Rolling Stone
Where’s the Money from Monterey Pop?
Report by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, November 1967
For the first issue of Rolling Stone in November, 1967, editor Jann Wenner asked me to do an investigative piece on what had happened to ...
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, November 1967
THERE HE WAS, Wild Bill Haley, fifteen years older but not showing a day of it, his spit curl firmly in place on the forehead ...
Jefferson Airplane: After Bathing At Baxter’s
Review and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, November 1967
Jefferson Airplane finally finished their third LP Halloween week after two months of off-and-on recording in Los Angeles. It’s called After Bathing at Baxter’s, has ...
Jimi Hendrix, Curtis Knight: Jimi Hendrix: A Shoddy Hendrix Record?
Report by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, January 1968
THE NEW Capitol LP, Got that Feeling: Jimi Hendrix Plays, Curtis Knight Sings, is not what it appears: Hendrix's latest release. The cover, with no ...
Grateful Dead: The First European International Pop Festival: Pigpen To Meet Pope?
Report by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, February 1968
THE FIRST EUROPEAN International Pop Festival, a resounding name for a still rather mysterious event, is being planned for Rome's huge Palazzo dello Sport February ...
Charlatans, The (US): The Charlatans: Pioneer San Francisco Rock Group
Profile and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, March 1968
While record companies and poster dealers are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into San Francisco to capture some of that real old authentic hip ...
Merle Haggard: Home-fried Humor and Cowboy Soul
Profile and Interview by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, August 1968
COUNTRY MUSIC is blowing in like a fresh wind from the West. America can't be defined by its pay-toilets and its smog. Merle Haggard never ...
Band, The: The Band: Friends and Neighbours Just Call Us The Band
Profile and Interview by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, August 1968
NEW YORK: Big Pink is one of those middle class ranch houses of the type that you would expect to find in development row in ...
Mason Williams: The Mason Williams Phonograph Record
Review by Gene Sculatti, Rolling Stone, September 1968
THE RECORDING DEBUT of Mason Williams is an intriguing affair. The Mason Williams Phonograph Record was released many months ago but only recently has it ...
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Smokey Robinson: Smokey Robinson
Profile and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, September 1968
SMOKEY ROBINSON is the reigning genius of Top-40. Since the Beatles and the Beach Boys dropped out of the single-then-follow-up-album pattern aimed at the AM ...
Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, December 1968
"IF IT WEREN'T FOR the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song," said Carl Perkins with a comic dolefulness. He had just ...
John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: A Hard Road (London)
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, December 1968
This record has some great blues for blues freaks, whether you happen to prefer blues played by whites, blacks, or homosexual Chinese emigrants to the ...
Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, January 1969
"WHAT I'M AFRAID of," says Taj Mahal, watching the sun set on Sunset, "are these closet fascists, the guy workin' unloadin' trucks scared to death ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills and Nash - The Happiest Sounds You Ever Heard
Interview by Miles, Rolling Stone, February 1969
LONDON - One Sunday before Christmas we went to a flat in Moscow Road to hear what Graham Nash had described by phone as "one ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, March 1969
THE POPULAR FORMULA in England in this, the aftermath era of such successful British bluesmen as Cream and John Mayall, seems to be: add to ...
Foreword to Outlaw Blues by Paul Williams
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, April 1969
[For the 21st-century edition of this book, Michael Lydon, a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine and the author of Rock Folk, Boogie Lightning and ...
Review by Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone, April 1969
WHOEVER THOUGHT when that dirty little quickie 'Wild In The Streets' came out that it would leave such an imprint on the culture? First the ...
Tim Hardin, Doors, The: Tim Hardin: Hobnobbin' With The Superstars
Report by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, April 1969
LOS ANGELES – The Chateau Marmont is one of the nicest places and reasons to stay in Los Angles. It retains the charm of old ...
Traffic at Berkshire Cottage: Just Playing Together was a Fantasy
Report and Interview by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, May 1969
THE COTTAGE is an hour and a half from London, but it's thousand light years from Soho Square. Henley is like driving through a postcard, ...
Lothar and the Hand People: Lothar and the Hand People (Capitol)
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, May 1969
THERE WAS a strange New York scene a few years ago, when much the same sort of thing was taking place across a continent in ...
Profile and Interview by Happy Traum, Rolling Stone, May 1969
FOLK MUSIC, which pushed rock and roll into the arena of the serious with protest lyrics and blendings of Dylan and the Byrds back in ...
Essay by Happy Traum, Rolling Stone, May 1969
"FOLK MUSIC is dead." We've been hearing that for some time now. The clubs and coffee houses that sprang up all over the country in ...
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, May 1969
IKE AND TINA TURNER have been packing suitcases and riding buses for years, playing the Sportmen's Clubs and the Showcase Lounges, sometimes making it into ...
Mary Hopkin, Paul McCartney: Mary Hopkin: Postcard
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1969
POSTCARD IS AS much Paul McCartney's as it is Mary Hopkin's, which is to say that it is one of those albums on which the ...
Review by Ed Ward, Rolling Stone, May 1969
TAJ MAHAL may not be the most authentic, the most technically proficient, or the most emotionally cathartic practitioner of the blues today, but he certainly ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1969
A Salty Dog is a confusing album. At its best it represents the group's greatest success to date with the brand of rock for which ...
Kinks, The: The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
Comment by Paul Williams, Rolling Stone, June 1969
I CERTAINLY LOVE the Kinks; it's been fifteen months since I've had a new Kinks album in my hourse, and though I've been listening to ...
Nice, The: The Nice: Ars Longa Vita Brevis (Immediate)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1969
WHAT MAY HAVE turned potential Nice freaks off last year was the group's decision to precede their ritual cataclysm 'Rondo' with a set that consisted ...
Nice, The: The Nice: Nice Work If You Can Get It
Profile by Mark Williams, Rolling Stone, July 1969
THE NICE are the most successful British group to have achieved fame without a single in the top ten. The future is surer for them, ...
Review by Mark Williams, Rolling Stone, July 1969
THE BRITISH END of the Atlantic Recording Company's operations rarely signs up this country's groups and when it does, they have to be exceedingly good ...
Steve Miller: The Steve Miller Band: Brave New World (Capitol)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, July 1969
IF YOU WERE hoping for some new music from the new Steve Miller Band – organist Jim Peterman and guitarist Boz Scaggs have left, and ...
Incredible String Band, The: Incredible String Band: York University, York
Live Review by Michael Gray, Rolling Stone, August 1969
YORK IS A WALLED medieval city that belongs to Rowntrees Chocolate. You step off the train on some evenings and the scent of After Eight ...
Chuck Willis: I Remember Chuck Willis
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, August 1969
EVERY ONCE IN a while something happens that reminds one of the incalculable contribution Atlantic Records has made to rock and roll and rhythm and ...
Country Joe & The Fish: Here We Are Again
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, August 1969
BERKELEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN the Freak Capital of the Western world. The university of California has long been noted for its political militants, and the ...
MC5: Ronnie Hawkins: Ronnie Hawkins and Mr. Dynamo
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, August 1969
RONNIE HAWKINS came down out of the Ozarks, and after gigging with Carl Perkins and Harold Jenkins (later Conway Twitty), he decided he wanted to ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, August 1969
LOOK AT THE picture of Steve Cropper on his new album cover and you see what appears to be a quiet, reserved, young man – ...
Joe Cocker: With A Little Help From My Friends
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, August 1969
Joe Cocker and the Grease Band were ending a performance they gave recently at the Whiskey in Los Angeles. As they went into their explosive ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Burnout Sets In
Special Feature by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, August 1969
But I reckon l got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilise ...
Fairport Convention: What We Did On Our Holidays
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, September 1969
THE FIRST thing I did on receiving this album in the mail was stick it in my cardboard album box – with a good mind ...
Blind Faith: Blind Faith (Atco)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, September 1969
THE YEAR 1969 has not been a very good one for rock and roll. Outside of Tommy and the Band's decision to go on tour, ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, October 1969
MY FELLOW devotees of what is frequently referred to as rock and roll's English sound should, on finishing this sentence, rush out willy-nilly in excited ...
Big Mama Thornton: Stronger Than Dirt (Mercury)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, November 1969
ANYBODY WHO has ever seen Big Mama Thornton perform will vouch for the fact that she is a consummate entertainer. So good, in fact, that ...
Hollies, The: The Hollies: Words and Music by Bob Dylan (Epic)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1969
THE HOLLIES, an institution in British rock since the very early Beatle days, have always been among the most conservative of English groups. They were, ...
Jimi Hendrix: I Don't Want to be a Clown Any More
Interview by Sheila Weller, Rolling Stone, November 1969
LIBERTY, NEW YORK – Records, film, press and gossip are collectively ambitious in creating the image of a rock superstar. With Jimi Hendrix – as ...
Screamin' Jay Hawkins: What That Is! (Phillips)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1969
THE KEY TO this album is its honesty. Producer Milan Melvin has been faithful to Screamin' Jay and his music right down to the picture ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1969
BOUND AS he is to producer Mickie Most, who's good when he's interested and unthinkably horrid when he's not, as is obviously the case here, ...
Zombies, The: The Zombies: Early Days (London)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1969
I PERSONALLY used to spend a lot of time in school carving "What's become of the Zombies" on desks. Which is to say that I ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Abbey Road (Apple)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1969
SIMPLY, SIDE TWO does more for me than the whole of Sgt. Pepper, and I'll trade you The Beatles and Magical Mystery Tour and a ...
Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin II (Atlantic)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, December 1969
Hey, man, I take it all back! This is one fucking heavyweight of an album! OK – I'll concede that until you've listened to the ...
Fleetwood Mac: Then Play On (Reprise)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, December 1969
Nowadays Fleetwood Mac is stepping out on its own. Tired of being another British blues band, the group has said goodbye to Elmore James and ...
King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, December 1969
THERE ARE CERTAIN problems to be encountered by any band that is consciously avant-garde. In attempting to sound "farout" the musicians inevitably impose on themselves ...
Box Tops, The: The Box Tops: Dimensions, Nonstop, Super Hits
Review by Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone, December 1969
THE BOX TOPS? Are you serious? Those yokel hacks grinding out rattly pop for the tyrannical Top 40? Those squeaky-clean goons in paisley scarves and ...
Charlie Rich: Life's Little Ups And Downs
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, December 1969
BOB DYLAN HAS SAID more than once that Charlie Rich is one of his favorite musicians – as a songwriter and as a singer. Nik ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, February 1970
Live Dead explains why the Dead are one of the best performing bands in America, why their music touches on ground that most other groups ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, February 1970
BOTH PIANO-PLAYING singers who started out singing rock and roll with Sam Phillips in Memphis and who have since moved into country and western, Jerry ...
Elvis Presley: Wagging His Tail In Las Vegas
Live Review by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, February 1970
ELVIS WAS SUPERNATURAL, his own resurrection, at the Showroom Internationale in Las Vegas last August. ...
Delaney & Bonnie Homecoming Knocks 'Em Dead
Report and Interview by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, March 1970
NEW YORK – They weren't welcomed at the airport by hordes of screaming, pushing teenagers. They didn't receive a standing ovation at the Fillmore East ...
