Bockris, Keith Richards: The Unauthorised Biography, 1992
An extract from Keith Richards: The Unauthorised Biography by Victor Bockris, first published in 1992. (Currently available as a paperback published by Omnibus Press, 426pp, ...
Interview by Paul Zollo, from 'Songwriters On Songwriting', 1992
WE ARE SITTING Indian-style on the second floor of Leonard Cohen’s home in Los Angeles. On his bookshelf are many books that he’s written himself, ...
Buddy Guy: The Complete Chess Studio Recordings
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess Records, January 1992
THE BEST measure of Buddy Guy's talents as a bluesman could well be the fact that he's been presiding over the most distinguished fan club ...
Sleevenotes by Robert Gordon, Rykodisc, February 1992
WINDING DOWN a recent set, Alex Chilton asked, "Anything else anyone needs done for them?" That menacing kindness goes a long way toward explaining the ...
Johnny Thunders: Go, Johnny, Go: Thunders' So Alone
Sleevenotes by Ira Robbins, Sire Records, February 1992
AMONG THE LIFETIME residents of abyssville are those rock'n'rollers whose faith in the liberating rebellion of mangy guitar music gets crossed up into a personal ...
Johnny Cash: The Gospel Collection
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Sony, July 1992
ONE NIGHT in August 1957, after an appearance on Town Hall Party in Compton, California, Johnny Cash went to the home of Lawrence and Hazel ...
Meters, The: The Meters: Uptown Rulers! Live on the Queen Mary (Rhino)
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Rhino CD, July 1992
SAY WHAT else you will about Paul and Linda McCartney, they sure knew how to throw a party back in 1975. ...
Pete Townshend: What Came Next: Pete Townshend Goes It Alone
Sleevenotes by Ira Robbins, Who Came First, August 1992
As spiritual epiphanies go, Pete Townshend's public acknowledgment of his personal rebirth was made with remarkable understatement for a major celebrity. ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, EMI/Right Stuff, 1993
One of the few good things left in the current morass of ‘oldies’ radio is the element of surprise. In a world where the same ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, EMI/Right Stuff, 1993
"I've got my J-200 there with me. That's the big Gibson, like the kind the Everly Brothers had custom-made for them. So beautiful. The case ...
Otis Redding: The Definitive Otis Redding
Sleevenotes by Carol Cooper, Rhino Records, 1993
THE HISTORY In June 1993, Essence magazine published the results of a listener poll conducted by WBGO-FM’s Felix Hernandez, host of the weekly rhythm & ...
Otis Rush, Magic Sam: Various Artists: The Cobra Records Story
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Capricorn Records, 1993
STRANGE THAT The Cobra Story marks the first time that these late '50s recordings culled from three short-lived Chicago labels run by Eli Toscano have ...
Little Walter: The Essential Little Walter
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA, 1993
LITTLE WALTER was a singular figure among the Chess artist roster by virtue of the fact that he was the only one whose popular appeal ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Rhino, 1993
HE LOOKED LIKE he just stepped off the top of a wedding cake – a dapper, smooth-faced little man in a tailored suit topped off ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1993
FOR TEN of the most crucial years in the history of American black music, Louis Jordan was the main man, the solid sender, the hep-est ...
In Pursuit of Pure Sound: The Story of the Audiophile Record Label, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs
Report by Tom Graves, American Way, May 1993
HERB BELKIN, EXECUTIVE vice president of ABC records at the time, remembers the day in 1977 when two young audio engineers came into his office ...
Billy Boy Arnold: Back Where I Belong (Alligator)
Sleevenotes by Kirk Silsbee, Alligator, August 1993
SPEAK FACE to face with bluesman Billy Boy Arnold and you have the feeling that something about him doesn't quite add up. He looks to ...
Everly Brothers, The: The Everly Brothers: Walk Right Back: The Everly Brothers On Warner Bros.
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Warner Bros., September 1993
SUPPOSEDLY, it was the richest deal in the history of the record business when it was announced in November 1959. ...
Marion Williams: The Genius of Marion Williams: My Soul Looks Back
Sleevenotes by Anthony Heilbut, Spirit Feel/Shanachie, 1994
IN RETROSPECT, Marion Williams' last year assumes an almost mythic shape. She finally received the worldly honours and material goods long denied her: the rush ...
Mary Wells: Dear Lover, The Atco Sessions
Sleevenotes by David Nathan, liner notes, 1994
CONSIDERED, for good reason, one of the top black female vocalists of the early to mid-Sixties, the late Mary Wells' initial recordings for Motown Records ...
Billy Lee Riley: Blue Collar Blues
Sleevenotes by Robert Gordon, Hightone album, 1994
BILLY LEE RILEY would be a multi-instrumentalist even if he didn't play guitar, harmonica, and bass. That voice. Those voices. ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Rhino Records, 1994
SHOW BUSINESS is full of Kings, Queens, Counts, Dukes, and even a Boss, but high above all the royalty shines the real Boss Of The ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Sony Legacy, 1994
THERE'S A picture of her taken at the Fox Theater in Detroit in 1956. She's at the microphone in a sleeveless satin gown, head down, ...
Elvis Presley: Memphis Blues Again: Elvis ’69
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Aspects of Elvis (Sidgwick & Jackson), 1994
ELVIS PRESLEY must have sensed that his credibility was on the line when he made the decision, in early January 1969, to cancel a Nashville ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis: The Goldman Factor
Essay by John Tobler, 'Aspects of Elvis', 1994
ELVIS PRESLEY WAS THE UNKNOWING centre of controversy in his quite short life: only being screened from the waist upwards on TV so that his ...
Book Excerpt by Ira Robbins, The Big Takeover, 1994
Even if the basic impetus for punk rock was just traditional teen needs like pissing off parents and claiming a cultural identity, some of the ...
Elvis Presley: Wise Men Say: Elvis Presley
Book Excerpt by Simon Frith, Aspects of Elvis, 1994
"I DON'T THINK EL WILL EVER RATE WITH the more serious students of popular song – his syrupy crooning with vibrato went out with Rudy ...
Billy Fury: Halfway to Paradise
Book Excerpt by Mick Houghton, 'Love is the Drug' (Penguin Books), 1994
BILLY FURY, Britain's only authentic rock'n'roll singer, wrote most of his own material but had his most outstanding commercial success with big ballads like 'Halfway ...
Byrds, The, Moby Grape: Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot
Book Excerpt by Tom Hibbert, 'Love is the Drug' (Penguin), 1994
THE BYRDS FORMED in 1964 when Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, a Dylan-obsessed folkie from San Francisco, saw A Hard Day's Night. He decided there and ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie and the Banshees: A Kiss in the DreamHouse
Book Excerpt by Lucy O'Brien, 'Love is the Drug' (Penguin), 1994
ALTHOUGH SHE'D been one of punk's founding fathers, as it were, Siouxsie Sioux never really looked like she could last the distance. She's still here ...
John Martyn: Johnny Too Bad: John Martyn
Book Excerpt by Mark Cooper, 'Love is the Drug' (Penguin), 1994
HE'S A JAZZ MAN, he's a folkie and he's been a drinker. Singer songwriter John Martyn has been most things, apart from commercially acceptable. Now ...
Duane Eddy: Twangin' from Phoenix to L.A. (Bear Family)
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Bear Family Records, 1994
LET'S NOT TALK about guitarists who can play circles around other guitarists, or about which famous picker influenced which other famous picker. ...
The Platters: Four Platters and One Lovely Dish
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, March 1994
GOING FROM complete unknowns to classics of American pop music took the Platters only two short years. ...
Duke Henderson: Get Your Kicks (Delmark)
Sleevenotes by Kirk Silsbee, Delmark Records, May 1994
ASK THE handful of remaining African-American performers and entertainers who were active during Los Angeles' Central Avenue heyday in the 1940s about blues singer Duke ...
Barbara Lynn: Barbara Lynn: The Atlantic Sessions
Sleevenotes by David Nathan, ammended, for Ichiban Soul Classics, September 1994
WHILE THE ANNALS OF R&B music history are filled with artists whose initial impact is never surpassed, there are more than a few men and ...
Band, The, Bobby Charles: The Story of Bobby Charles and Bearsville
Retrospective and Interview by Colin Escott, Stony Plain Records, September 1994
BOBBY CHARLES IS one of the great Louisiana records, and there have been a few. It doesn't matter that it was recorded in upstate New ...
Mary Wells: Dear Lover - The Atco Sessions
Sleevenotes by David Nathan, revised, for Ichiban Soul Classics, Fall 1994
Mary Wells: The Soul Queen Who Quit Motown. Considered, for good reason, one of the top black female vocalists of the early to mid-'60s, ...
Sweet Inspirations, The: The Best Of The Sweet Inspirations
Sleevenotes by David Nathan, Liner Notes, Fall 1994
THAT HITMAKING FEMALE vocal groups from New York City existed in abundance throughout the early to mid-Sixties is without dispute. But while the Ronettes, the ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1995
IN JANUARY, 1956, a skinny and bespectacled 16-year old laid down his dollar and got 11 cents change and a shiny new 45rpm record (resplendent ...
Ronnie Lane: One For The Road (Edsel)
Sleevenotes by John Tobler, Edsel, 1995
IN 1995, THE WORLD seems to have finally rediscovered The Small Faces, one of the most significant and respected groups of the British beat boom ...
Memoir by Nick Tosches, The Nick Tosches Reader, 1995
LESTER BANGS, with whom I had drunk but whose writing I had never read, had died not long after Hellfire came out, in the spring ...
Tower of Power, Lenny Williams: Lenny Williams
Sleevenotes by David Nathan, Ichiban Soul Classics LP, September 1995
These liner notes were originally written for the now out-of-print 1995 Ichiban Soul Classics CD Lenny Williams: 'Cause I Love You: The Best of Lenny ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Hundred Year Hall and the '72 European Tour
Interview by David Gans, The Grateful Dead Hour, October 1995
The Album Network Special: Hundred Year HallPhil Lesh and Bob Weir interviewed 9/7/95 by Marty Martinez and David Gans ...