Small Faces, The: Small Faces: The Autumn Stone
Review by Simon Frith, Rolling Stone, March 1970
BEHIND THE KINGS of rock and roll stand the workers who make up the boredom and blarney, the fervour and humbug of pop. They are ...
Charlie Rich: The Many Sides Of Charlie Rich and The Best Years
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, March 1970
IN THESE DAYS of ten new bands each week, there is even another 'new' discovery: Charlie Rich albums for 33c each in a mono record ...
Gene Vincent: Gene Vincent’s Greatest (Capitol); I’m Back And I’m Proud (Dandelion) and more
Review by Simon Frith, Rolling Stone, March 1970
GENE VINCENT was the most tortured of the Fifties rock stars. I only saw him in concert once and that was weird. He was in ...
Rascals, The: The Rascals: See
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, March 1970
SOMETIMES ONE wonders if the (Young) Rascals wouldn't be better off just making hit singles. ...
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, April 1970
SAN FRANCISCO – When Mountain plays, the walls shake and the audience goes crazy. The band born in a recording studio when Felix Pappalardi produced ...
Electric Flag: Intimations of the Electric Flag
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, April 1970
SAN FRANCISCO: The Electric Flag is back – sometimes. The rest of the time, they go by the name "Mike Bloomfield and Friends". ...
Neil Young: Contra Costa Junior College, San Francisco
Live Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, April 1970
EVERYTHING about Neil Young’s approach to music has become so highly personalized that when he performs, he seems at first to be oblivious of his ...
Youngbloods, The: The Youngbloods: Two Trips
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, May 1970
In early 1965, Jesse Colin Young recorded an excellent solo album on Mercury (now out-of-print) called Young Blood. Truckin' along in relative obscurity in the ...
Rolling Stones, The: King Hash Is Sure To Come
Report and Interview by Sheila Weller, Rolling Stone, May 1970
TANGIER – He shakes another pebble oul of the foot-long, coral-and silver-encrusted stash pouch, pokes an amber-ringed forefinger under the schlockedelic fake-silk ascot he has ...
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, May 1970
WOP-BOP-A-LU-BOP-A-LOP-BAM-BOOM. Thud. 'Tutti Frutti', which opens the partly excellent MC5 album, is easily the worst cut on it, and in a way a clue to ...
Interview by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, May 1970
I DIDN'T GET to see Little Richard at the Atlantic City Pop Festival where he followed Janis Joplin and revived his own legend, but when ...
Faces, The, Small Faces, The: The Small Faces: First Step
Review by Joel Selvin, Rolling Stone, May 1970
THE SMALL FACES are now into a more sophisticated and mature commerciality. The addition of Rod Stewart as vocalist and Ron Wood on lead guitar ...
Beatles, The, George Harrison: George Harrison: Why Is George In New York?
Report and Interview by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, June 1970
Sunrise doesn't last all morning The cloudburst doesn't last all day Seems my love is up and has left with no warning But it's not ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Let It Be (Apple)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1970
TO THOSE WHO found their work since the White Album as emotionally vapid as it was technically breathtaking, the news that the Beatles were about ...
Fairport Convention: Unhalfbricking/Liege and Lief
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1970
UNHALFBRICKING AND Liege and Lief are the two last albums by the Fairport Convention with Sandy Denny. ...
Miles Davis & Louis Armstrong: You Learn How to Defend Your Style
Essay by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, July 1970
NEW YORK — There was something sad about it, this party thrown by old men for someone older still, and yet you had to have ...
Interview by Happy Traum, Rolling Stone, July 1970
VAN MORRISON sits on the edge of the bed and absently picks an old Gibson. He is moody, his eyes intense and his smile sudden; ...
Who, The: The Who: At The Metropolitan Opera House
Live Review by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, July 1970
THE WHO is a group that was nurtured in gimmickry. I remember five years ago Brian Jones calling me up on the trans-Atlantic phone to ...
Janis Joplin’s Full-tilt Boogie Ride
Report and Interview by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, August 1970
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky – Janis Joplin and her newly-formed band, Janis Joplin Full-Tilt Boogie, debuted here June 12th, their first gig since they started rehearsing together ...
Steve Miller: Grand Designs For The Future
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, September 1970
STEVE MILLER sits at his kitchen table, bent over a series of diagrams and flow charts he's drawing that outline the business side of a ...
Grateful Dead: An Evening with the Grateful Dead
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, September 1970
WE CHANGE and our changings change, a friend said once. It sounded true, but it seems too that through it all we stay the same. ...
Little Richard: The Rill Thing
Review by Joel Selvin, Rolling Stone, September 1970
AS INCREDIBLE AS IT may seem, Little Richard is as great as he says he is. His new album, the first in three years, is ...
Swamp Dogg: 'Whistle Dixie Out Your Ass': Swamp Dogg
Report and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, October 1970
SAN FRANCISCO – Swamp Dogg had just finished taping a four-song set for a quadraphonic television show, and now everyone was up in the control ...
Rick Derringer, Johnny Winter: Johnny Winter: On Music, Hype and Happiness
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, October 1970
FOR TOO long there, it seemed to Johnny Winter like he would never be known for his music as much as he would be known ...
Jimi Hendrix: A Funeral In His Home Town
Report by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, October 1970
Seattle, Washington – It had been very hot and sunny the last few days in Seattle, most unusual for this time of year. But on ...
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, November 1970
LONDON – "If this is the revolution, why are the drinks so fucking expensive," someone has written on the wall in the toilet of London's ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1970
GIVEN THAT HIS voice combines the nasal sonority of James Taylor with the rasp of Van Morrison with the slurry intonation of M. Jagger with ...
Moody Blues, The: Moody Blues: A Question Of Balance
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1970
RECENTLY SOMETHING of unexaggerable beauty came into my life, something that was to enthrall me musically and elevate me spiritually, to pour oil on the ...
Humble Pie: Town and Country; As Safe As Yesterday Is; Humble Pie
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, November 1970
HUMBLE PIE'S debut album was released only in England. It was called Town and Country and was, for the most part, quiet and basically acoustic ...
Jackie Lomax is Leaving London
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, November 1970
LONDON – Jackie Lomax is from Liverpool. He's 26 and he writes songs and sings them. ...
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, December 1970
With their new album No Dice, Badfinger has to their credit one of the best records of the year. This album is literally a quantum ...
Captain Beefheart: Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Review by Ed Ward, Rolling Stone, December 1970
WHEN I FIRST heard Trout Mask Replica, I about puked. What is this shit, I thought. People I met talked about it in glowing terms ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: Loaded
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, December 1970
LOU REED HAS always steadfastly maintained that the Velvet Underground were just another Long Island rock 'n' roll band. But in the past he really ...
Faces, The, Rod Stewart: Rod Stewart: In Conversation
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, December 1970
"I was very pleased with it when we finished, and I still am," Rod Stewart said of his first solo LP. With good reason. ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Pendulum: Creedence Got a New Kind of Bag
Report and Interview by Joel Selvin, Rolling Stone, December 1970
BERKELEY — Creedence Clearwater Revival is rolling again, and in several directions, with their upcoming new album, Pendulum. ...
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, 1971
‘SISTER ANNE,’ ‘Over And Over,’ and ‘Gotta Keep Movin’’ on the new MC5 album are without doubt among the best hard rock performances of the ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Live Album
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, January 1971
"IT'S GOOD... ’cause, like, their music is getting better and better all the time, it’s like, you know, what people want to hear." ...
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, January 1971
LONDON – It's the universal riff. When some kid in Laguna Beach finally stops driving all the neighbors crazy with it, a kid sitting by ...
Kinks, The: The Kinks: Lola Vs. Powerman And The Moneygoround (Part One)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, January 1971
SO, APPARENTLY having forgotten the Byrds' words of caution, you wanna be a rock and roll star, eh? Before you trade in your stereo components ...
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, January 1971
When viewed in the context of his two previous albums, Bob Seger's Mongrel fares very favorably. It's easily his best over-all work to date, but ...
David Bowie: The Man Who Sold The World
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, February 1971
"Some say the view is crazy/But you may adopt another point of view. So if it's much too hazy/You can leave my friend and me ...
Quicksilver Messenger Service: What About Me (Capitol)
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, February 1971
QUICKSILVER displayed acute weaknesses on their previous album and they remain very much in evidence on What About Me. Though the group has polished up ...
Nico, Velvet Underground, John Cale: Shards of Velvet Afloat in London: Nico and John Cale
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, February 1971
JOHN CALE REACHES too hard for the pay phone in the lobby of his hotel. Bang. It explodes into the soft corner of his forehead, ...
Little Richard, James Gang, The: Little Richard Takes El's Advice
Report by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, March 1971
CLEVELAND – "I'm going to tell Elvis what you did for me, hear?" Richard whispers to the stewardess as she leans over to deposit two ...
Spirit: 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, March 1971
ANY ILLUSIONS that might still be clung to along the order of Spirit's being an Epic house organ anthropomorphization-of-eclecticism shuck, complete with baldpated, cerebral – ...
Faces, The: Faces: Long Player (Warner Bros.)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, March 1971
BEING ONE OF the few English bands left willing (nay, all too happy) to flaunt their Englishness, and moreover ranking no lower than third on ...
King Crimson, McDonald and Giles: Mcdonald & Giles (Cotillion)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, March 1971
IGNORING THE TINY VOICE from within that insisted that, having cared for King Crimson not one iota, I would probably not find the work of ...
Various: British Blues Archive Series Vols. 1 And 2
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, March 1971
IT ALL SEEMED TO happen quite suddenly when in late 1966 and 1967 the United States’ record stores were deluged with a staggering number of ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, April 1971
MAYBE IT’S JUST my imagination, but the Jimi Hendrix section of my local record bin seems to have been growing at an astonishing pace lately. ...
Report and Interview by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, April 1971
Los Angeles: in his floral-patterned velvet midi-gown and cosmetically enhanced eyes, in his fine chest-length blonde hair and mod nutty engineer’s cap that he bought ...
Leon Russell: Working Hard At the Lyceum
Live Review by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, April 1971
LONDON – "Aw...bet you thought I couldn't rock and roll," the piano player says, plunging into the music. ...
Rolling Stones, The: Goodbye Great Britain: The Rolling Stones On Tour
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, April 1971
LONDON – "Boogie, Bobby, boogie," Marshall Chess is saying over and over to Bobby Keys in the seat next to him, slamming out the phrase ...
Matthews' Southern Comfort: Matthews Southern Comfort: Later That Same Year
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, April 1971
AS HAS been suggested before in these pages, if mellow tuneful close-harmony country-tinged polite-rock of the sort that is considered indispensable by those who own ...
Alice Cooper: Love It To Death
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, April 1971
IT CAME ON the radio in the late afternoon and from the first note it was right: Alice Cooper bringing it all back home again. ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, April 1971
THESE TWO ALBUMS have quite a bit in common; both consist of early material released now to cash in on the popularity of the groups ...
Baby Huey: The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, April 1971
BABY HUEY never made it; not really. At his peak, when he was the stellar attraction of a rhythm and blues circuit that stretched from ...
Emerson Lake And Palmer: Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, April 1971
WE WERE FOREWARNED by the British music press that Emerson, Lake & Palmer would be a "super-group," and indeed it was hard to see how ...