Elvis Presley: Sweet Movements Of A Hillbilly Hellion
Essay by Robert Gordon, Cleveland Ballet Company (official program), 1996
THERE ARE CINDER block joints you can still go to in Memphis, wooden shacks in Mississippi, places that are out of the way and not ...
Book Excerpt by Colin Escott, 'Tattooed on their Tongues' (Schirmer), 1996
JAMES BURTON CRADLES a dark red 1953 Telecaster. The finish is cracked in a few places and the fretboard is worn, but it's got ...
Report by Dave Rimmer, Pozor, 1996
NOTE: As a veteran of the event, I have written a lot about the Love Parade – for various music magazines in the UK, for ...
Beach Boys, The: Brian Wilson and the Legend of Smile
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Waiting For The Sun', 1996
BY THE TIME ‘Good Vibrations’ had hit No.1 at the end of 1966, Brian was firmly committed to extending pop's boundaries as far as he ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Rhino album, 1996
GRANDEUR IS A term rarely used to describe a singer of popular music, but no other word can describe the physical presence and magical personal ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1996
NEW ORLEANS SINGER Chris Kenner looked around at the music scene one day in 1963 and wrote a song called 'The Land Of 1,000 Dances'. ...
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, MCA Records, 1996
THE COMPETITION amongst independent R&B labels after the post-World War II era was understandably fierce. Labels often lived from single to single – moving fast ...
John Denver: Reflections (Songs Of Love & Life)
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, RCA Records, 1996
NO ONE WAS ever less ashamed of wearing their heart on their sleeve than John Denver. No one was ever less afraid to share moments ...
J.J. Cale: Anyway the Wind Blows
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Mercury Records, 1996
COINCIDENCE OR NOT, the phrase "laid back" crept into common use right around the time of J.J. Cale's first album. Nearly everyone but Cale missed ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, Bear Family, 1996
THEY'VE GOT A Hall of Fame for rock 'n' roll now and a lot of the residents in that hallowed hall are craggy-faced and grayhaired, ...
Clarence Carter: I Caught You Making Love: The ABC Years
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Ichiban Soul Classics//Sony Music, 1996
SELF-TAUGHT ON guitar, formally trained on piano, a gospel church-bred singer, Clarence Carter combined a bluesman's flair for storytelling with a frankly lusty take on ...
ZZ Hill: Z.Z. Hill: Love Is Good When You're Stealing It
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Ichiban Soul Classics/Sony Music, 1996
Z.Z. HILL WORE many hats during a career that was cut tragically short by a heart attack in 1984. A songwriter who enjoyed early hits ...
Sleevenotes by Ira Robbins, Sex, America, Cheap Trick (Sony Legacy), May 1996
AT A TIME WHEN AMERICAN ROCK'N'ROLL was sinking under the commercial weight of glitter-ball beats, arena bombast and California no-cal, Cheap Trick blew out of ...
Bread: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Elektra Records, Summer 1996
IN SO MANY ways, Bread’s is a quintessentially L.A. pop story. An Oklahoman and a Tennessean make their separate ways to Hollywood in the early ...
Sleevenotes by Robert Gordon, Hi Records, 1997
Al Green's voice is a beautiful musical instrument. Al Green's singing can create pictures, can loll in clover and tease birds. That man can sing ...
Dan Fogelberg: Portrait - The Music of Dan Fogelberg from 1972-1997
Sleevenotes by Paul Zollo, Columbia Legacy, 1997
IT'S ONE OF his earliest memories: He's four years old, standing up on a box in front of his father's big band, baton in hand, ...
Harper's Bizarre: Harpers Bizarre: Feelin’ Groovy
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Warner Bros. Records, 1997
"The object of A&R is to give people what they want to have, not what you think they might like to hear." Thus spoke a ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, MCA Records, 1997
Etta was just 21 years old when she came to Chess Records in 1960, but she was a seasoned show business veteran with six years ...
Bo Diddley: His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess/MCA Records, 1997
TO PARAPHRASE the titles of two of the 20 Bo Diddley nuggets contained on His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection , you can't judge ...
Glen Campbell: The Glen Campbell Collection (1962-1989)
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Razor & Tie Records, 1997
ALTHOUGH GLEN CAMPBELL has always insisted that he's a country boy who sings--not a country singer, he arrived at a time when country music was ...
Sleevenotes by Pete Grendysa, MCA Records, 1997
THEY DIDN'T ROCK; they didn't roll. Their singing had nothing of the street corner or local school yard about it. With roots in a little-known ...
Icehouse: The Man Who Fell To Surf: Icehouse's Iva Davies
Book Excerpt by Antonella Gambotto, An Instinct For The Kill, 1997
IVA DAVIES not despicable or brutal or awful or poisonous or bizarre, but he is tense. Extremely tense. his laughter rings out like a gunshot ...
Richard Thompson: Watcher Of The Dark: Richard Thompson, Guitar God From Planet Eureka
Book Excerpt by Gerrie Lim, 'Inside the Outsider' (BigO Books) , 1997
IT'S NIGH HIGH impossible to summarize Richard Thompson's vast repertoire and immense talent, not to mention demented humor, but one particular sentence from Thompson himself ...
Ben Folds Five: Interview with Ben Folds (December 1997)
Interview by Kit Aiken, extracted in Uncut (July 1999), 1997
KA: What's on this new compilation (Naked Baby Photos) on Caroline? ...
Interview by Simon Witter, Unpublished interview for television, 1997
1) Brother Liam ...
Stone The Crows: Stone the Crows: Stone the Crows
Sleevenotes by Chris Welch, Repertoire Records, 1997
"STONE THE CROWS!" shouted legendary manager Peter Grant, when he first heard this splendid young Scottish band roaring into action. Although it was the Londoner's ...
Buddy Guy: The Complete Chess Studio Sessions
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Chess, 1997
THE BEST measure of Buddy Guy's talents as a bluesman could well be the fact that he's been presiding over the most distinguished fan club ...
Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia
Interview by David Gans, The Grateful Dead Hour, January 1997
Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia was victorious in her lawsuit against the estate of her late ex-husband, Jerry Garcia. Following the guitarist's death in August 1995, ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Introduction & Voices ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter I: A Little Prince ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 2: Really A Rhythm and Blues Cat ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 3: Boys, Girls, Black, White ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 4: Pussycat à Go Go, Electric Circus ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 5: Playing Toilets ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 6: As Big As Life ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 7: There Is Going To Be a Riot ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 8: Guns And Dogs ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 9: Sly's Last Chance ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 10: Time To Go ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 11: Only Kidding ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Chapter 12: Nobody Believed Anymore ...
Sly & The Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Discography ...
U2: The Year of Living Dangerously
Report and Interview by Andrew Mueller, The Irish Independent, December 1997
U2 started '97 badly, but their annus horribilis has undergone a miraculous recovery. Interview: Andrew Mueller ...
Everly Brothers, The, Don Everly: An Everly Brother In Winter: Walkin' Right Back with Don Everly
Retrospective and Interview by Colin Escott, 'Tattoed on their Tongues' (Schirmer), 1998
WHEN ROCK 'N' ROLL ARRIVED, it triggered a three-alarm anxiety attack in Nashville. Many hoped that they would wake up one morning to find ...
How To Start A Record Company: Decca Records
Retrospective by Colin Escott, 'Tattoed on their Tongues' (Schirmer Books), 1998
DECCA RECORDS was launched in the United States in August 1934 when business confidence was mired below zero. If Decca had collapsed, as it ...
Roy Buchanan: The Messiah Will Come Again
Book Excerpt by Colin Escott, 'Tattoed on their Tongues' (Schirmer Books), 1998
ROY BUCHANAN broke the mould. Usually the record comes out, then the articles follow, and then the concerts start selling out, and then there's ...
Pavement: Across the Cracks: Pavement
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty' (Gollancz), 1998
PAVEMENT HEAVEN, steps 1-7: ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years of Plenty , 1998
MIDI CIRCUS at Brixton Academy in 1992. Three men dressed in Creature From the Black Lagoon outfits are trying to eat each other, and a ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years Of Plenty, 1998
IT’S A humid, late-summer day in 1997. In a ramshackle northwest London recording studio, a soft breeze kisses the skin: not some cooling breath of ...
Arab Strap: Strapping Youth: Arab Strap
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years of Plenty, 1998
IN THE MIDDLE of 1996, dynamic Falkirk duo Aidan Moffatt and Malcolm Middleton were inspired by the first big weekend of their summer to write ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Ways of Hearing, 1998
BILL CALLAHAN HAS BEEN releasing strange and disturbing records as Smog – both on his own and with various accomplices, most notably erstwhile soulmate Cynthia ...
Keith Moon, Who, The: Moon Over America
Book Excerpt by Tony Fletcher, Omnibus Books, 1998
An extract from Dear Boy: The Life Of Keith Moon, by Tony Fletcher, first published by Omnibus Press in 1998. (616pp, currently available in the ...
New York Dolls: Up and Down in Paris and London: The New York Dolls trash Europe
Book Excerpt by Nina Antonia, Omnibus Books, 1998
An extract from Too Much Too Soon: The New York Dolls by Nina Antonia, first published by Omnibus Press in 1998. (208pp, currently available in ...
Pulp: Inside Jarvis: A Reluctant Stardom
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years of Plenty, 1998
Autumn 1993 ...
Origin of the Spices: From Riot Grrrl to Girl Power
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years of Plenty (Victor Gollancz) , 1998
The riot grrrl/girl power liaison: from a whisper to a screen near you ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Ways of Hearing' (Gollancz), 1998
HOTEL ROOMS ARE notoriously impervious to the characters of the people who stay in them: close proximity to a wicker basketful of complimentary toiletries has ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years of Plenty, 1998
LIAM HOWLETT - soft-spoken mastermind behind The Prodigy's globe-subjugating juggernaut of organised chaos - is a very busy man. If you want some idea of ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty', 1998
DRIVING ON THE M25 in a rusty Mini. Early evening, thick drizzle. Only one windscreen wiper works because someone has snapped the end off the ...