Loudon Wainwright III: A Tale of Loudon Wainwright III
Interview by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, April 1971
NEW YORK – The word was out, carried by the wind and a few strategic newspaper clippings, and everybody, everybody was making it on down ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, April 1971
FROM THE VERY start, friends, I've always wished I could enjoy Creedence Clearwater as much as I admire them for their unremitting tunefulness and refreshing ...
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, May 1971
It seems that Humble Pie didn't quite hit the US the right way. ...
Chambers Brothers, The: The Chambers Brothers: New Generation
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, May 1971
AT THE OUTSET, the Chambers Brothers were a warmly exciting gospel act (catalogued on a series of fine albums released by Vault), but they apparently ...
Flamin' Groovies, The: The Flamin’ Groovies: Teenage Head (Kama Sutra)
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, May 1971
I’VE BEEN betting on the Flamin’ Groovies a long time. When they used to come on stage at Golden Gate Park love-ins and all the ...
Black Oak Arkansas: Black Oak Arkansas (Atco)
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1971
IT IS SAID that before they became a rock and roll band Black Oak Arkansas were a teenage gang the mere mention of whose name ...
Phil Ochs: God Help The Troubadour
Profile and Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, May 1971
Who was that foolThrew the basket in the pool? ...
Badfinger: Woo, Liverpool Accents
Profile and Interview by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, June 1971
LOS ANGELES – Badfinger started out five years ago as the Ivys, who soft-rocked around small clubs in London and recorded about 100 of their ...
Young Rascals, The: The Young Rascals: Five years of the Rascals
Profile by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, June 1971
I KNOW THIS may sound a little overboard, but there once was a time when the Young Rascals were the greatest rock & roll band ...
Rascals, The: Five Years Of The Rascals
Retrospective by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, June 1971
I KNOW THIS may be sound a little overboard, but there once was a time when the Young Rascals were the greatest rock & roll ...
Procol Harum: Broken Barricades
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, June 1971
TO FANS OF the group, Procol Harum's history has been like this: an excellent first album, Procol Harum, a shaky and very uneven second album, ...
Mott The Hoople: Mott the Hoople: Wildlfe
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, June 1971
THE OUTCOME of the battle has yet to be conclusively determined, but my scorecard gives the race for "The Most Beloved Rock And Roll Band ...
Holy Modal Rounders, The: The Holy Modal Rounders: Good Taste Is Timeless
Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, June 1971
PETER STAMPFEL, who, with Steve Weber, was, and remains, half of the driving force behind the Rounders, later paid off a debt he owed me ...
Guess Who, The: The Guess Who: The Best of The Guess Who
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, June 1971
THE GUESS WHO, despite their good intentions, have never seemed like natural candidates for superstardom. With a collective personality that could be described as lumpy ...
Jackie Lomax: Home Is In My Head
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, June 1971
JACKIE LOMAX' FIRST album, released in 1969 on Apple, was produced by George Harrison, contained an excellent single ('The Eagle Laughs At You' b/w 'Sour ...
Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks: Where’s The Money
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, July 1971
DAN HICKS is a person of no mean strangeness, a genuine original, and one of the greatest superheroes in all of 20th century popular music. ...
Rod Stewart: Every Picture Tells A Story
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, July 1971
HE HAS IT IN him, has Rod Stewart, to save a lot of souls, to rescue those of us who are too old for Grand ...
Graham Nash: Songs for Beginners
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, July 1971
IF YOU ACCEPT Graham Nash on his own terms, which is simply as a nice guy who somehow wound up a musician, then you probably ...
James Gang, The: The James Gang: Thirds
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, July 1971
By no exertion of the imagination are James Gang the greatest rock and roll band ever to walk the face of the earth or anything ...
Clarence Carter: Slippin' Away With Clarence Carter
Interview by Joel Selvin, Rolling Stone, August 1971
SAN FRANCISCO – Clarence Carter leaves his Holiday Inn room on the arm of his road manager, who looks familiar. It's Rodgers Redding, and it's ...
Rolling Stones, The, Keith Richards: The Rolling Stone Interview: Keith Richards
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, August 1971
KEITH PLAYS in a rock & roll band. Anita is a movie star queen. They currently reside in a large white marble house that everyone ...
Stephen Stills: Stephen Stills 2
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, August 1971
WHAT WE HAVE HERE, friends, is a fifth-rate album by a solid second-rate artist who so many lower-middlebrows insist on believing is actually first-rate, even ...
Ian Matthews: If You Saw Thro' My Eyes (Vertigo)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1971
AFTER A TWO-ALBUM stint with Fairport Convention, Ian Matthews made a solo LP, Matthews Southern Comfort, formed a band called Matthews Southern Comfort, and proceeded ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, September 1971
IT SEEMS almost too perfectly ironic that now, at a time in their career when most people have written them off as either dead or ...
Fairport Convention: Angel Delight
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, September 1971
Angel Delight is a happy event, for it sharpens and solidifies the tentative steps the Fairport Convention took in Full House, their first post-Sandy Denny ...
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, September 1971
JACK BRUCE GOT a bad deal. Following the break-up of Cream Bruce was the only member of the band to emerge with less than "superstar" ...
Flo & Eddie, Turtles, The, Frank Zappa: Howard Kaylan: Mother Was A Turtle
Interview by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, September 1971
LOS ANGELES – Working in the Turtles, working in the Mothers, it's all the same, Harold Kaylan says. But he has undergone a transition nevertheless. ...
Big Brother & The Holding Company: Big Brother : How Hard It Is
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, September 1971
IT HAS RIGHTEOUSLY ranked my ass to see the shabby treatment accorded Big Brother and the Holding Company over the course of the past four ...
Move, The: The Move: Looking On/Message From the Country
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, October 1971
WHEN LAST we glimpsed The Move in these pages they had recently completed what was without the slightest glimmer of doubt the finest English rock ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, October 1971
WELL, LET'S SEE...first there was Goldie and the Gingerbreads and the UFO's. Then Cake, who were merely New York's answer to the Ronettes, and the ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1971
WET WILLIE is young five-man group originally from Mobile, Alabama, that's been touring with the Allman Brothers Band lately, and winning a bunch of new ...
McGuinness Flint: Happy Birthday, Ruthy Baby
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, October 1971
ON THEIR SECOND album, McGuinness Flint have sunk into a mire of vapid eclecticism rather than develop a unified style. Meaning this: rather than be ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Grateful Dead (Warners)
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, November 1971
To avoid any possible disappointments for those who once had visions of saving the world through the music on Anthem of the Sun and any ...
J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band: The Morning After (Atlantic)
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, November 1971
Call ‘em the best new band of 1971, if you will, ‘cause that’s what they are, and here’s the goods to prove it: The Morning ...
Interview by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1971
LOS ANGELES – On stage, almost scary, are Black Oak Arkansas. ...
Strawbs, The: The Strawbs: From The Witchwood (A&M)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, November 1971
THE STRAWBS started out as a bluegrass duo, went through incarnations with Sandy Denny in her pre-Fairport days and a cellist from Sadler's Wells Opera ...
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, December 1971
BACK IN the Bar-Mitzvah days of the drug culture the British music scene was shaken by what came to be known as The Blues Boom. ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, December 1971
IT'S A WELL-KEPT SECRET, but this album tossed off with ten others in a recent release by the Shelby Singleton Corp., is one of the ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, December 1971
FOR THREE YEARS now, the critics have been laying into Three Dog Night for a variety of mostly hard-to-fathom reasons. But nobody, evidently, has been ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, December 1971
HAVE NO FEAR. Mitch Ryder is back. and for those whose last recollection of him centers around a grotesquely Las Vegas type of showboat soul ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, December 1971
IT MIGHT SEEM a bit incongruous to say that Led Zeppelin — a band never particularly known for its tendency to understate matters — has ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, December 1971
STEPPENWOLF IS LIKE the football club that always wins more than it loses, and perennially finishes second or third in its conference – something like ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, January 1972
DAVID BOWIE, the swinging/mod Garbo, male femme fatale, confidante to and darling of the avant-garde on both sides of the Atlantic, and shameless outrage, is ...
Grand Funk Railroad: E Pluribus Funk
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, January 1972
HAD GRAND FUNK listened more to the Standells and less to Cream, they might have turned out to be a really great group. The background ...
Stone The Crows: Brash Tales of Stone The Crows
Profile and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, January 1972
ALL ALONG the super ye-ye, tres decadent beaches of St. Tropez this summer, the absolute super coolest most single chic garment one could be seen ...
Tom T. Hall: In Search of a Song
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, January 1972
FACT IS, In Search of a Song doesn't quite match the quality of any of Hall's three previous Mercury albums. Meaning only that a couple ...
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, January 1972
STRAIGHT UP is a big disappointment coming after Badfinger's previous superb album, No Dice. I remember reading a quote by drummer Mike Gibbons saying that ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, January 1972
LIKE PAUL MCCARTNEY'S first two post-Beatles albums, Wild Life is largely high on sentiment but rather flaccid musically and impotent lyrically, trivial and unaffecting. ...
Kinks, The: The Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, February 1972
CAN YOU TELL the Kinks apart in the picture on the cover of their new album? No, of course. Except for Ray, they all look ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, February 1972
IN 1967, ARETHA Franklin moved from Columbia to Atlantic – in what soon proved to be one of the most important moments in the history ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, February 1972
DON'T BE MISLED: however extraordinary Gilbert O'Sullivan may look in his imbecile haircut, knickers, and other things Thirties Irish schoolboy, he sounds sufficiently like your ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, February 1972
I'M SURE I'LL never understand why it's become so fashionable to belittle Sonny & Cher, to blame everything from the dissolution of the Beatles to ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, February 1972
THE DEBUT ALBUM of Nils Lofgren's trio, Grin, brilliantly closed the quartet of albums that had begun with the Neil Young/Crazy Horse collaboration, Everybody Knows ...
Harry Nilsson: Nilsson: Nilsson Schmilsson (RCA)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, February 1972
IS NILSSON just an old-school crooner in modern dress? Is he a writer of children's songs who wants to broaden his appeal? And why does ...
Interview by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, February 1972
"I’M GOING to write a book about you," David Dalton told Janis Joplin when she was beginning her first tour with her Full Tilt Boogie ...
Ian Matthews: Tigers Will Survive
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, February 1972
ONCE UPON A time Ian Matthews was a member of Fairport Convention. Fairport Convention then decided they wanted to head in the direction of traditional ...
Tom Rapp: Beautiful Lies You Could Live In
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, February 1972
IT'S PAINFULLY OBVIOUS that Tom Rapp has some serious obstacles littering his path to musical/ poetic fulfillment. ...
Jackson Browne: Jackson Browne
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1972
IT'S NOT OFTEN that a single album is sufficient to place a new performer among the first rank of recording artists. Jackson Browne's long-awaited debut ...
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, March 1972
THE SURE AND STEADY pace at which Yes has progressed through their four albums seems to suit them just fine, and in Fragile the fruit ...
Loggins & Messina: Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina "Sittin' In"
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1972
THIS ALBUM answers the "whatever happened to Jim Messina?" question resoundingly. Although singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins is very much in the forefront throughout the album, Messina's ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1972
NOW, HERE'S A BAND with a mission. Little Feat is hewn from the same piece of oak as the Byrds, the Band, and the Flying ...
Manfred Mann: Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, March 1972
SO MANFRED MANN are back doing rock and roll, and Paul Jones (the original Manfred's lead singer and premier star) has come out with an ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, March 1972
At the end of this, five'll getcha ten, most of you are going to be exclaiming lividly, "O what vile geeks are rock critics! How ...
Yes: The Great Yes Technique Debate
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Rolling Stone, March 1972
London — "I tell you this much," said the studio doorman, "it’s been a real eye-opener working here. See, my generation don’t really appreciate how ...
Jan & Dean: Legendary Masters Series
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, March 1972
JAN AND DEAN were real clowns. I saw 'em on the TAMI Show back in 1965 and they were the only downer part in the ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, March 1972
Fats goes to college, all his big hits and more, decked out in a double album that has a 12-page insert of pictures, information, analysis, ...
Fairport Convention: Babbacombe Lee
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, April 1972
"JOHN LEE, the jury has found you guilty of willful murder, and the sentence of the court upon you is that you be taken from ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1972
A YEAR AGO, Englishman Dave Edmunds introduced himself to the rock audience through a scrupulously crafted recording of 'I Hear You Knockin'', once a Fats ...
Steve Miller Band: Recall The Beginning…
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1972
WAY BACK in the Sixties, three bands in particular were responsible for recharging my rock fanaticism – Procol Harum, the Byrds, and the Steve Miller ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, April 1972
WHAT HAVE WE HERE, O my sisters and brothers, but an album that serves as living proof that if you release 88 albums every month, ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Stones in LA: Main St. Exiles
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, April 1972
LOS ANGELES – One year, to the weekend, after the Rolling Stones played the final concert of their "farewell" tour of England, Mick Jagger is ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1972
Savoy Brown was once a resolutely typical British blues band. They could boogy an audience into submission in no time at all, and then keep ...
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, April 1972
IN THEIR GLORY DAYS of 1967-8, Cream singlehandedly spawned the whole genre of aloof heavy rock egomania, not to mention a whole school of insufferably ...
Brinsley Schwarz: Silver Pistol
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1972
SHADES OF Highway 61 Revisited, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, The Band, The Gilded Palace of Sin, Workingman's Dead were so integral a part of Brinsley ...
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, May 1972
HUMBLE PIE have persevered. Their first record company (Immediate) went out of business, vile-tempered record reviewers slandered their early albums from here to Zanzibar, and ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1972
WHEN THE members of Cat Mother had a house on East Tenth Street, the group got together with Jimi Hendrix, who was in a producing ...
Delaney & Bonnie: Delaney & Bonnie Together (Columbia)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1972
SOME PERFORMERS strain through prolonged public growing pains on their way to artistic maturity. Others simply appear with all their faculties fully intact. ...
Black Oak Arkansas: Keep The Faith
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, May 1972
LESTER BANGS tells the Black Oak Arkansas story in his own words: ...
Long John Baldry: John Baldry: Everything Stops For Tea
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, May 1972
WHEN IS someone going to come out and say that, despite all the hype and hoopla, John Baldry is a non-talent poseur that would never ...
Kinks, The: The Kinks: The Kink Kronikles
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, May 1972
IN THE VERY first paragraph of his liner notes to The Kink Kronikles, John Mendelssohn emphasizes the Kinks' position as an underdog band. Perhaps even ...
Crosby Stills and Nash, Stephen Stills: Stephen Stills,Graham Nash and David Crosby Albums
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1972
Stephen Stills: ManassasGraham Nash/David Crosby: Graham Nash/David Crosby ...
Wackers, The: Wackers: Hot Wacks
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, May 1972
IN THE EARLY part of 1966, a group called the Family Tree used to play at the old Fillmore a lot. They did Beatles songs ...
Mother Earth, Tracy Nelson: Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth: Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, June 1972
MUZAK ROCK is a difficult art. Because the line between soulfulness and boredom is often a thin one, few artists can pull it off. Van ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1972
Should you ever find yourself in the mood to be bored comatose, simply hop on the next jet to Hollywood, where this writer will gladly ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1972
FOG ON the Tyne has been just about the biggest album in Great Britain this year. The single off the album, 'Meet Me on the ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1972
FLEETWOOD MAC'S last two records, Kiln House and Future Games, have between them provided me with perhaps a hundred hours of enjoyment. And that's the ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, June 1972
WIPE YOUR MIND clean of all you have ever heard and read about Dr. John the Night Tripper. If you knew that once he was ...
Procol Harum: Live with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, June 1972
If you're put off by pretensions of grandiosity in music, if all you want to do is get funky and boogie around, you've probably never ...
Quicksilver Messenger Service: Quicksilver Messenger service: Comin' Thru
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, June 1972
DINO VALENTI had a pretty good niche in history carved out for a while: he wrote (or at least claimed to have written) 'Hey Joe', ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: The Killer Rocks On
Review by Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone, June 1972
THERE'S NOT TOO MANY of those greasy rockers still hanging around from their '50s heydaze good for much more than playing 50 tank towns a ...
Eagles, The: The Eagles: The Eagles
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1972
THE EAGLES' 'Take It Easy' is simply the best sounding rock single to come out so far this year. The first time through, you could ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: The Flying Burrito Brothers : Last of the Red Hot Burritos
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1972
The fourth – and presumably last – album of the Flying Burrito Bros. is, as it were, a departure. Not only is this album live, ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Mark, Don & Mel
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1972
VIRTUALLY EVERY practicing rock critic worth his sneer, of course, has sought to explicate Grand Funk's ascent to commercial ultra-gargantuanity over countless identically horrible Cream ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, June 1972
THE QUESTION OF whether a white man can sing the deltoid blues has long been answered by John Hammond in the only way possible: that ...
Mountain: The Road Goes On Forever
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, June 1972
MOUNTAIN, A BAND now departed for the great Fillmore in the Sky, was a standby whipping boy for practically any rock critic, regardless of taste. ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Track On! The Best of Mark Farner, Terry Knight & Donnie Brewer
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, June 1972
WOW, TALK ABOUT obscure rock history! Do you care that Mark Farner was once in a group called the Bossmen? Do you think the average ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main St. (Rolling Stones)
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, July 1972
THERE ARE SONGS that are better, there are songs that are worse, there are songs that'll become your favourites and others you'll probably lift the ...
Raspberries, The: The Raspberries: Fresh
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, July 1972
IT STARTS OFF with that unforgettable drum fill from 'Loco-Motion', now over a decade old, and then right into the opening chords from 'One Fine ...
Raspberries, The: The Raspberries: Raspberries
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, July 1972
RASPBERRIES opens with the finest burst of lightweight English rock I've heard all year, a raunchy 16-bar guitar intro, and followed by a verse that ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones Tour: Rock & Roll On The Road Again
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, July 1972
LOS ANGELES – Danny has no shirt, no shoes, no wallet, no keys. The shirt went when he took it off and stuck it in ...
Harry Chapin Takes 'Taxi' Wherever He Can
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, July 1972
"I NEVER REALLY drove a cab," said Harry Chapin, the filmmaker-turned folkstar, "But I do have a hack license in case of emergencies – like ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, July 1972
RESURRECTED FROM what seemed a permanent split, Free is making a second bid at capturing the American public's heart. ...
Everly Brothers, The: The Everly Brothers: Stories We Could Tell
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, July 1972
THE EVERLY BROTHERS brought harmony to rock and roll. They also brought sensitivity, the result of their having been weaned on old-time country music. They ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Jumpin' Gas Flash Bops In Heartland
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, July 1972
IN TRANSIT – Underway at last. In flight and moving. Denver, Minneapolis, and Chicago in one Sunday, the limo to the plane to the limo ...
David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, July 1972
UPON THE RELEASE of David Bowie's most thematically ambitious, musically coherent album to date, the record in which he unites the major strengths of his ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, July 1972
THE ZOMBIES/ARGENT relationship is very close, much like that of the Small Faces/Humble Pie or the Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin. In each case a group splits due ...
Strawbs, The: The Strawbs: Grave New World
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, July 1972
WHEN DAVE COUSINS got together with Tony Hooper to form the Strawbs, he was writing songs strongly influenced by British and American traditional music. ...
Van Dyke Parks: Discover America
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, August 1972
VAN DYKE PARKS' first album, Song Cycle, released in 1968, was a dizzyingly eclexoteric work that had the critics alternately gushing, "The emergence of a ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones Go South
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, August 1972
IN CHICAGO, in the house that Playboy built, an anonymous brownstone on a quiet leafy street that Hugh Hefner calls home, the scene is a ...
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, August 1972
SPRING IS MARILYN and Diane Rovell who, as the Honeys, recorded such 45s as 'Surfin' Down the Swanee River', and urged: "Push 'em back! Push ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, August 1972
ERIC ANDERSEN is not one who has been graced with the best of luck. ...
Peter Frampton: Wind of Change
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, August 1972
MR. FRAMPTON IS, as the pages of rock history tell us, a young lad who has gone through many a musical change, which could be ...
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, August 1972
OF THE SCADS of similarities between Wishbone Ash and Yes, the most trivial and accidental (and so most interesting) is the fact that both groups ...
Procol Harum and The Amateur Ork
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, August 1972
LOS ANGELES – "Well, we're only in our first year here at the magicians' college," Dave Ball, Procol Harum guitarist, advised the gentleman who has ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, August 1972
PEOPLE ALWAYS ask why Ike Turner is content to stand in the background, playing those fine guitar riffs to an audience totally oblivious to him ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1972
REVIEWS OF GRATEFUL Dead records are invariably written by those who've been touched by that mysterious and to me incomprehensible power-to-enchant that exists somewhere in ...
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, September 1972
WITH Close to the Edge, their fifth album, Yes have formed a coherent musical language from the elements that have been kicked around by progressive ...
Bonzo Dog Band: Let's Make Up and Be Friendly
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, September 1972
Pity.For a brief span of time that segment of the population who dwell happily in out-of-the-way corners of human consciousness had their ideal musical spokesmen ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1972
THAT'S FOGHAT, not Hogfat. And not Savoy Brown either, although with Lonesome Dave Peverett and Roger Earl in the lineup, one might see Hog – ...
Professor Longhair: New Orleans Piano (Atlantic)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, September 1972
ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT. Gather round, all you fans of the Shuffling Hungarians, the Four Hairs, the Blues Scholars, and the Blues Jumpers, 'cause 'Fess ...
Three Dog Night: Seven Separate Fools
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, September 1972
ACCORDING TO AN ever-increasing pile of Levinson-Ross press releases at my right elbow, this has been quite a summer for Three Dog Night. Their heralded ...
Johnny Nash: I Can See Clearly Now
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, October 1972
AT LAST, REGGAE as all-around entertainment, whose rhythms will still generate movement in a crowded basement discotheque but whose arrangements and moods shift often enough ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, October 1972
STORIES IS a New York-based quartet which plays music with a strong kinship to British rock, yet lacks the ‘rank imitator’ brand of many a ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, October 1972
DESPITE WHAT you may have heard of "skinhead rock" or "Seventies teddies", Slade is exactly the opposite of a gimmick band. You’ll not find synthesizers, ...
Review by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, October 1972
THE COUNTRYSIDE COTTAGE in which (it says here) Genesis regrouped their creative energies must have had a lot of strange stuff coming out of the ...