R.E.M.: Rock Criticism and the Rocker: A Conversation With Peter Buck
Book Excerpt by Anthony DeCurtis, Rocking My Life Away, 1998
IN SEPTEMBER 1994 R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck kindly took time off from promoting R.E.M.'s Monster to do an interview with Anthony DeCurtis, who wanted an ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival: “I Was the Leader Already": Creedence's Beginnings
Book Excerpt by Hank Bordowitz, Schirmer Books, 1998
IN 1958 ROCK music had passed its infancy -- it was more like a toddler -- but it still was not reputable. Not many high ...
Will Oldham: Viva Will Oldham: The Permutations of Palace
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty', 1998
THE VARIOUS mutations of the Palace name are a cover for the extraordinary career of Louisville's Will Oldham. The opposite of the businessman who opens ...
Bert Jansch Conundrum: Thirteen Down (Fantasy/Kicking Mule)
Sleevenotes by Bill Wasserzieher, Fantasy/Kicking Mule Records, 1998
MUSIC COMMENTATOR Colin Harper once wrote that Bert Jansch, on a scale of one to 10 in terms of popular notoriety, probably would come in ...
Eddie Cochran: Somethin' Else - The Fine Lookin' Hits of Eddie Cochran
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Razor & Tie Records, 1998
EDDIE COCHRAN was truly Somethin' Else. He had the look. He had the talent. He had the attitude. He played guitar - really played guitar. ...
Dire Straits: Dire Straits Revisited
Sleevenotes by Charlie Gillett, Phonogram Records , 1998
FROM THE START, Dire Straits was a classic case of wrong time, wrong place. In the summer of 1977, Britain was ablaze with the aggression ...
Solomon Burke: Music To Make Love By
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Chess Records, 1998
SOLOMON BURKE'S ultimate triumph is that he's almost as great as he says he is, and has almost accomplished everything he says he has. He ...
Sleevenotes by Jim Irvin, Sequel Records, 1998
"AY-YI-YI, THE BEAT IS CRAZY!" ‘Sucu Sucu’, an insanely catchy samba novelty, was a chart sensation in the autumn of 1961. The forgotten theme to ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: An Interview With Donna Jean (Godchaux) MacKay
Interview by David Gans, The Grateful Dead Hour, March 1998
David Gans: Well, here I am in Philadelphia with Donna Jean MacKay. Hello! ...
Tony Orlando, Dawn: Tony Orlando and Dawn
Sleevenotes by Roy Trakin, The Definitive Collection of Dawn, August 1998
OCTOBER 1970. The war was still raging in Vietnam. Richard Nixon was in the White House and the Watergate was still just the name of ...
Dale Hawkins: The Shreveport Tornado
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Ace Records, September 1998
Dale Hawkins may be short on the recognition that blesses other 50s rock'n’rollers but that’s a blessing of a kind. He’s still a legend with ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty' (Gollancz), October 1998
"A recent article in the New York Times proclaimed Newport as The New Seattle..." Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 December, 1996 ...
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica
Book Excerpt by Mike Barnes, 'Captain Beefheart: The Biography' (Quartet), 1999
"If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people ...
Jeff Beck: Who Else But Jeff Beck?
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Experience Hendrix, 1999
IN 1985, WITH A NEW single, "People Get Ready," reuniting him with vocalist Rod Stewart for the first time since 1969, Jeff Beck was lined ...
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
THE BAND was once described as the only group who could warm up the crowd for Abraham Lincoln. When they first appeared late in 1968, ...
Rock 100: Um, What Was It We Wanted To Say?
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Cooper Square (reissue), 1999
Rock's Backpages will, over the coming weeks, be presenting selected chapters from the 1999 re-issue of Lenny Kaye and David Dalton's classic 1977 book Rock ...
DJ Kool Herc: Adventures on the Wheels of Steel: DJ Kool Herc and the Birth of Hip Hop
Book Excerpt by Frank Broughton, Bill Brewster, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 1999
Take a BreakFace your partner, holding hands. Tap one foot behind the other and bring your feet together again. Repeat with your other foot. (Your ...
Kim Fowley: Smells Like Nirvana: Hollywood Poptopia
Book Excerpt by Kim Fowley, 'A Vampire From Outer Space', 1999
IN THE LATE '50s, I decided I would go into rock and roll. By then it was really exploding. At this point, L.A. hadn’t had ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Rock 100: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC WAS PEAKING AND rock was undergoing a period of exhaustion in 1968 when Creedence Clearwater Revival arrived out of nowhere with their "lean, ...
Aretha Franklin: Rock 100: Aretha Franklin
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
IN 1972 WHEN ARETHA FRANKLIN RECORDED Amazing Grace, her first gospel album in 14 years, at the New Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, it was ...
David Bowie: Rock 100: David Bowie
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
HE IS, AS HE HAD PLANNED, MAGNIFICENT. The stage appears impeccably struck, lights arranged to catch the finer angles of his face, making him seem ...
Joni Mitchell: Rock 100: Joni Mitchell
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
I was born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies – an area of extreme temperatures and mirages. When I was ...
Bob Dylan: Rock 100: Bob Dylan
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
"I SEE THINGS OTHER PEOPLE DON'T," Dylan once said about himself. "I dissolve myself into situations where I am invisible." Dylan's progress has been a ...
Sly & The Family Stone: Rock 100: Sly and the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
JIMI HENDRIX WAS THE FIRST BLACK TO PLAY acid rock, but he remained a black musician playing to white audiences; he did not get played ...
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
CREAM WAS THE FIRST OF A NEW SPECIES – the high-voltage superblues group. By channeling their "amplified heat" through traditional blues, they created a clean, ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
IN THE BEGINNING... WERE THE BEACH BOYS. Under the avalanche of the English Invasion, the Psychedelic Apocalypse, supersonic guitars and flash, it is almost forgotten ...
Frank Zappa: Rock 100: Frank Zappa
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Cooper Square Books (reissue), 1999
"There is no undertaking more challenging, no responsibility more awesome than being a Mother."– RICHARD M. NIXON ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Roller Coaster, 1999
Roy Buchanan may be remembered as little more than a guitar player who achieved minor British chart success with 'Sweet Dreams' (#40 in 1973) and, ...
Alexis Korner: Bootleg Him (1973)
Sleevenotes by Kit Aiken, Castle, 1999
It’s hard to overstate Alexis Korner’s contribution to the development of British popular music. His position as a tirelessly driven champion of The Blues in ...
Sleevenotes by Kit Aiken, Castle, 1999
THE Körners were an Austrian Jewish family who escaped war-torn Europe to settle in London. Youngest son Alexis, having spent much time away from his ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Ace Records, 1999
ANY ONE ALBUM BY IVORY JOE HUNTER can only hint at the depth and breadth of a career which spanned five decades of entertainment experience. ...
Disco-Tex and his Sex-O-Lettes: Disco-Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes: Get Dancin'
Sleevenotes by Jon Savage, Castle Records, 1999
It's all about wonder the power to be like thunderexpressing electricity It's the greatest show with the best effectssince Disco Tex and the SexolettesPet Shop ...
Grateful Dead: Carol Brightman: author of Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure
Interview by David Gans, Grateful Dead Hour, January 1999
Carol Brightman was an anti-war activist in the '60s and later the biographer of the writer Mary McCarthy. She sometimes wondered why so many of ...
Flaming Lips: Wayne Coyne on The Soft Bulletin
Press Release by Wayne Coyne, Warner Bros., June 1999
I AM NOT On Drugs...yet. I sometimes think about how quiet the world must have been, maybe a hundred years ago. I say that, having ...
Sleevenotes by Phil Sutcliffe, Universal Records, July 1999
"We were hell-bent on what we did. I didn’t care if I lived or died but for the band." – Paul Rodgers ...
Sleevenotes by Bill Millar, Ace Records, July 1999
The term 'influential' is applied to almost anyone these days but there’s still a case for saying that the massively popular blues-rock guitar genre can ...
Johnny Thunders: Forewarned: Johnny Thunders
Book Excerpt by Nina Antonia, Cherry Red Books, August 1999
JOHNNY THUNDERS didn’t just flirt with death, he courted it. Even so, his eventual demise in New Orleans on 23rd April 1991 still came as ...
Rick Holmstrom: Gonna Get Wild (Tone Cool)
Sleevenotes by Kirk Silsbee, Tone Cool, October 1999
IF YOU'VE partaken of the thriving blues scene in Los Angeles in the last 15 years, you've probably crossed paths with guitarist Rick Holmstrom. ...
Bee Gees, The: The Bee Gees: Back to Blighty, 1967
Book Excerpt by Andrew Môn Hughes, Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook, Omnibus Books, 2000
An extract from The Bee Gees: Tales Of The Brothers Gibb by Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook and Andrew Môn Hughes, first published by Omnibus Press ...
Ian Dury, Kilburn & The High Roads: Ian Dury’s High Road
Book Excerpt by Richard Balls, Omnibus Press, 2000
An extract from Sex & Drugs & Rock’n’Roll: The Life of Ian Dury, by Richard Balls, first published by Omnibus Press in 2000. (300pp, currently ...
Tim Buckley: Starsailor: Voyage into the Unknown
Book Excerpt by David Browne, Dream Brother, 2000
By early 1970, Larry Beckett had had an eventful 18 months, albeit in the worst ways. After being drafted, he had been assigned to a ...
Miles Davis: The Hat Makes the Man
Book Excerpt by Nick Tosches, The Nick Tosches Reader, 2000
THE WORD ITSELF is deadening: art, a devalued dollar of a word, no longer backed by meaning, as drained of worth as the politician's viability, ...
Björk: Björk: Dancer In the Dark
Interview by David Toop, bjork.com, 2000
"I STILL HAVE so much music in my head," said Maurice Ravel. "I haven't said anything yet, and I have still so much to say." ...
Sleevenotes by John Tobler, Sony Records sleevnote, 2000
THE TRAGIC AND unexpected death (from drowning) on the second day of 1997 of guitarist and vocalist Randy California effectively silenced Spirit, described by Billboard ...
Sleevenotes by John McCready, Counterpoint Records, 2000
THOUGH MANY have tried, it’s hard to free disco of the negative associations that have shadowed it. "Disco Sucks", they still say. Boney M and ...
Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Paul Butterfield's Better Days: Bearsville Anthology
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Rhino Bearsville, 2000
PAUL BUTTERFIELD was a legend long before he ever set foot in Woodstock. Perhaps the first authentic white voice in the blues, his legendary '60s ...