Ed Sanders, Fugs, The: Ed Sanders: Beer Cans on the Moon
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, October 1972
It could be that I’ve been spending too much time lost within the darkened pages of The Family lately, but more than anything else, this ...
John Denver: Rocky Mountain High
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1972
THERE HE IS on the screen of your color TV: blond, bespectacled, and peach-faced – the sight of him makes you want to adjust the ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, November 1972
BOZ SCAGGS has one of the sweetest, most engaging voices around, and his recent albums have been on the sweet and friendly side, too. Records ...
Uriah Heep: Demons and Wizards
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, November 1972
IT'S A STRANGE TIME. Formerly exciting rock groups have gone musically soft, if not well on the road to outright senility, making the moniker of ...
Patto: Roll 'em Smoke 'em, Put Another Line Out
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, November 1972
ALTHOUGH Patto has exhibited a penchant for eccentricity in their previous efforts, not even from a bunch of loonies such as they could one expect ...
Bobby Charles: Bobby Charles (Bearsville)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, November 1972
BOBBY MADE THIS RECORD lying flat on his back, with his eyes closed and his dog licking his feet. He was tired, it had been ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, November 1972
TIM HARDIN GOT so close to the top of the heap that it's hard to imagine how he could've blown it. ...
Roy Harper: Stormcock in Heat, That's Roy Harper
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, December 1972
ROY HARPER WAS holidaying in Norway when word of the movie reached his management. It was his first holiday in three years, and all they ...
Mott The Hoople: Mott the Hoople: All the Young Dudes
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, December 1972
Taking what does not belong to you is a crucial part of the process of creating rock & roll: Exploiting proven riffs, phrases and hooks, ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, December 1972
I'VE JUST come home from seeing Poco play. They were terrific, significantly better than the last few times I heard them in concert. ...
John Entwistle: John Entwhistle: Whistle Rymes
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, December 1972
"Thank you Mother Nature/ For the way you got things planned/ Don't ever change a thing/ I'm happy as I am." ...
Captain Beefheart Sings For Women
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, January 1973
NORTH HOLLYWOOD – Striding into the small but copiously equipped Warner Brothers recording studio like a bull dressed for a Chinatown parade, Captain Beefheart extends ...
Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, January 1973
A REAL COCKTEASER, this album. That great cover: Lou and those burned-out eyes staring out in grim black and white beneath a haze of gold ...
Hollies, The: The Hollies: No Room For Solo Stars
Profile and Interview by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, January 1973
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The Hollies, one of the original British invaders of the 1960s, are at yet another crossroads. Allan Clarke – one of ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1973
Plainsong: In Search of Amelia Earhart (Elektra)Richard Thompson: Henry, the Human Fly (Warner Bros.)Steeleye Span: Below the Salt (Chrysalis)Incredible String Band: Earthspan (Reprise)Pentangle: Solomon's Seal ...
Slade: Steamroller Rock Knocks 'Em Flat
Profile and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, February 1973
LONDON – Noddy gets the fans shouting, clapping, stomping, throwing their bras and knickers up on stage. Dave looks inhuman, silver from head to toe, ...
Pretty Things, The: Pretty Things: Decade Of Dues Now Pays Off
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, February 1973
THE ENGLISH BANDS that have survived since the first days of the British Invasion can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Stones, ...
Wackers, The: The Wackers: Shredder
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, February 1973
"Dylan is old/The Stones are cold/The Beatles are gone/ And it's making me yawn..." ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, February 1973
In the late Sixties, a Memphis teenager named Alex Chilton won moderate fame and fortune as the lead singer for a sometimes inspired, sometimes insipid ...
Stone The Crows: Ontinuous Performance
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, February 1973
STONE THE CROWS are hardly a well-known band here. Whether this is due to the hard heart, but quite undeservedly so, of radio programmers or ...
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, February 1973
The question of motion has developed into a trap of sorts since our entertainers became artists. Artists must continually grow and evolve, but invariably draw ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1973
GRAM PARSONS is an artist with a vision as unique and personal as those of Jagger-Richard, Ray Davies, or any of the other celebrated figures. ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1973
FREE IS AN ENGLISH quartet that toured with Blind Faith, had a big hit single, was hailed by the British press as the new Rolling ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, March 1973
THEY DON'T SAY so on the jacket, but this is The Doug Sahm Showcase, featuring the former leader of the Sir Douglas Quintet paying homage ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, March 1973
ON THEIR HOME continent, Slade are virtually indestructible: singles launched like tank mortars into the Euro-Top Ten at selected intervals, live appearances turned to massive ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1973
IN HIS WRITING, Grin leader Nils Lofgren shows a special affection for cowboy songs (not the actual music of the old West, but original tunes ...
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: Dr. Hook: Sloppy Seconds
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, March 1973
IF YOU LOOK at the pictures and read the stories, you’ll have guessed that Dr. Hook is a bunch of lascivious layabouts dedicated to carrying ...
Joe South: A New, Un-Slick Joe South: A Look Inside
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, March 1973
AT ONE OF Joe South’s infrequent live shows, in some small place in Georgia a year or so back, he wasn’t getting the response he ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, March 1973
DION WAS the original punk. Stand him up next to his contemporary male teen idols – Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Bobby Vee, Brian Hyland, Bobby Rydell, ...
Ronettes, The: The Ronettes Return to the Stage: Teenage Girls Forever
Profile and Interview by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, March 1973
FABIEN IS nervous. Not quite shaking in his boots, but enough so that his timing is off, lost in phrases that go nowhere despite the ...
Byrds, The: The Byrds: The Best of the Byrds (Greatest Hits, Volume II)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1973
IF YOU WERE asked to put together an anthology album of one of the longest-lived, most productive rock groups ever, and you had the total ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1973
LIKE THEIR much more famous cousins, the Rolling Stones and Van Morrison, Little Feat are eclectic in a vertical rather than a horizontal way. They ...
Jimmy Cliff et al: The Harder They Come
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, April 1973
THE REGGAE GROUNDSWELL that cups Jamaica's potential as a pop force has been heralded for many moons now, yet despite several breech-opening successes from a ...
Toni and Terry, Tammy Wynette: Tammy Wynette/Toni & Terry albums
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, April 1973
Toni and Terry: Cross CountryTammy Wynette: My Man ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead on Long Island
Live Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, April 1973
IT HAD TO HAPPEN: even the Dead have gone glitter. Resplendently suave in Nudie-type sequined suits, the group appeared on the stage of this comfortably-sized ...
Hollies, The: The Hollies: Romany
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, April 1973
OF THE FEW groups who have survived since 1963, the Hollies sound fresher and more up-to-date than anyone, with the possible exception of the Beach ...
Beck, Bogert and Appice: The Felt Forum, NY
Live Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, May 1973
JEFF BECK HAS had his ups and downs over the past several years, not the least of which was a disastrous appearance last summer on ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, May 1973
HUMBLE PIE have always been a changing band, mutating from a Great Hardrocker (As Safe As Yesterday Is) to soft rock (Town & Country), and ...
Iggy Pop, Stooges, The: Iggy Pop: Raw Power
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, May 1973
THE IG. Nobody does it better, nobody does it worse, nobody does it, period. Others tiptoe around the edges, make little running starts and half-hearted ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1973
YOU CAN'T DENY Procol Harum their important place in rock's scheme of things. They were the first to bring together the energy and mood of ...
Doobie Brothers: The Doobie Brothers: The Captain And Me
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1973
THE DOOBIE BROTHERS are a mainstream rock band with a few crucial limitations and a knack of making good records despite their flaws. Their big ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, May 1973
ANDY BOWN is a very clever fellow capable of producing much musical bliss, but seems to have fallen victim to many of the ills that ...
Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, May 1973
ONE OF BRITAIN'S most successful and long lived avant-garde rock bands, Pink Floyd emerged relatively unsullied from the mire of mid-'60s British psychedelic music as ...
Stealers Wheel: Stealers Wheel
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1973
YOU'VE PROBABLY discovered by now that ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’, the single you thought was the best Dylan record since 1966, is actually ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, May 1973
DEEP PURPLE have had a rough time gaining and retaining the status of being Kings of the Heavy Metal Set, and with the release of ...
Link Wray: Be What You Want To
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, May 1973
LINK WRAY, father of chicken-shack recording, is back with his second album since emerging from the dim glint of rock history. Be What You Want ...
Focus: How to Make It Without Playing Top 40
Interview by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, May 1973
LOS ANGELES – "'Hocus Pocus' was done as a parody of rock," said Thijs van Leer, founder of Focus, commenting on his group's hit record. ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, June 1973
THE MORE I listen, the less I understand. A year ago Bloodstone was just one of any number of black groups who could excite a ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, June 1973
YES SUFFERS from having too many diverse talents for one group to handle. The differing musical styles of the five musicians cannot easily be integrated ...
Nicky Hopkins: The Tin Man Was a Dreamer
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1973
NICKY HOPKINS has gone into his first solo project in as careful and organized a manner as he goes into the studio to work on ...
Flo & Eddie: Flo and Eddie: Flo and Eddie
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, June 1973
Flo & Eddie's second album is a much more complex undertaking than their first and for the most part it succeeds admirably. Where Kaylan and ...
J. Geils Band: J Geils Band: Bloodshot
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1973
During the last two years, Boston's J. Geils Band has built itself a national reputation as a tight, energetic, popular and extremely good-humored touring band. ...
Spooky Tooth: You Broke My Heart So I Busted Your Jaw
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, June 1973
SPOOKY TOOTH HAS suffered from every misfortune that can cross the path of a rock & roll band — among them, changing record labels, arrested ...
Manassas: Stephen Stills and Manassas: Down The Road
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, June 1973
THE PACKAGING of a person's pain is a sticky subject for criticism. It feels uncouth to suggest the suffering should be more graceful. ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, June 1973
IT'S BEEN three-and-a-half years since Terry Reid released his last album. At the time he looked like an emerging talent, with extraordinary voice, wild and ...
Paul McCartney: Red Rose Speedway
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, July 1973
WHEN PAUL MCCARTNEY's television special was aired several weeks ago, one of the ostensible aims was to provide a semi-biographical glimpse of the inner man, ...
Ellie Greenwich: Let It Be Written Let It Be Sung
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, July 1973
A NEW ELLIE GREENWICH album won't provoke Pavlovian ecstasy among the masses, but the news will intrigue a certain hard corps of faithful girl-group fanatics. ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, July 1973
FROM THE VANTAGE point of 1968, that new tough-guy band called Steppenwolf had great prospects. ...
Heads Hands and Feet: Old Soldiers Never Die
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, July 1973
SOME OF ENGLAND'S finest ex-sessionmen, Heads Hands & Feet, have been soaking up America's finest as their influences, backing up Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackson Browne, ...
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, July 1973
JIMI HENDRIX, Jeff Beck, the Byrds, Blue Ash...it seems that everyone in the world has taken a Bob Dylan song to great heights at one ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, July 1973
SINCE 1968 and the ascension of Cream and Hendrix to godhead status, rock has been ruled by tedious variations on their initial improvisatory explorations. ...
Speedy Keen: Previous Convictions
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1973
Knockabout drummer John "Speedy" Keen was rescued from oblivion by a perceptive Peter Townshend, who saw in Mr. Keen an offbeat but potentially compelling talent. ...