Nappy Brown: Savoy Blues Legends: Nappy Brown
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Savoy Records, 2000
INCIPIENT SOUL. There's no other way to describe Nappy Brown. It's true that he gets into the statistic books for a couple of numbers that ...
Little Feat: The Little Feat Saga
Sleevenotes by Bud Scoppa, Rhino Records, February 2000
This is the story of a great American band, a band as quintessentially SoCal as the Beach Boys, as rootsy as the Band, as funky ...
Gram Parsons, Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds, The: Gram Parsons, Track by Track
Sleevenotes by Bud Scoppa, Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels (Rhino), September 2000
The International Submarine Band: Safe at Home ...
Patsy Cline: 25 All-Time Greatest Recordings: The 4-Star Years (Varese Sarabande)
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Varese Sarabande, September 2000
AROUND 2:00 PM on Tuesday March 5, 1963, a Piper Comanche light airplane left Kansas City bound for Nashville. There were three passengers and a ...
Band, The: The Band: Music From Big Pink
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Capitol Records, October 2000
IT ALL BEGAN with a house. An unremarkable ranch house sitting at the end of a long dirt driveway in the shadow of a mountain ...
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Capitol Records, October 2000
'TWAS IN the early summer of 1968 that legendary rock promoter Bill Graham drove up to the Catskill mountains to propose that The Band make ...
Band, The: The Band: Stage Fright
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Capitol Records, October 2000
THE BAND had good reason to call their third album Stage Fright. On the eve of their live debut at Bill Graham’s Winterland theater in ...
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Capitol Records, October 2000
IRONICALLY, after the release of Stage Fright in September 1970, The Band spent the ensuing three months touring America. "We had it set up pretty ...
Sleevenotes by Ben Edmonds, Elektra Traditions, 2001
June 1967. Peace and love wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and nowhere was this seen more clearly than under the smog-orange skies ...
Happy to be a Part of the Industry of Human Happiness: The Trans-Continental Beat of the 1960s
Sleevenotes by Alec Palao, Nuggets II (Rhino Records), 2001
SO, AS WE’RE FREQUENTLY TOLD, the world has now shrunk to the size of a soccer ball. The internet has eliminated traditional terrestrial boundaries of ...
Crickets, The: The Crickets: In Style with the Crickets
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Bear Family Records, 2001
IT WASN'T AN ORIGINAL name; there was another group called the Crickets that had dented the Rhythm 'n' Blues charts a few years earlier, but ...
Bobby Charles: Wish You Were Here
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Stony Plain Records, 2001
IT'S BOBBY CHARLES'S personal preference to maintain a low profile. He has famous friends who get twitchy when they're out of the limelight for ...
Big Maybelle: Candy! On Savoy 1956-59
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Savoy Jazz Records, 2001
RECORD COMPANY files tell the story in a haunting, elliptical way. Let's take 1957, for instance: January 8, fifteen dollar advance; same day, another fifty ...
Essay by Greg Shaw, Nuggets II (Rhino Records), 2001
GROWING UP in America in the '60s, I was surrounded by garage bands, and although I never realized how many more there were across the ...
Brian Eno: An Uncle, A Celebrity, A Masturbator
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Ways of Hearing' , 2001
ON THE BACK cover of A Year with Swollen Appendices, Brian Eno's diary of 1995, he supplies a handy guide to some of the things ...
Weirdos, The, Negative Trend, The, Middle Class, The: America’s Dreaming: California Punk, 1978
Book Excerpt by Jon Savage, England's Dreaming, 2001
25.8.78: This is my first visit to the U.S., let alone the West Coast, and I know that I’m on another planet, especially when, at ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Ways of Hearing', 2001
NOT SINCE Joy Division turned into New Order has a band coped as well as Mercury Rev with losing its lead singer. But given that ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Ways Of Hearing, 2001
IT'S A GREY weekday lunchtime in glamorous East Anglia. Cambridge town centre is brought to a resentful standstill as a series of huge pantechnicons disgorge ...
Book Excerpt by Carl Magnus Palm, Omnibus Books, 2001
An extract from Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story of Abba, by Carl Magnus Palm, first published by Omnibus Press in 2001. (554pp, currently ...
Led Zeppelin, Gene Vincent: The Enforcer: Peter Grant
Book Excerpt by Chris Welch, from 'The Man Who Led Zeppelin', Omnibus Books, 2001
An extract from Peter Grant: The Man Who Led Zeppelin by Chris Welch, first published by Omnibus Press in 2001. (256pp, currently available in softback ...
The Soul in the Machine: Whatever Happened to Atlantic Records?
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, What'd I Say, 2001
"UNFORTUNATELY, we’re running a big business here now," Ahmet Ertegun confessed to author Gerri Hirshey in 1982. "And it sort of ... well, it drives ...
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Ways Of Hearing, 2001
"They had brought this music with them when they were born, these bandmen, in their hearts and their muscles, their blood and their bones".Jay Allison ...
Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, Sanctuary Press,, 2001
Paul Gorman's In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press (Sanctuary Press) is an oral history of rock journalism in Britain and America – ...
Robert Wyatt: A-Shleep at the Wheel: Robert Wyatt
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, <i>Ways of Hearing</i>, 2001
ROBERT WYATT lives on an isolated estuary in the misty North-East of England, where he sometimes likes to sit in quiet contemplation with his wife ...
Bobby Bare: The Singles 1959-1969
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, BMG International, 2001
AN OUTLAW before his time, a folk singer who never played a coffee house, a rock 'n' roller who gave away his biggest hit. Bobby ...
Ace Cannon: The Best of Ace Cannon: The Hi Records Years
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, The Right Stuff/Hi Records, 2001
SPARE, FUNKY, and disarmingly simple. Ace Cannon and Bill Black defined a sound. There was never a surplus note or inflection. These were records that ...
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Polydor Records, January 2001
THE 17 TRACKS gathered on this disc provide a perfect opportunity to re-appraise one of the brightest, most intriguing bands of recent times (isn't hindsight ...
Simon & Garfunkel: All Gone To Look for America: Simon & Garfunkel
Sleevenotes by Bud Scoppa, Sony Legacy, February 2001
Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. THE NOTION THAT BABY BOOMERS can stake the first claim on rock and roll is a fiction. The fact is, it ...
"The Agora of the Wayward": A Quarter Century of Rough Trade
Sleevenotes by Jon Savage, Mute Records, March 2001
"I USED TO buy my records in a shop in Trafalgar Road, and the man there was quite avant-garde for his day. Whenever I bought ...
Sleevenotes by Ian Fortnam, Castle Music, March 2001
PART THE FIRST: BANGKOK SHOCKS, SAIGON SHAKES, HANOI ROCKS ...
Black Flag: Flying the Black Flag
Book Excerpt by Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life, July 2001
The following is the first chapter from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, in which Michael Azerrad vividly ...
Little Feat: Time Waits for Columbus
Sleevenotes by Bud Scoppa, Rhino Records, October 2001
WHAT CONSTITUTES a great live album? It’s clearly not the mere replication of a band’s studio performances. That approach may satisfy the attending audience, but ...
Book Excerpt by John Van Hamersveld, Surfadelic: From Surf Saga to Artist 64-74, October 2001
DECEMBER 31st, 1967: The Winterland Ballroom. San Francisco. Bill Graham's The Doors concert this evening. I'm checking out the show backstage with The Family Dog ...
Lester Bangs: Remembering Lester
Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press, November 2001
"Everybody's a rock critic." – Lester Bangs ...
In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press
Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, Sanctuary Press, November 2001
Introduction ...
Turning the Stone: The Adventures of Jann Wenner and Cameron Crowe in the sick, slick '70s
Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, In Their Own Write, November 2001
In our second excerpt from In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press (published this week by Sanctuary), Paul Gorman goes back to the ...
Book Excerpt by Mark Paytress, Omnibus Books, 2002
An extract from Bolan: The Rise And Fall Of A 20th Century Superstar by Mark Paytress, first published by Omnibus Press in 2002. (378pp, currently ...
R.E.M.: The New Adventures of R.E.M.
Book Excerpt by Tony Fletcher, Omnibus Books, 2002
An extract from Remarks Remade: The Story of R.E.M. by Tony Fletcher, first published by Omnibus Press in 1989 and in three subsequent editions, the ...
Interview by Larry Jaffee, The Audiophile Voice, 2002
PHIL RAMONE is a legendary music producer who's been at the helm on recordings by a who's who of 20th century popular music, the likes ...
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: The True Life Adventures Of Flash
Sleevenotes by Frank Broughton, Bill Brewster, Nuphonic Records, 2002
Chapter 1FLASH ISN’T THE type of guy to start talking about "How it feels...", but that’s just what you want to ask him. How does ...
Blasters, The: The Blasters: Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Rhino Records, 2002
CRUNCH THE NUMBERS, run the marketing templates and when you get down to it, it just doesn't compute that the six-year life span of the ...
Paradise Garage and the Lost Art of DJ'ing
Sleevenotes by Frank Broughton, Bill Brewster, Strut/Nuphonic Records, 2002
PUTTING A ROOMFUL of people in the moment. Amazing them, surprising them, challenging, even confusing them; pushing, electrifying, loving them; carrying them with you towards ...
Various Artists: The Folk Years – Yesterday's Gone
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Time-Life Music, 2002
THE 18 TRACKS on this album whisk us back to the hopeful, happy days of America's Hootenanny boom. From the Caribbean lilt of Harry Belafonte's ...
Various Artists: The Folk Years – Blowin' in the Wind
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Time-Life Music, 2002
THERE WAS A TIME when the notion of the "folk singer-songwriter" was all but a contradiction in terms. "Folk" music was the ür-sound of the ...
Chris Smither: Don't It Drag On
Sleevenotes by Bill Wasserzieher, Tomato Records, 2002
WHETHER A digital stream encoded on a silver disc or deep grooves on vintage black vinyl, an album is a record of a time in ...
Saints, The, Radio Birdman: Do The Pop! The Australian Garage Rock Sound 1976-87 (Shock)
Sleevenotes by Dave Laing (Australia), Shock, 2002
Come on baby it's time to moveYou been saying there's nothing to doDon't be afraid of bustin' out of your cageGonna cruise around gonna burn ...
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, 'Rockbilly Boogie' (Bear Family), 2002
IT'S STRANGE, THE TRICKS that history plays. Johnny Burnette, now dead almost forty years, would never have guessed that his legendary status would not be ...
B.B. King: King Of The Road: On The Road With B.B. King In The Mid-1950s
Sleevenotes by John Broven, Ace Records, 2002
First published in the book accompanying the box set B.B. King: The Vintage Years (Ace Records), 2002. ...
Book Excerpt by Penny Reel, Deep Down With Dennis Brown, February 2002
Penny Reel was the pre-eminent reggae writer of reggae's '70s heyday, contributing regularly to NME, Black Echoes and other publications. His Deep Down With Dennis ...
And So It Began: Remembering the First Issue of Crawdaddy!
Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, 'The Crawdaddy! Book' (Hal Leonard), May 2002
THE FIRST ISSUE of the first American rock music magazine was printed on Sunday, January 30, 1966, in a basement in Brooklyn, New York, on ...
Interview by Marc Rowlands, Southport Weekender Programme, September 2002
I'VE NEVER seen an interview with Timmy Regisford before. I don't know if he seldom does them. I know he doesn't enjoy them, not that ...
Sonic Youth: Seeking Sonic Truth On Murray Street: Sonic Youth
Comment by Wayne Robins, waynerobins.blogspot.com, September 2002
I'M AMUSED EACH day when I cross Murray Street, a miles-long, largely residential street that wends its way from downtown Flushing north through various small ...
World of Mouth: Mariza and more
Essay by Charlie Gillett, The WOMEX Guide, October 2002
WHEN MARIZA SINGS, time stands still. Every word is sung with intense concentration, every note hit flawlessly. When she pauses for dramatic effect, ...
Eminem At The Top Of His Underclass: 8 Mile
Review by Wayne Robins, waynerobins.blogspot.com, November 2002
8 MILE, Eminem's big screen debut, is middling as far as boxing movies go: Not as searing as Budd Schulberg's The Harder They Fall, and ...
Warren Zevon: Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon
Sleevenotes by Will Self, Rhino Records, Fall 2002
WHAT I DO is this; I leave the city and go about 50 miles away to a town in the county of Wiltshire called Swindon. ...
Ramones, The, Phil Spector: End of the ‘70s: the Ramones Get Spectorized
Book Excerpt by Everett True, Omnibus Books, Fall 2002
An extract from Hey Ho Let’s Go – The Story of The Ramones by Everett True, published by Omnibus Press in 2002. (344pp, currently available ...
Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Skip Spence : Skip Spence and the Sad Saga of Moby Grape
Book Excerpt by Jeff Tamarkin, 'Got a Revolution', 2003
IN THE SUMMER of 1965, Jefferson Airplane decided to dismiss their first drummer, Jerry Peloquin. That's when a golden boy named Alexander "Skip" Spence came ...
Bothered Blue Once More: The Barrett Rude Jr. and the Subtle Distinctions Story
Sleevenotes by D. Ebdus, Motherless Records, 2003
"The singer’s role is deceptive; in identifying and exploring disintegration and other potentially destructive aspects of black American life he or she is performing an ...
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Bluebird/RCA, 2003
"DOWN IN TUPELO," Elvis Presley famously remarked in June 1956, "I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, ...
Mott The Hoople: Mojo Presents ... Mott The Hoople
Sleevenotes by Phil Sutcliffe, Mojo CD, 2003
THE BALLAD OF MOTT The Hoople is a tale of thigh-high platform boots and enormous moodswings, big shades and black leather and plans so ill ...
Sleevenotes by Andy Schwartz, Private Music/RCA, 2003
NOTE: I was surprised and very saddened to learn that the great soul singer Howard Tate had died 12.2.11 at age 72, reportedly from complications ...
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, 'Country Got Soul' (Casual Records), July 2003
THERE WAS SOMETHING funky happening in the American South in the late ‘60s and you didn’t know what it was, did you, Mr Jones? ...
Double Figures: Ten Years Of The Domino Effect
Press Release by Ben Thompson, Domino Records, July 2003
CAPTAIN'S LOG, stardate 1993: John Major's village-cricket-and-warm-beer based moral crusade inspires a parallel "back-to-basics" drift in UK rock 'n' roll (with Justine Frischmann as its ...
Marvin Gaye: Marvellous Marvin Reconsidered
Book Excerpt by Ian MacDonald, 'The People's Music' (Pimlico), July 2003
RARELY DID AN artistic persona run more counter to the truth than in the case of Marvin Gaye. Onstage, he was the quintessence of urbanity: ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin: Page and Plant Unledded: The London Filming for MTV
Book Excerpt by Dave Lewis, 'The Tight But Loose Files', December 2003
2004 INTRO: In 1993 all hopes of any conceivable type of Zeppelin reunion seemed well off the agenda. Page and Plant were both wrapped up ...
Led Zeppelin, John Paul Jones: Anchor Man: The Ultimate John Paul Jones Interview, Pt 1
Interview by Dave Lewis, Excerpt from 'The Tight But Loose Files', December 2003
In an in-depth extract from his new Led Zeppelin: The Tight But Loose Files (Omnibus Press), Dave Lewis gets the lowdown from the Led Zep ...
John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin: Anchor Man: The Ultimate John Paul Jones Interview, Pt 2
Interview by Dave Lewis, Excerpt from 'The Tight But Loose Files', December 2003
Dave Lewis: How do you look back on the experience of making The Song Remains The Same. ...
Eminem: Can't Forget The Motor City: Detroit from Hitsville to 8 Mile
Book Excerpt by Nick Hasted, Omnibus Books, Summer 2003
The Dark Story of Eminem is the first book by Nick Hasted, whose work has previously appeared in The Independent, the Guardian and Uncut magazine. ...
Jefferson Airplane: The End Of The Beginning: Jefferson Airplane at Altamont
Book Excerpt by Jeff Tamarkin, Helter Skelter Books, Summer 2003
THE VIOLENCE AT Altamont had begun before the Airplane even arrived, when a number of Hell’s Angels, who had been amassing near the stage, wantonly ...
Sex Pistols, The, Sid Vicious: Sid Vicious: Threw a Glass Darkly
Book Excerpt by Mark Paytress, 'Vicious: The Art of Dying Young', Sanctuary Books, 2004
SID did it. Didn’t he? ...
Book Excerpt by Paul Wellings, 'I'm a Journalist...Get Me Out of Here!', 2004
I BLUFFED my way into journalism and am still bluffing in the PR world. If the truth were told, most journalists are bluffers to some ...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The: Freaky and Stylish: When the Chili Peppers Met Dr. Funkenstein
Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, 'Fornication' (Omnibus Press), 2004
By 1985 the Red Hot Chili Peppers were a band in trouble. Their self-titled debut album, released the year before, had been a disaster, and ...
Hawkwind: The Saga of Hawkwind
Book Excerpt by Carol Clerk, Omnibus Press, 2004
Emerging from the hippie heartland of London's Ladbroke Grove in 1969, Hawkwind invented space-rock with a potent, psychedelic mixture of jamming blues, electronica and lights. ...
Who, The: The Who: The Who Sell Out from The Complete Guide to the Music of the Who
Book Excerpt by Chris Charlesworth, Omnibus Press, 2004
Original UK issue: Track 612 002 (mono) & Track 613 002 (stereo), released December 1967; UK CD: Polydor 835 727-24, remixed Polydor 527 759-2, 1995. ...
Book Excerpt by Colin Harper, Irish Folk, Trad & Blues (Collins Press), 2004
Author's Note: There was at least one prepared but discarded chapter in my joint book with Trevor Hodgett, Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Don't Fear The Reeperbahn
Retrospective by Johnny Black, 'The Beatles: Ten Years that Shook the World', 2004
"LIVERPOOL AND HAMBURG had a lot in common in the early sixties," muses Gibson Kemp. "They're both seaports, they're both on the same line of ...
Fania All Stars, The: Fania All Stars: Our Latin Thing
Sleevenotes by James Maycock, Vampi Soul Records, 2004
ON 19TH JULY, 1972, the first few images flickering on the screen at the premiere of Our Latin Thing in New York’s Line 2 cinema ...
Memphis Slim, Sonny Boy Williamson: Memphis Slim & Sonny Boy Williamson: Live In Europe
Sleevenotes by Bill Wasserzieher, Reelin' in the Years/Hip-O/Experience Hendrix DVD, 2004
MEMPHIS SLIM AND Sonny Boy Williamson - even their names, their performing aliases, have a bigger-than-life aura. And though both passed away decades ago, time ...
Joe Bataan: Young, Gifted And Brown
Sleevenotes by James Maycock, Vampi Soul Records, 2004
A ROMANTIC STREET punk, a jailbird with spirit, a champion of the blue-collar underdog – Joe Bataan is a rebel with soul. ...
Los Lobos: How The Wolf Survived: Los Lobos’ 30-Year Ride
Sleevenotes by Roy Trakin, Hollywood Records, 2004
"Someday I will go home /And I’ll find peace in the house/Of my heavenly father." (‘Someday’) ...
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine: Brixton Mortars (Snapper)
Sleevenotes by Alex Ogg, Snapper CD, February 2004
CARTER THE Unstoppable Sex Machine combined the talents of Fruitbat (Leslie Carter) and Jim Bob (erm, Jim Morrison), both well-versed in the vaguaries and disappointments ...
ABC: “It Was Like Disco, But In A Bob Dylan Way”: The Lexicon Of Love
Sleevenotes by Daryl Easlea, Neutron/Mercury Records, November 2004
FEW ALBUMS DEFINE the resonance and the beauty of a particular era as does The Lexicon Of Love by ABC. It could be said that ...
Fall, The: 50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong: The Very Best of The Fall 1978-2003
Sleevenotes by Daryl Easlea, Sanctuary Records, Spring 2004
IN THE EARLY months of 2004, The Fall’s first album, Live At The Witch Trials, celebrated its 25th anniversary. When The Fall started, rock wasn’t ...