Albert Hammond: The Free Electric Band
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, August 1973
ALBERT HAMMOND makes pure pop music and although ‘It Never Rains in California’ was merely annoying, ‘The Free Electric Band’ was a giant step forward. ...
Bonnie Bramlett: Sweet Bonnie Bramlett
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1973
Right after switching labels, from Atlantic (which considered the increasingly temperamental pair more trouble than they were worth) to Columbia, the Bramletts separated. The expected ...
Leon Russell: Ontario Motor Speedway
Live Review by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, August 1973
"SURE, WE'D LIKE this to be another Watkins Glen," laughed publicist Gary Stromberg, as the blistering sun crept slowly into the sky over the San ...
Mott The Hoople: Mott: No Success like Failure
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1973
WHAT AN ARRAY of weapons this band has: awesome firepower, an ever-increasing depth of expression, timely themes and an artistic way of mixing qualities on ...
Allman Brothers Band: The Allman Brothers Band: Brothers And Sisters
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1973
The Allman Brothers Band's magic has always existed mainly on the concert stage, where it can engage its audience casually and cumulatively. ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, September 1973
THE GREENING OF MOTOWN continues apace, with performers who once flourished under the company's autocratic guidelines (the Four Tops, Gladys Knight) seeking success elsewhere while ...
Allman Brothers Band: The Allman Brothers Band: Brothers and Sisters
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1973
THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND's magic has always existed mainly on the concert stage, where it can engage its audience casually and cumulatively. The band's image, ...
Keef Hartley: Lancashire Hustler
Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, September 1973
KEEF HARTLEY'S a strange one, a functional drummer who, by way of his Mayall/Artwoods background, has managed to hang in there. ...
Jimmy Cliff: Unlimited and Wonderful World, Beautiful People
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, September 1973
PUT THE NEEDLE on Jimmy Cliff's Unlimited, and the grooves writhe like a poised snake, the record grows hot with anger, and the air fills ...
Raspberries, The: The Raspberries: Side 3
Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Rolling Stone, October 1973
SINCE THEIR last time out, the Raspberries must have heard Blue Ash, or some vaguely threatening noises from the other side of Ohio, because a ...
Elton John at the Hollywood Bowl - July 1973
Live Review by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, October 1973
THE HOUSE LIGHTS dimmed and a lonely spot picked out a single figure onstage. ...
Procol Harum at the Hollywood Bowl, September 1973
Live Review by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, October 1973
LOUSY sound systems and poor concerts are not a rarity these days, even for big name attractions like Neil Young or America, but when the ...
Gilbert O'Sullivan: Avery Fisher Hall, NYC
Live Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, October 1973
"TO GILBERT," READ the note attached to a plastic baby elephant presented by a squealing child fan in the front rows: "I think you're cute." ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1973
FROM THE ALBUM title and Fisher's sensitive-looking cover portrait, you might expect the first solo LP of the former Procol Harum organist to be unbearably ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1973
In a form in which individual instrumental feats are often self-indulgent and superfluous, Eric Clapton's music remains an anomaly. His greatest guitar playing has been ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Goat's Head Soup
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, November 1973
HISTORY HAS PROVEN it unwise to jump to conclusions about Rolling Stones albums. At first Sticky Fingers seemed merely a statement of doper hipness on ...
America: What This Band Needs Is a Hat Trick
Profile and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, November 1973
LOS ANGELES – To the crowd at the Hollywood Bowl, America could do – and did – no wrong. But to America, the concert was ...
Isis: Eight-Piece, All-Woman Band in Musical No-Man's Land
Report and Interview by Glenn O'Brien, Rolling Stone, November 1973
NEW YORK – An all-woman rock band, one that really cooks, seems to be both a contradiction in terms and a lousy pun. They've come ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, November 1973
SOME of the best recordings by the new generation of song-based groups have dealt overtly with Beatles music, the idea being that if you can't ...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, November 1973
Super Dude? It sounds like this year's version of Muddy Waters' 'Hoochie Coochie Man' or Pickett's 'Midnight Mover' but where those men defined love as ...
J. Geils Band: Long Beach Arena, Long Beach CA
Live Review by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, November 1973
"HOPE YOU GUYS have tickets for tonight's show," advised the cop as we hurried for the Arena entrance. We nodded our assent, smiled and kept ...
Gerry Rafferty: Can I Have My Money Back?
Review by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, November 1973
Gerry Rafferty paid his dues playing bass in countless rock bands before joining up with fellow Scot Billy Connolly in a mildly successful affair called ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, November 1973
A NEW STRAIN of music has been developing of late, unheralded except by those who delight in new studio techniques applied in loving parody to ...
Rick Derringer: All-American Boy
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, December 1973
THE OLD LITANY of the man with the cigar ("C'mere kid I'm gone make you a star") has been recited so often that it might ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, December 1973
WITH EVERYONE from the Band to Don McLean doing oldies albums, the Who revisiting the Mod era, and David Bowie's guitarist Mick Ronson's obvious brilliance ...
Who, The: The Who: Quadrophenia
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, December 1973
Quadrophenia is the Who at their most symmetrical, their most cinematic, ultimately their most maddening. Captained by Pete Townshend, they have put together a beautifully ...
Steve Miller: The Steve Miller Band: The Joker (Capitol)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, December 1973
STEVE MILLER is responsible for three of the best and one of the worst albums I own. ...
Interview by Glenn O'Brien, Rolling Stone, December 1973
NEW YORK – Elizabeth Derringer is married to Rick Derringer. Rick Derringer is a rock star. He has been since he was the 15-year-old guitarist ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1974
THIS ALBUM may do for Neil Young's declining image what Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid did for Dylan's. But like Dylan's much-maligned movie soundtrack ...
Band, The: The Band: Moondog Matinee
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, January 1974
UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES this would be a fairly disappointing album for the Band, coming as it does on the year-old heels of a live set ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, January 1974
The Alice Cooper phenomenon, which began with the chart entry of "I'm Eighteen," rose to diabolical heights with Killer and School's Out and extravaganzaed in ...
Dave Mason: It's Like You Never Left
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1974
THAT FIRST AUTHENTIC follow-up to Alone Together finally exists. But while his skills as a musician are as noticeable as before, Dave Mason seems to ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1974
THE ALBUM TITLE is the band's reference to themselves as unwitting followers of some enticing but unrealizable dream, That dream may have been Badfinger's expectations ...
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, January 1974
LOS ANGELES – "I never felt my music was ever really wanted by the Mahavishnu Orchestra," complained drummer Billy Cobham. "I tried having them use ...
Electric Light Orchestra: On the Third Day
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, January 1974
IF YOU LIKED ELO II for its weavings of familiar classical motifs through lengthy songs, On the Third Day will both please and disappoint you. ...
Stealers Wheel: Ferguslie Park
Review by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, January 1974
WITH FERGUSLIE PARK, Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan are back as Stealers Wheel. Considering that the duo is unencumbered by the band's former members (with ...
Kinks, The: The Kinks: Preservation Act 1
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, February 1974
THE KINKS traditionally stand as preservers of the eternal verities of their Village Green, fighting off the depredations of predatory capitalists in their dapper demolition ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, February 1974
NILS LOFGREN, a superb songwriter, possesses an appealing vocal style and is a fine guitarist. On the strength first three albums it’s unbelievable that he ...
Canned Heat: One More River To Cross
Review by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, February 1974
ONE WOULD EXPECT that with its new label, Atlantic, and rejuvenated line-up (which includes Bob Hite, vocals; Henry Vestine, guitar; Fito de la Pareda, drums; ...
Ozark Mountain Daredevils: The Cosmic Corncobs Go North
Profile and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, February 1974
LOS ANGELES – Bolivar, Missouri, has 5000 citizens and more than a hundred churches, Bible schools and theological colleges full of well-scrubbed Christian boys and ...
Stories: Ian Lloyd & Stories: Traveling Underground
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, February 1974
STORIES COPED with the loss of founder Michael Brown (a fine keyboard player and songwriter who also led the Left Banke) by recording 'Brother Louie', ...
Dave Mason: No More Traffic Jams
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, March 1974
LOS ANGELES – The reporter from the Free Press had one more question for Dave Mason after the interview at his road manager's house in ...
Graham Nash: Tales Behind Wild Tales
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Rolling Stone, March 1974
NEW YORK – In the living room of a moss-green suite at the Plaza Hotel, Graham Nash sits at the piano with an harmonica braced ...
Genesis: Short on Hair, Long on Gimmicks
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, March 1974
LOS ANGELES – Peter Gabriel's five o'clock shadow tints not only cheeks and chin but the shaved patch of flesh which cuts up from the ...
Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen: Live from Deep in the Heart of Texas
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, March 1974
COMMANDER Cody’s fourth and most successful album proves the group can incite any audience to dance, drink and have fun. ...
Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris: Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris: Grievous Angel
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1974
MICK JAGGER wrote 'Wild Horses' for and about the late Gram Parsons and its chorus describes the paradox that fueled Parsons’ life and vision. '...Wild ...
John Denver: John Denver's Greatest Hits
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1974
JOHN DENVER has a strong and tuneful tenor, a smilingly ingenuous persona both vocally and visually and a sense of purpose to his writing and ...
Alvin Lee: On The Road To Freedom
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1974
TWO OFTEN UNPERSUASIVE musicians have combined to make an album better than any of their past work. Alvin Lee and Mylon LeFevre may have always ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, April 1974
THE BIGGEST FACTOR preventing the spread of glitter rock in America is the persistent popularity of blues, particularly in the form of its degenerate offspring, ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, April 1974
DEEP PURPLE'S first album since last year's departure of vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist/composer Roger Glover is a passable but disappointing effort. ...
Terry Melcher: Surf's Up! Terry Melcher's Nightmare Is Over
Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, May 1974
LOS ANGELES – Terry Melcher, a consistent professional, has participated in scores of hits with artists as diverse as Frankie Laine and the Byrds. Seven ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, May 1974
ON THEIR SECOND A&M album, this Scottish group with folk roots continue on their heavy electric course, guided by producer Roger Glover (of Deep Purple ...
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, May 1974
LOS ANGELES – The rain that was falling relentlessly on the tropical fantasyland that surrounds the Beverly Hills Hotel was giving Leo Sayer "a nasty ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1974
STEELY DAN is the most improbable hit-singles band to emerge in ages. On its three albums, the group has developed an impressionistic approach to rock ...
Peter Frampton: Something's Happening
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, May 1974
PETER FRAMPTON has become a highly stylized performer. The songs on his new album sound much the same as the material on two earlier solo ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1974
THIS ALBUM is definitely not for everyone. Terry Melcher, once the producer of the Byrds and Paul Revere and the Raiders, has released an eccentric ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, June 1974
WHILE AMERICAN AUDIENCES continue to boogie as though it were still 1968, London has been overrun by pop maniacs, raising the ghost of Carnaby Street ...
Carly Simon, James Taylor: James Taylor: Milwaukee Auditorium, Milwaukee
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, June 1974
Magic in Milwaukee ...
Guess Who, The: The Guess Who: Road Food
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, June 1974
DISMISSED by snobbish critics as a clockwork singles machine, the Guess Who have continued selling albums and filling concert halls even after the hits stopped ...