John Martyn: The Gentlest Circus: One World
Sleevenotes by Daryl Easlea, Universal/Island Records, Fall 2004
YOU WOULD THINK one of the last characters to survive the supposed punk rock cull of 1976/77 would be John Martyn. To outsiders, he was ...
David Byrne Looks Forward...and Back
Interview by Carol Cooper, The L Magazine, Fall 2004
Q: AS A SOLO ARTIST you have worked with horn sections and now with string sections to color and embellish your songs. Aside ...
Robert Johnson: Travelling Riverside Blues (Clarksdale, Mississippi)
Book Excerpt by Graham Reid, Random House, 2005
Travelling Riverside Blues is a chapter in Graham Reid's Postcards From Elsewhere collection of travel stories (Random House) and is available through his website: www.elsewhere.co.nz ...
Blood Sweat & Tears: Seeing Through The Past Darkly
Retrospective and Interview by Brian Torff, International Association of Jazz, 2005
HISTORY HAS a strange and highly selective memory. The past seems to lie in shadows with a filtered and distorted prism for a lens, and ...
Odetta: Gonna Let It Shine – A Concert for the Holidays
Press Release by Bill Wasserzieher, M.C. Records, 2005
"If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so ...
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, 2005
Mr Leitch looks back at his 40 years in music, from scoring hash in Goodge Street to recording with Rick Rubin, via Alice Cooper, Linda Lawrence and more.
File format: mp3 File size: 35.1mb Interview length: 38' 19"; Sound quality: ****
Cure, The: Hardcore Pornography: The Cure
Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, 'Never Enough' (Omnibus Press), 2005
Goth rock icons the Cure had a lot to lose while recording their hugely influential, career-making album, 1982's Pornography - not the least being their ...
Boy George: Straight: An Introduction
Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, Century Books, 2005
GEORGE ISN'T GOOD in the mornings. He strides out of his room, straight back, arms paddling by his side, in black. He catches your eye. ...
The Rise and Rise of the Casual: Football and Music
Book Excerpt by Paul Wellings, 'Spend it Like Beckham', 2005
THE BEST FANZINES in the mid 80’s were The End (from Liverpool, written by Pete Hooton, lead singer of The Farm, whose single ‘Altogether Now’ ...
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Acadia Records, 2005
AUGUST 25, 2004, was a special date in the calendar of Montgomery County, Maryland. More than 30 musicians gathered in the town of Strathmore for ...
Rico Rodriguez: Rico – Trombone Man: Anthology 1961-71 (TJDDD2222)
Sleevenotes by Mike Atherton, Trojan, 2005
FROM THE Duke Reid Group to the Jools Holland Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, from ghetto studios to the stage of Top Of The Pops, from ...
Sleevenotes by Chris Charlesworth, Polydor Records, 2005
IT IS JULY 1971 and I'm with Slade in Amsterdam's Vondelpark where they are shortly to perform on a bandstand in the centre of a ...
Fania All Stars, The: Rumba In The Jungle: Fania All Stars Live In Africa
Sleevenotes by James Maycock, Vampi Soul DVD, February 2005
1974 WAS A fine year for Jerry Masucci's golden boys. Following the triumphs of Our Latin Thing, the Fania All Stars broke out across the ...
AUDIO: Chris Isaak (with Kenney Dale Johnson) (2005)
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, March 2005
The American icon, together with sidekick Kenney Dale Johnson, spins some favourites and sings a couple of tunes too!
File format: mp3 File size: 32.2mb Interview length: 35' 13"; Sound quality: *****
Mötley Crüe, Tommy Lee: Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee Lets It All Hang Out
Interview by Roy Trakin, Grammy Magazine, April 2005
EVEN BEFORE HE agreed to join bandmates Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil and Mick Mars in this year's surprisingly successful Mötley Crüe reunion tour – the ...
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, Hackmart/Shout Factory! Records, May 2005
"I ALWAYS FIGURED David's stories were about ninety-two percent bullshit, but it made for good promotion," said record producer Shelby Singleton...who knew the value of ...
Alpha Band, The: The Alpha Band: The Alpha Band
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Acadia Records, July 2005
VIEWERS OF star-studded awards shows in recent times may have been intrigued by a gangly six-and-a-half-foot figure occasionally appearing in the background of numerous TV ...
Phil Spector: The Killing Of A Barbarian Queen
Retrospective by Terry Staunton, DVD World, October 2005
It took a scandalous Hollywood shooting to catapult faded B-movie starlet LANA CLARKSON onto the front pages. TERRY STAUNTON looks back on the life and ...
Members, The: The Members: At The Chelsea Nightclub
Sleevenotes by Alex Ogg, Captain Oi Records, December 2005
THE MEMBERS were punk's misfits, a little too lacking in personality disorders and raw ego to sit comfortably with the punk firestarters, a little too ...
Rough Trade: The Second Coming
Profile and Interview by Dan Gennoe, British Council New Routes, 2006
IN THE WORLD of independent record labels, Rough Trade is a bona fide living legend. Born in the late '70s from the West London record ...
Profile by Terry Staunton, Notes for Live in '72 DVD, 2006
Terry Staunton profiles the life of Al Green for the sleevenotes for Revolver Entertainment's Live in '72 DVD ...
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, 2006
Tom Waits talks about some of his favourite artists - William Burroughs, Daniel Johnston, Johnny Cash, and being the adult when working with Keith Richards!
File format: mp3 File size: 24.7mb Interview length: 26' 56"; Sound quality: *****
Booker T & The MGs: AUDIO: Booker T. Jones (2006)
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, 2006
The Booker T & The MGs mainman talks about the Stax years, working with the likes of Otis Redding and Albert King, making 'Green Onions', and on to later projects with Santana, Neil Young and Boz Scaggs.
File format: mp3; file size: 25.5mb; Interview length: 27' 5"; sound quality: *****
Ronnie Spector, Ronettes, The: Ronnie Spector: The Last of the Rock Stars
Press Release by Andy Schwartz, press release for High Coin Records, 2006
ONLY A FEW ARTISTS in history have been capable of defining an entire era in pop music. Ronnie Spector is one of those artists: the ...
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Hotel California', 2006
UP ON THE Sunset Strip, the live scene was hurting. Name bands were now too big to play small clubs like the Whisky: they'd be ...
Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, A New Tomorrow, 2006
While making their fourth album, 2002's critics' favourite Diorama, Australian trio Silverchair underwent a creative makeover, endured tension with their label Atlantic, cemented a bond ...
Foo Fighters, Scream, Nirvana: Scream And Scream Again: Dave Grohl
Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, 'The Dave Grohl Story' (Omnibus Press) , 2006
In 1987, DC hopeful Dave Grohl finally scored what he thought was the best gig in the world: drumming for hardcore legends Scream. But what ...
Nirvana: Extract from Nirvana: The True Story (Omnibus Press)
Book Excerpt by Everett True, Nirvana: The True Story (Omnibus), 2006
No music writer in the world was closer to Nirvana than Melody Maker's Everett True, who saw them perform on over 70 occasions, interviewed them ...
Book Excerpt by Linsday Reade, Mick Middles, Torn Apart: The Life of Ian Curtis (Omnibus Press), 2006
The authors of this new biography are uniquely qualified to reveal the extraordinary events surrounding the life and death of Ian Curtis. ...
Doors, The: The Doors: Strange Days
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Rhino Records, 2006
WHO, HAVING HEARD IT, could forget the creepy line that opens the title track of the Doors’ second album? Recorded at the height of the ...
Allen Ginsberg: The Adventures Of The Imagination: Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish
Sleevenotes by Harvey Kubernik, Water Records, 2006
IN A PARIS CAFÉ in November 1957, Allen Ginsberg began the initial notations for Kaddish. In Ginsberg: A Biography, by longtime friend and author Barry ...
Deon Jackson: Love Makes the World Go Round
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice, 2006
IF YOU HAVE TO BE remembered as a one-hit wonder, it helps if the hit was a wonderful one, a unique-sounding record from what was ...
Prefects, The: The Prefects: Live 1978: The Co-Op Suite, Birmingham
Sleevenotes by Jon Savage, Caroline True Records, 2006
This recollection of a March 1978 concert was revived nearly 30 years after the event for Caroline True's issue of a full Prefects live show ...
5th Dimension, The: The 5th Dimension: Up, Up and Away/Magic Garden
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Records, 2006
IT'S NO SECRET that time has a way of erasing details and leaving our memories with only the broadest contours of our shared experience. Most ...
Candi Staton Comes Home to Country Soul
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Honest Jon's Records, March 2006
THERE ARE southern soul voices and there are southern soul voices. Raw and ravaged, Candi Staton's is one of the signature sounds of that particular ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino Records Anthology, April 2006
Brooks & Dunn? Outkast? Big & Rich? Where are the duos of today? Sure, there are duet performances, and tons of hits by so-and-so ...
Dave Alvin, Blasters, The: Dave Alvin: Romeo's Escape
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Acadia Records, June 2006
THE TIME: Summer, 1987. The place: Downtown Manhattan hang-out The Kat Klub. It's the height of the annual industry beanfest, the New Music Seminar, and ...
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Acadia Records, June 2006
BY THE TIME the 1980s were just a few years old, the goodtime sounds of the pub rock movement had pretty much fallen out of ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: The Flying Burrito Brothers: Flying Again/Airborne
Sleevenotes by Terry Staunton, Acacia Records, June 2006
THERE ARE FEW figures in the history of popular music who have been eulogised or mythologised as much as Gram Parsons. It's to be expected ...
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, June 2006
T-Bone Burnett guests on Selvin On the City ( KSAN Underground Radio 107.7, San Francisco), talking about production, the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Ralph Stanley, Jakob Dylan and more.
File format: mp3 File size: 27.2mb Interview length: 29' 44"; Sound quality: *****
Sleevenotes by Paul Morley, Domino Records, July 2006
...and then there was Josef K, a four piece group who formed for a number of reasons. These are some of the reasons: ...
Rockin' on the Outskirts: S.F. Rock Beyond the Ballrooms
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino, October 2006
Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets box (Rhino) ...
Jerry Butler: The Ice Man Cometh/Ice On Ice
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collectors Choice Music, November 2006
As well as being two classic albums of '60s pop-soul, The Ice Man Cometh and Ice on Ice comprise a tale of two cities – ...