Carpenters, The: The Carpenters: Up From Downey
Profile and Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, July 1974
KAREN CARPENTER, the solo singing half of a brother and sister musical duo that has sold over 25 million records world-wide, has classic "good looks" ...
Blue Swede: Grunting a Feeling
Report and Interview by Harold Bronson, Rolling Stone, July 1974
LOS ANGELES – Oohka Chucka! Oohka Oohka Oohka Chucka! – a jungle war cry gives way suddenly to a hardy, supper-club crooner romanticizing an old ...
Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids: Flash Cadillac: There's No Face like Chrome
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, July 1974
FLASH CADILLAC & the Continental Kids have been identified with a stale spate of revivalist Fifties bands – even though their live performances prove they ...
Eric Clapton: The Rolling Stone Interview: Eric Clapton
Interview by Steve Turner, Rolling Stone, July 1974
LONDON — Robert Stigwood, his manager, put it about as simply and as playfully as it could be put, after a celebration party in April: ...
Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, July 1974
A FEW YEARS AGO, some English pubs began presenting live bands as a free service to their patrons. Since there have never been enough outlets ...
War: A Street Rod on the Boulevard of Soul
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, July 1974
"SOMETIMES I TELL myself: I'm B.B. Dickerson and I'm in War so I'm going to pull up in front of the Continental Hyatt House in ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, August 1974
LOS ANGELES – If Golden Earring, the perseverant Dutch quartet, turns out to be as good as the Ray Milland/Marlene Dietrich WWII film whose title ...
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, August 1974
THE AUDIENCE is expectant, the music strident, the voice rich and full-throated and sensuous. It's San Diego, the first stop on Maria Muldaur's 30-day road ...
Tom Scott, Joni Mitchell: Tom Scott: Joni's Spark
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, August 1974
LOS ANGELES – Mention the name Tom Scott in jazz circles and recognition is immediate: The 25-year-old horn-playing prodigy from Southern California is well known ...
Brownsville Station: School Punks
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, August 1974
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT album. It's a good album, too, but even if it were terrible, it would still be important. ...
Ray Manzarek Opens a New Door: Jazz
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, August 1974
CHICAGO – "See that guy," Jim Morrison once remarked, pointing to Ray Manzarek: "He is the Doors." Although Morrison received all the attention, it was ...
Bad Company: Paul Rodgers's Bad Company
Interview by Steven Rosen, Rolling Stone, August 1974
LOS ANGELES – Cub Scout shirt unbuttoned, face unshaven, hair uncombed, Paul Rodgers sits tensely in a corner armchair. ...
John Stewart: The Phoenix Concerts (RCA)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1974
THE MERE SOUND of John Stewart’s tremulous voice is enough to conjure up the ghost of an antique, heroic America. Stewart’s songs — 16 of ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, August 1974
Abba's emergence is one of the most cheering musical events in recent months. Just when the Top 40 was plumbing hitherto-unfathomable, moribund depths, along came ...
Band, The, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan/The Band: Before The Flood (Asylum)
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, August 1974
THROUGHOUT BOB DYLAN'S performances on this in-concert album there is evident an effort to match the material – nearly all from much earlier in his ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1974
ON ITS FIRST album, Bad Company – led by former Free singer Paul Rodgers and original Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs – resembles Free ...
John Lennon: Two Questions about Lennon
Report by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, August 1974
NEW YORK – John was wearing shades, his chestnut hair glistening in the fancy studio lights, big ones over his cars, sitting in a booth ...
Steeleye Span: Ye Olde Rocke & Rolle
Profile by Steve Turner, Rolling Stone, September 1974
CONSIDER STEELEYE SPAN – grounded firmly in traditional English folk music and trying to crack a largely American audience that has no background in, or ...
Fairport Convention, Strawbs, The: The Strawbs: Hero and Heroine; Fairport Convention: Nine
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, September 1974
The Strawbs and Fairport Convention are conveniently linked by their past importance in modernizing the British folk scene (and their use, at different times, of ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1974
MORE THAN any other group of the Seventies, America — in both its British and U.S. periods—has epitomized the stiff, soulless side of California pop. ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1974
Man is a Welsh-based band with its heart in San Francisco–specifically, in the elongated and textured music of Quicksilver and the early Dead. Earlier versions ...
Jesse Winchester: Learn To Love It
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1974
ON JESSE WINCHESTER'S first two albums, Jesse Winchester and Third Down, 110 To Go, the fine balance struck between conviction and melodiousness, simplicity and eloquence ...
Average White Band: Average White Band (MCA)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1974
If it wasn’t apparent from its first album (on MCA), it is from the second: Scotland’s Average White Band is one of the best self-contained ...
David Bowie: Time For Another Ch-ch-change
Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, October 1974
LOS ANGELES – David Bowie hadn't slept for 36 hours. He'd just gone through his rigorous show at the Universal Amphitheater for the fourth night ...
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, October 1974
LOS ANGELES – Along with many of the stars and hopefuls at Chicago's 1971 Black Expo, Minnie Riperton waited patiently backstage to approach the blind ...
Traffic Lightens Up for American Tour
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, October 1974
NEW YORK – Looking only slightly recovered from a two-day-old case of jet lag, Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi strutted into the Providence Civic Center dressing ...
Raspberries, The: The Raspberries: Starting Over
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, October 1974
THE RASPBERRIES have at last realized their potential. They've clearly become the premier synthesizers of Sixties pop influences, extant. Even more importantly, the end results ...
Ronnie Wood: I've Got My Own Album To Do
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, November 1974
RON WOOD, whose role in the Faces has paralleled Keith Richard's function in the Rolling Stones, has put together what is less a solo album ...
Kiki Dee: Rocketing Along With Elton
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, November 1974
CHICAGO – The crowds gathering in 32 American cities over 44 dates between September 25th and December 3rd are there to see Elton John – ...
Nektar: Germany's Nektar: They See the Light
Profile and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, November 1974
ST. LOUIS – The light show, thinks Mick Brockett, is something that was prematurely abandoned by the rock world, and though he's reluctant to talk ...
Rolling Stones, The: Making the Stones’ New Album
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Rolling Stone, December 1974
Twenty-one albums on, Keith Richard is back in Richmond, the Thameside London suburb where the Rolling Stones first played the local clubs 12 years ago. ...
Roger McGuinn: The Post-Flight Is Finally Solo
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, December 1974
LOS ANGELES – A solitary figure in the Troubadour spotlight, Roger McGuinn swayed gently as he sang: "Hey Mr. D. do you want me to ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, December 1974
RAGS TO RUFUS, the second LP from the pop group turned soul band, is most notable for lead singer Chaka Khan’s inspired performances. ...
Electric Light Orchestra: Roll Over Chuck Berry and Tell Beethoven the News
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, December 1974
SAN FRANCISCO – Jeff Lynne nods toward the sliding glass door, through which can be seen an in-progress high-rise which looms uncomfortably close to his ...
Retrospective and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 1975
"DRINK SOME BEER and be of good cheer!" ...
Gil Scott-Heron: Survival Kits on Wax
Profile and Interview by Sheila Weller, Rolling Stone, January 1975
NEW YORK – At the age of 25, he has to his credit two published novels, one published collection of poetry and four albums of ...
Genesis: To Them, It's Only Rock & Role
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, January 1975
LONDON – Having recently sold England by the pound, Genesis and Atlantic Records now turn their attention to the United States, where the esteemed buck ...
Tom Rush's Circle: Joni, James & Cows
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, January 1975
MANFRED, MASSACHUSETTS – James Taylor's nasal drawl crackled insistently across the telephone line from his Martha's Vineyard retreat. "I first heard Tom Rush about ten ...
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, January 1975
THAT BRUCE JOHNSTON should have chosen an old Beach Boys hit for the group California Music's first release on his (and Terry Melcher's) Equinox label, ...
Jefferson Starship: Dragon Fly
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1975
FOR SEVERAL YEARS, the nucleus of the Airplane/Starship has been struggling to hold together a concept that didn't seem workable in the first place. The ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1975
UP TO NOW, the big singles, 'Come and Get It', 'No Matter What', 'Day After Day', and especially 'Baby Blue' have provided the obvious high ...
Electric Light Orchestra: The Electric Light Orchestra: Eldorado
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, January 1975
THE ELECTRIC LIGHT Orchestra has sometimes swamped itself in grandiose conceptions, and Eldorado (A Symphony) sounds like a prime opportunity to do it again. But ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, January 1975
TWO YEARS AGO, while working for another magazine, I rejected a rambling interview between black poet Nikki Giovanni and singer Gladys Knight. The interview wasn't ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, January 1975
ARTHUR LEE and Love have an albatross around their necks: their nearly perfect 1968 album, Forever Changes, a never equaled distillation of smooth pop and ...
Profile and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, January 1975
LOS ANGELES – It was several months ago in London that the disc jockey on Capitol Radio, BBC's commercial rival, was revealing the results of ...
Andy Fairweather Lowe: Andy Fairweather Low: Spider Jiving
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, January 1975
ANDY FAIRWEATHER LOW has one of the quirkiest and most distinctive voices in recent pop memory, and from the first bar of this topnotch debut ...
Alvin Lee's Long Road To Freedom
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, February 1975
LONDON – Alvin Lee is on the road again, and this time he's not going home. ...
Arthur Lee: Love, Arthur Lee Style: More Changes
Interview by Steven Rosen, Rolling Stone, February 1975
LOS ANGELES – Not since the 1972 release of Vindicator has Arthur Lee been widely heard on record, that first polo project seemingly marking the ...
Loggins & Messina: There's Gold In The Middle Of The Road
Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, February 1975
THE RUSTIC HOUSE on Round Valley Drive in the hills of the San Fernando Valley is in one of those pockets of geography that provides ...
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, February 1975
LOS ANGELES – "I've never asked anyone to help me or give me a break," declared Billy Preston adamantly. "Whatever I don't have now I ...
Charlie Rich: The Depression, Country Music and Me
Essay by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, February 1975
This sorrowful piece was sent to us, by third-class mail, by Al Aronowitz, pop columnist for the New York Post until the paper dropped him ...
Faces, The: Raunchy Faces Back on Tour
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, February 1975
LONDON – "We're playing as one now like our life depended on it," Rod Stewart announced, looking down eagerly at his game pie in a ...
Review by Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, February 1975
JACK BRUCE WAS one of the most outstanding and at the same time least recognized talents to appear on the transatlantic rock scene in the ...
Dan Fogelberg: Home Free At Last
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, March 1975
LOS ANGELES - For Dan Fogelberg, 1974 ended on a note of modest triumph. Though 6,500 fans jammed the Shrine Auditorium to help the Eagles ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1975
AFTER RECORDING Abandoned Luncheonette, an often ingenious merger of white acoustic pop and Philly soul, Philadelphians Hall & Oates disavowed that style, switched producers (from ...
B.T. Express: BT Express: Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1975
DO IT ('Til You're Satisfied) resembles George McCrae's Rock Your Baby album in that it finds a persistent groove and stays with it unflaggingly from ...
Grand Funk Railroad: All The Girls In The World Beware
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, March 1975
IT'S A MEASURE OF Grand Funk's less than overwhelming critical acceptance that the chief topic of interest for most reviewers has been the band's current ...