Sleevenotes by James Maycock, Vampi Soul, November 2006
Dennis Coffey: Original Old School Breaks & Heavy Guitar Soul (Vampi Soul) ...
Four Seasons, The: AUDIO: The Four Seasons (2006)
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, December 2006
Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio chat about the Jersey Boys musical, about Bob Crewe, the Disco years and the lost Seasons/Beach Boys album.
File format: mp3 File size: 31.3mb Interview length: 34' 14"; Sound quality: ***
AUDIO: NRBQ's Big Al Anderson (2007)
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, 2007
Big Al takes us through life post-NRBQ, becoming songwriter to the Nashville Hat Act Stars, and looks back to the tough days on the road with NRBQ.
File format: mp3 File size: 33.5mb Interview length: 36' 25"; Sound quality: *****
Mad River: Just Like a Poem: Richard Brautigan and Mad River
Retrospective and Interview by David Biasotti, Richard Brautigan (ed. John F. Barber), McFarland, 2007
THOUGH THEY RECORDED two albums for Capitol Records, Mad River remains one of the least-documented and enigmatic Bay Area bands of the late '60s. ...
Retrospective by Holly George-Warren, Duke University Press, 2007
SHE'S BEEN called the J.D. Salinger of rock & roll. Mississippi-born singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Bobbie Gentry is every bit as mysterious as the steamy, Delta-flavored story-song she ...
Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, Omnibus Press, 2007
Driven by a love of all things 2-Tone and led by reluctant star Gwen Stefani, Orange County hopefuls No Doubt made their public debut at ...
Radiohead: 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' and the Poetry of Perspective
Book Excerpt by Tim Footman, Chrome Dreams, 2007
Excerpt from Welcome to the Machine: OK Computer and the Death of the Classic Album ...
Read All About It: Rock Books to Live By
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, Time Out's 1000 Books To Save Your Life, 2007
YOU'D THINK I'd be able to write about rock books in my sleep. But of course the task is dreadfully daunting, "rock" now being an ...
Microdisney: Daunt Square To Elsewhere
Sleevenotes by Andrew Mueller, Castle, 2007
THE VERY fact of this compilation's existence tells you a great deal about the music it contains, and the band it honours. The most recent ...
Spear Of Destiny: Grapes Of Wrath
Sleevenotes by Alex Ogg, Anagram, 2007
THE FOUNDATIONS of Spear Of Destiny can be traced back to 1978, when Kirk Brandon replaced bass player Jerry Isles in Devon punk band The ...
Rascals, The: The Rascals: The Definitive Rascals
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Rhino, February 2007
"THE FIRST ALBUM wasn't us," Felix Cavaliere confided to Hit Parader magazine in 1968. "It was our interpretation of other people's music. 'Good Lovin'' was ...
Haysi Fantayzee: Battle Hymns For Children Singing – The Best Of Haysi Fantayzee
Sleevenotes by Alex Ogg, Cherry Pop, February 2007
HAYSI FANTAYZEE were formed in 1981 by a fashion photographer from Wigan, Kate Garner, and her boyfriend, Paul Caplin, late of EMI act Animal Magnet ...
Sleevenotes by James Maycock, Vampi Soul Records, March 2007
JANUARY 2003. AUGUSTA, GEORGIA. A documentary crew are filming James Brown outside the house his aunt operated as a brothel in the 1940s. It was ...
Arif Mardin: Groovin': The Genius of Arif Mardin
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Rhino Records, April 2007
ATLANTIC'S JERRY WEXLER called him The Pasha, aka "His Soulful Turkish Eminence". It was a typically Wexleresque reference to Arif Mardin's aristocratic background and manner. ...
Beau Brummels, The: AUDIO: The Beau Brummels' Sal Valentino (2007)
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, May 2007
Sal Valentino takes us through the history of The Beau Brummels, from being produced by a young Sly Stone for Tom Donahue's Autumn Records to the Warners years, working with Van Dyke Parks and Randy Newman, and the Triangle and Bradley's Barn albums.
File format: mp3 File size: 31.2mb Interview length: 34' 02"; Sound quality: *****
Gene Vincent: Born To Be A Rollin' Stone The Challenge Sessions 1966-68
Sleevenotes by Tim Tooher, Rev-Ola Records, July 2007
SOMETIMES THE BEST things in life are the simplest things. Gene Vincent kept things simple. He had no airs and graces. No pretensions. He sang ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Sundazed Music Inc., July 2007
"There was a definite shock value in hearing the Grape open up with a sound that you did not so much hear as feel in ...
Clyde McPhatter, Drifters, The: Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Music, August 2007
"I fell in love with the man's voice. I toured with the group and watched Clyde and listened; finally I got a chance to join ...
Drifters, The: The Drifters: I'll Take You Where The Music's Playing (Collectors' Choice Music)
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collectors' Choice Music, August 2007
IF THE MID-'60s "Brill Building era" – when teams like Goffin-King, Bacharach-David and Mann-Weil wrote like what seemed two-thirds of the hits in Top 40 ...
Eddie Palmieri & La Perfecta: Sugar Daddy
Sleevenotes by James Maycock, Fania CD, September 2007
THE HIP DANCEFLOOR RHYTHMS OF PALMIERI'S LA PERFECTA: 1962-1967 ...
Sleevenotes by Tim Tooher, Rev-Ola Records, September 2007
THE SUBTLE DANCE between melody and meaning, both music and lyrics, is what makes a song. This should, and often does, lessen the appeal of ...
Chuck Berry: Hail, Hail, Chuck Berry!
Essay by Jonh Ingham, Jonh Ingham's Blog, October 2007
"If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry."– John Lennon ...
Marianne Faithfull: Come My Way
Sleevenotes by Tim Tooher, Rev-Ola Records, November 2007
THE ACCEPTED WISDOM regarding Marianne Faithfull is that in the 1960s she was the mere puppet of oft-considered shady, behind-the-scenes operators like Andrew Loog Oldham ...
Paul Wasserman, Press Agent and Friend
Obituary by Wayne Robins, waynerobins.blogspot.com, November 2007
PAUL WASSERMAN, the erudite press representative to a long roster of rock and movie stars, died in Los Angeles at age 73, according to an ...
Sly & The Family Stone: Sly and the Family Stone: Stand!
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Sony Legacy, Spring 2007
IT'S A MEASURE of our fascination with the darker side of pop culture that Stand! now tends to take second stage to 1971's claustrophobic, coke-fuelled ...
Sleevenotes by Todd Everett, Bear Family Records, 2008
THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME – the list of performers, not the museum in Cleveland – has often generated its share of controversy; ...
Gene Simmons, Kiss: Gene Simmons: Into The Belly Of The Beast
Interview by Elmo Keep, www.fasterlouder.com.au, February 2008
"This is Gene Simmons," says the voice on the phone. There I was, sitting – more correctly, innocently lounging – in the meeting room of ...
Book Excerpt by Mark Kemp, Novello Festival Press, April 2008
Essay published in music anthology: Wicker, Ann, ed., Making Notes: Music of the Carolinas. Charlotte, NC: Novello Festival Press, April 2008. ISBN: 0615159699 ...
Mink DeVille: Where Angels Fear to Tread
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Music, May 2008
PEOPLE TALK. When they talk about the music of Willy DeVille, they say things like "DeVille's talents transcend all trends. He fuses blues, rock and ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Gittins, The National (UAE), May 2008
JASON PIERCE is the great unsung hero of British rock music. As the singer, songwriter and philosophical pulse of his epic rock band, Spiritualized, he ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Music, July 2008
"I WAS 12 years old when I first heard Frankie Lymon singing 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love' on my grandmother's radio," wrote Ronnie Spector ...
Isaac Hayes: Remembering Isaac Hayes
Obituary by David Nathan, Stax 50th Online Blog, August 2008
IT MIGHT be easy to simply consider Isaac Hayes as Black Moses, as the distinguished winner of an Oscar for 'Theme For Shaft', as the ...
Jeff Buckley: A Pure Drop: The Life Of Jeff Buckley
Book Excerpt by Jeff Apter, Omnibus Press, August 2008
An excerpt from A Pure Drop: The Life Of Jeff Buckley, by Jeff Apter, published by Omnibus Press, September 2008. (304pp, hardback, £19.95) ...
Aretha Franklin, Jerry Wexler: Remembering Jerry Wexler…
Comment by David Nathan, Stax 50th Online Blog, September 2008
I'M NOT sure the first time I saw Gerald Wexler's name on an album. ...
Robert Johnson: The Death of Robert Johnson
Book Excerpt by Tom Graves, DeMers Books, October 2008
Excerpt from the book Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson (DeMers Books) ...
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, November 2008
The meastro of roots and Americana talks about his recent work - I, Flathead, Chávez Ravine - and looks back to the making of his first album and subsequent career.
File format: mp3 File size: 32.4mb Interview length: 35' 27"; Sound quality: *****
Mo-dettes, The: The Mo-dettes: The Story So Far (Cherry Red)
Sleevenotes by Alex Ogg, Cherry Red, December 2008
THE MO-DETTES first emerged towards the end of 1978, after guitarist Kate Korus (aka Katherine Corris, formerly of the Slits) and drummer June Miles-Kingston met ...
Howlin' Rain: Magnificent Fiend
Press Release by Don Waller, Birdman Records, Spring 2008
MAGNIFICENT FIEND is the second album from Howlin' Rain and the first to be issued under a joint agreement between multi-platinum record producer Rick Rubin's ...
Slits, The: The Slits: An extract from Typical Girls; The Story Of The Slits
Book Excerpt by Zoë Street Howe, Omnibus Books, 2009
NOTE: Zoe Street Howe managed to interview all four original members of The Slits – Ari Up, Viv Albertine, Tessa Pollitt and Paloma 'Palmolive' Romero ...
Led Zeppelin: Thirty Years Gone: Remembering John Bonham
Book Excerpt by Roy Carr, 'Talk on the Wild Side' (EarBooks), 2009
WELL, THIS IS L.A., so I assume we're being hit by an earthquake. What else could cause the walls of my hotel room to vibrate ...
Flirtations with Chaos: The Life and Work of Robert Palmer
Essay by Anthony DeCurtis, 'Blues & Chaos', 2009
NOTE: This is Anthony DeCurtis' introduction to Blues & Chaos, his 2009 anthology of Bob Palmer's work.* ...
Ben E. King: Supernatural and Benny And Us
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Records, 2009
BY NOW IT'S A TRUISM that F. Scott Fitzgerald got it wrong when he said, "There are no second acts in American lives." Sure, lots ...
Monochrome Set, The: The Monochrome Set: The Lost Weekend
Sleevenotes by Alex Ogg, Cherry Red, February 2009
THE LOST Weekend was The Monochrome Set's first and only album for Warners subsidiary Blanco y Negro, following their exit from Cherry Red. Yet rather ...
Tom Waits: The Piano Has Been Drinking: Tom Waits in London Town
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits (Faber), March 2009
In this excerpt from Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, the barfly bard of the Hollywood sidewalks visits London for the first ...
George Harrison, Beatles, The: By George: Harrison's Post-Beatles Solo Career
Retrospective by Roy Trakin, Capitol Vaults blog, June 2009
MOST PEOPLE THINK of George Harrison as "the Quiet Beatle," the spiritual one, the first to turn the band on to transcendental meditation, but the ...
Rolling Stones, The: Villa Nellcote: Tommy Weber Arrives at the Rolling Stones' French Stronghold
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'A Day in the Life' (Da Capo), July 2009
In this excerpt from his brilliant new A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the '60s, Robert Greenfield ...
Led Zeppelin: I Was There: Nostalgic Recollections From Led Zeppelin's 1979 Shows at Knebworth
Book Excerpt by Dave Lewis, Then As It Was (Tight But Loose Publishing), August 2009
FOR THE THOUSANDS of fans who converged on Hertfordshire over the first two weekends of August 1979, Led Zeppelin at Knebworth was more than a ...
Tom Waits: Take It With Me When I Go: Tom Waits Turns 60
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits' (Faber), December 2009
To celebrate Tom Waits' 60th birthday (December 9), I hereby offer the coda to my biography Lowside of the Road. An account of seeing the ...
Lee Dorsey: The New Lee Dorsey
Sleevenotes by Tim Tooher, Rev-Ola Records, December 2009
"Lee Dorsey's voice has a smile to it. If you listen to Lee Dorsey, you can see a smile and something in you can feel ...
Aimee Mann: Cover Me – Aimee, Gail and the illustrators
Special Feature by Martin Colyer, Varoom!, Winter 2009
Video promos and downloads have diminished the value of sleeve art in the eyes of music companies, and illustration doesn't fit their brand-building approach to ...
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice Records, 2010
AS A SONGWRITER, singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Jorge Calderon has amassed a list of credits that would easily qualify him for a master's degree in ...
Percy Sledge: Out Of Left Cotton Field: The Brokenhearted Country Soul Of Percy Sledge
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, 'The Complete Atlantic Recordings' (Rhino), 2010
PERCY SLEDGE IS as prone to romanticizing Muscle Shoals as the many music writers who rhapsodize about the area in pieces about local luminaries like ...
Sleevenotes by Anthony Heilbut, Shanachie Records, 2010
"You know, friends, they got this new music ... this rocking and roll. And I'd just like to say that it gets its beat... ...
The Orlons: Wah Watusi and South Street
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Collector's Choice, 2010
IF THEY'RE LUCKY, most decades get a handle–not right at birth, but usually by the time they grow up a little and let us know ...
Jeffrey Lee Pierce, The Gun Club: Remembering Jeffrey, Not Jeffrey Lee Pierce
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, Six Stream Sermon (Bang Records) , 2010
NOW, THE FIRST THING you should understand is that I never knew Jeffrey Lee Pierce. But I did know that same person as Jeffrey for ...
Van Morrison: The Healing Game (1997)
Book Excerpt by Greil Marcus, 'When That Rough God Goes Riding' , June 2010
THE BLACK-AND-WHITE photo that appears on the face of The Healing Game–and on the disc itself, and on the back of the CD box, insisting ...
Van Morrison, Them: Them: 'Baby Please Don't Go' (1965)
Book Excerpt by Greil Marcus, 'When That Rough God Goes Riding', June 2010
IN 1965, THEM'S 'Baby Please Don't Go'–usually cited as a rock 'n' roll update of a song first recorded by the Mississippi blues singer Joe ...
Book Excerpt by Rob Young, 'Electric Eden' (Faber), August 2010
NOTE: This is an excerpt from Rob Young's superb new folk opus Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music, published in August 2010 by Faber & ...
Bobby 'Blue' Bland: For Members Only: Bobby Bland on Malaco
Sleevenotes by Barney Hoskyns, Malaco Records, October 2010
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, searching for the extant spirit of southern soul, I made my way to a former Pepsi-Cola warehouse in a decidedly unlovely industrial ...
Blazers, the: The Blazers: East Side Soul
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, New Rounder, October 2010
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA – the first weekend of March, 1995. Mudslides wiped out nine homes in a town near Ventura while OJ trial junkies debated the ...
At Large in the Black Hole of Punk L.A.
Sleevenotes by Jon Savage, 'Black Hole' (Domino Records), November 2010
NOTE: Adapted from Strange Things # 1, published spring 1988, this forms the first part of the liner notes for Black Hole: Jon Savage Presents ...
Ken Colyer, Lonnie Donegan: Ken Colyer and the Birth of Skiffle
Book Excerpt by Various Writers, Goin' Home (The Ken Colyer Trust), December 2010
This an excerpt from Goin' Home: The Uncompromising Life and Music of Ken Colyer, published by the Ken Colyer Foundation. ...
Ahmet Ertegun: A Day of Tribute in New York
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'The Last Sultan' (Simon & Schuster), 2011
APRIL 17, 2007. In the tiny village New York can sometimes become when it honors one of its own who has fulfilled the dream of ...
Mickey Newbury: Guitars, Boats And Fairways: Mickey Newbury and Friends on Old Hickory Lake
Sleevenotes by Chris Campion, Saint Cecilia Knows Records, 2011
IT LOOKS, FROM ABOVE, like a snake arching through the brush. A series of long blind curves that begins at Hendersonville, the small community formed ...
Sleevenotes by Todd Everett, Bear Family Records, 2011
PAT BOONE, WHO GOT HIS START before rock and roll was invented, remarked in 2008 that he had issues with the fact that he hadn't ...
Beatles, The: The Birth of Beatlemania: The Fab Four on Tour, 1963
Book Excerpt by Martin Creasy, 'Beatlemania!' (Omnibus), March 2011
NOTE: Martin Creasy spent two years tracing the trajectory of the Beatles' UK tours, interviewing scores of people who in some way connected with John, ...
Chic, Norma Jean Wright: Norma Jean Wright: Norma Jean
Sleevenotes by Daryl Easlea, Demon Records, July 2011
NORMA JEAN WRIGHT'S sole album on Bearsville, released in 1978, is something of a curio, and is notable for the fact it was the first ...
Book Excerpt by Kevin Avery, Everything is an Afterthought (Fantagraphics), November 2011
ON APRIL 14, 1983, Elliot Roberts, Neil Young's manager, wrote a letter to Paul: "This is to advise you that we will co-operate with you ...
Book Excerpt by Kevin Avery, Everything is an Afterthought (Fantagraphics), November 2011
MUSIC PLAYED A PART IN young Paul's life. "My aunt played piano. I remember hymns very fondly as the first music I ever heard." There ...
Profile by Jude Rogers, The Daily Note, December 2011
A group of outsiders left to their own devices, the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop took avant-garde electronics and strange new sounds into the nation's living rooms ...
Sanford-Townsend Band: The Sanford-Townsend Band: Smoke From A Distant Fire
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Real Gone Records, 2012
IT'S A FUNNY THING about brass rings. Sometimes they come round and we pass on them, forever locked out of a future that might've been. ...
The Ghost of Roland Barthes is Suitably Perplexed: NME in the Post-Punk Era
Book Excerpt by Pat Long, Portico Books, March 2012
NOTE: In this excerpt from his History of the NME, published in the UK by Portico, Pat Long chronicles the decline of the world's top ...
Book Excerpt by Anthony Heilbut, 'The Fan Who Knew Too Much' (Knopf), June 2012
AMONG THE SEVERAL MYTHS Aretha's father Reverend C. L. Franklin incarnated was a familiar type, Reverend Eatemup, the man with pastoral appetites in food ...
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, Catalog for Doug Aitken's Song 1 exhibition, June 2012
I WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD – a glam-rock brat awakening to the golden innocence of pre-Beatles American pop – when I shelled out for the ...
Pussy Riot: The Riot Girls' Style
Comment by Vivien Goldman, New York Times magazine blogs, August 2012
IT HAS BEEN a shock to see the bravely smiling faces of three girls from the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot locked in a glass ...
Led Zeppelin: Their Satanic Majesties Request: When Led Zeppelin Ruled The World
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Trampled Under Foot' (Faber & Faber), September 2012
By 1973, Led Zeppelin was the biggest rock band on the planet. In this excerpt from Trampled Under Foot, Barney Hoskyns' new oral history of ...
Press Release by Rob Young, 4AD Records, September 2012
Bish (n. sl.), bitchBosch, Hieronymous (c. 1450–1516), Dutch painterBish bosh (sl.), job done, sorted* ...
Various Artists: Blue Beat 1962
Review by Mike Atherton, Secret Records, December 2012
NUMBER ONE in a field of one, and an increasingly fertile field at that, isn't a bad place to be. That's where the Blue Beat ...
Ron Sexsmith: Forever Endeavour
Press Release by Barney Hoskyns, Cooking Vinyl Records, February 2013
IN A WORLD of workaday singer-songwriters mired in vacuous self-regard, news of a new Ron Sexsmith record can only gladden the heart of those who ...
Peace: Tiny, Smug and Blissfully Ignorant Minds: New British Indie and Peace's In Love (Columbia)
Special Feature by Neil Kulkarni, fuckyouneilkulkarni.blogspot.co.uk, April 2013
"I. Man's perceptions are not bound by organs of perception; he perceives more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover." — William Blake, ...
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