Emmylou Harris: EmmyLou Harris: Pieces of The Sky
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1975
WHEN THE BYRDS recorded Sweetheart of the Rodeo in 1968, the romance between country music and pop was still secret. Seven years later, both country ...
Pretty Things, The: New Pretty Things Get a Led Zep Uplift
Interview by Steve Turner, Rolling Stone, April 1975
LONDON – The Pretty Things were there at the beginning. Phil May, the band’s lead singer and only original member, followed Keith Richard out of ...
Little Feat: Giant Steps Across The Sea
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, April 1975
JACKSON BROWNE said that their founder was "the Orson Welles of rock & roll" and Jimmy Page has called them his "favorite American group." ...
Robin Trower's Unbroken Barricade: 'I'm Still in the Shadow of Jimi Hendrix'
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, April 1975
PORTLAND – Robin Trower finally emerges from the dressing room, which has remained locked for an ominously long time, and forces a smile. ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1975
As he's moved westward – from the East Coast to Ohio to Colorado to Los Angeles–Joe Walsh has assimilated one regional rock style after another. ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, April 1975
ON THEIR NOW obscure Warner Bros.' albums Sparks's intriguing lyrics and immaculate conceptions were undermined by inadequate musical constructions. ...
Mac Davis: All the Love in the World
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1975
HEREWITH, THE Legend of the Songpainter. ...
Pretty Things, The: The Pretty Things: Silk Torpedo
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1975
THE PRETTY THINGS are from a different part of town. Once competitors with the Stones in the raunch-and-outrage genre, the Pretty Things began a progression ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1975
STEELY DAN sound like a million dollars not only next to at least 26 of their coresidents of the Boss 30 when they're in it, ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1975
TWO OF THe MOST liberated and ambitious of the "fun" oriented British bands beginning to make their mark in the States are the updated war-horses ...
Gordon Lightfoot: Cold on the Shoulder (Reprise)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1975
FOR A DECADE NOW, Gordon Lightfoot has been a neo-folk hero in Canada. His early records and performances were distinguished by a rugged romanticism that ...
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, May 1975
LONDON – "Fucking tremendous," Ian Hunter mumbled into Mick Ronson's right ear as his first solo album blasted out of the speakers. The former leader ...
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Warner Bros.)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, May 1975
IN 1971, COMMANDER Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, already a legend in such disparate climes as San Francisco and Detroit, finally reached a recording ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, May 1975
FROM THE LOOK of its album cover, Ace is a band of five frustrated English football players who, like Rod Stewart, turned to music to ...
John Mayall's After-Hours Madness
Interview by Steven Rosen, Rolling Stone, May 1975
CINCINNATI – With the release of his latest album, New Year, New Band, New Company, 41-year-old John Mayall has logged 23 albums in just over ...
Eric Clapton: There's One In Every Crowd
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, May 1975
Eric Clapton's sense of well-being is reiterated on There's One in Every Crowd, but on this album it seems less a cause for joy than ...
Manhattan Transfer: Manhattan Transfer
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1975
ONLY THE MOST incorrigible boogie casualty could find the Manhattan Transfer less than quite uncommonly delightful onstage. ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, June 1975
BOB SEGER is a superb songwriter and Midwestern rocker who's been ignored for far too long. He had a hit, 'Ramblin' Gamblin' Man' in 1968, ...
Doobie Brothers: One Guitarist On, One Guitarist Off
Report and Interview by Joel Selvin, Rolling Stone, June 1975
SAN FRANCISCO – Three years ago, the Doobie Brothers lived on food stamps in San Jose, playing at ramshackle area clubs for as little as ...
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, June 1975
THOUGH IT SOUNDS like a song about a stale love affair, ‘How Long’ is the story of an English band struggling to stay together. ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, June 1975
WITH THREE full-time electric guitarists, a piano player and a fireplug of a lead singer who looks like Robert Blake's Baretta in a hippie disguise, ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, June 1975
WITH THEIR LAST five albums (including Relayer) reaching Top Five status, Yes are central to the new British Invasion. ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1975
NOT TO TAKE anything away from Ralf, Florian, Klaus or even Wolfgang – who are probably real nice geezers once you get to know them ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1975
WHILE IT'S DIFFICULT to picture anyone failing to be amused by the intentional ludicrousness of, say, dedicating an album to the revolution or making the ...
Review by Ken Barnes, Rolling Stone, June 1975
10cc's Original Soundtrack is a fascinating record. Musically there's more going on than in ten Yes albums, yet it's generally as accessible as a straight ...
Harry Nilsson: Duit On Mon Dei
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, July 1975
HARRY NILSSON hasn't made a good album since '71's Nilsson Schmilsson, the recording that brought him the sales and critical esteem he'd deserved all along. ...
Blood Sweat & Tears Featuring David Clayton-Thomas: New City
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, July 1975
IN NEW CITY BS&TFDC-T have made an album that fans of everything from soul to easy listening to jazz to difficult listening to rock will ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, July 1975
JAMES TAYLOR pretty much wrote the book for the singer/songwriters of the Seventies. That may be a dubious distinction but Taylor's early work, characterized by ...
Yvonne Elliman: Eric's Backup Lady
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, July 1975
LONDON – The driver was growing impatient. He had little over an hour to squeeze through rush-hour traffic and deposit Yvonne Elliman on a plane ...
Carla Bley, Jack Bruce, Mick Taylor: Bruce and Taylor's Band of Misfits
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, July 1975
LONDON – "I had three choices: give up completely, find a backing group to play my songs mechanically, or become a sideman playing bass in ...
Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, The: Souther Hillman Furay: Trouble in Paradise
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, July 1975
IN CONCERT LAST year, Richie Furay seemed bewildered, as if he'd suddenly found himself onstage not with his own band but rather with a bunch ...
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, July 1975
LISTENING to this Joan Baez album – her first self-declaredly apolitical, decidedly commercial album since the days of folk rock – it is possible to ...
Beau Brummels, The: The Beau Brummels: The Beau Brummels
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1975
I BOUGHT MY first two Sixties rock & roll albums, the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man and the debut LP of the Beau Brummels, at a ...
Peter Frampton: Saved by the Power of Love
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, August 1975
LOS ANGELES – Peter Frampton's fine-boned, clear-eyed and unlined face gives little hint of the eight years which have elapsed since the singer/guitarist, now 25, ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1975
FROM ITS CONCEPTION to its sonics, Spirit of '76 is this year's eccentric's eccentric record, and Randy California (last heard from as "Kapt. Kopter" on ...
Roger McGuinn, Stephen Stills: Steven Stills, Roger McGuinn & Band Albums
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1975
Roger McGuinn: Roger McGuinn & Band (Columbia)Stephen Stills: Stills (Columbia) ...
Three Dog Night: Coming Down Your Way
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, August 1975
THIS ALBUM clearly marks the demise of Three Dog Night, actually if not yet officially. It's the latest and worst in a series of terribly ...
Roger Daltrey, Who, The: Roger Daltrey: What the Who's Been Doing
Interview by Barbara Charone, Rolling Stone, September 1975
LONDON – "I don't think Tommy held the band back – it's just that nobody wanted to listen to what [else] we were doing. Who's ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: An Herbal Meditation with Bob Marley
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, September 1975
LOS ANGELES – This Bible is not the arcane, apocryphal version you might expect to find in the possession of these mysterious Rastas, but a ...
Millie Jackson: Still Caught Up
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, September 1975
AND STILL GETTIN' it while the get-tin' is still good. Those who enjoyed Caught Up, Millie Jackson's last song cycle, won't be disappointed by this ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, September 1975
POOR SLADE. The biggest band in England for a while and in the States they couldn't get arrested. Last time out, they toned down and ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1975
NOT ONLY IS Fleetwood Mac no longer blues oriented, it isn't even really British: The two newest members, Lindsey Buckingham (guitar and vocals) and Stevie ...
Gary Stewart: You're Not the Woman You Used to Be
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, September 1975
THIS COLLECTION OF old singles was released to scoop up some of the financial overflow from country music's current hottest new item. ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1975
PROCOL HARUM, down to delusions of grandeur after losing key members (like Robin Trower and Matthew Fisher) and running desperately low on ideas has been ...
Troggs, The: The Troggs: The Troggs
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, October 1975
NOT SINCE MARC Bolan noshed himself into semiretirement have our pre-nursery-school age friends been given product on which they could so effortlessly get off as ...
Crosby and Nash: More Kick-Ass Than Anyone Expects
Interview by Cameron Crowe, Rolling Stone, October 1975
THANKS TO A band featuring such polished musicians as Danny 'Kootch' Kortchmar (guitar), David Lindley (fiddle and Hawaiian steel guitar), Craig Doerge (keyboards), Lee Sklar ...
Flo & Eddie: Illegal, Immoral and Fattening
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, October 1975
INSIDIOUS. Here we have the mainspring of the Turtles, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, with an album that contains two songs (‘Rebecca’ and ‘Let Me ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1975
JOHN FOGERTY singlehandedly prepares records that are virtually perfect in execution as well as conception: brilliantly concise self-expression, captivating and broad-based radio music. Though he ...
Hall & Oates: Daryl Hall and John Oates
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, October 1975
After three albums Daryl Hall and John Oates finally have a clear-cut style. This is Hall & Oates's Wild Honey: lean, basic and more concerned ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Caught In The Act (Capitol)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, November 1975
IF GRAND FUNK was once a publicist’s tool, this new live album shows the extent to which they have become a producer’s tool. If once ...
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, November 1975
WITHOUT PINK FLOYD we would not have the European sci-fi multitudes (Hawkwind, Can, Amon Duul II and all their little friends) to kick around. They ...
Faces, The, Rod Stewart: Rod Stewart Faces the American Dream
Report and Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, November 1975
BY SUNDOWN the 55,000 people packed into the Los Angeles Angels' Anaheim Stadium for this "sunshine festival" have stolidly endured six hours of a rather ...
Sam & Dave: Sam & Dave: Back At' Cha!
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, November 1975
IF ANYTHING SYMBOLIZES the decline of the Stax Records era (recently brought to a probable close with the indictment of president Al Bell for bank ...
Amazing Rhythm Aces, The: The Amazing Rhythm Aces: Stacked Deck
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, November 1975
‘THIRD RATE Romance’, an intriguing mystery on Jesse Winchester's '74 album, Learn to Love It, is no longer mysterious – the song's become a well-deserved ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, December 1975
DESPITE ITS UNEVENNESS, this is a vast improvement over Street Lights and accomplishes much of what that LP set out to do in the first ...
Neil Sedaka, Carpenters, The: Neil Sedaka: Second Stairway To Heaven
Report and Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, December 1975
AWAY FROM the Vegas casino clatter, inside the Riviera Hotel's now empty Versailles Room, onstage, seated at a piano is a petite, energetic man who ...
Simon & Garfunkel Reunite: It's Paul, But Is It Art?
Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, December 1975
NEW YORK – Comedian Richard Belzer was warming up the studio audience for NBC's Saturday Night program, October 18th. This, he was saying, was an ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, December 1975
ON HER FIRST two albums, Betty Davis staked out a peculiar brand of kinky, tongue-in-cheek funk that garnered her a cult following in Philadelphia and ...
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, December 1975
AS THE FORMER lead singer of the Raspberries, a group whose misadventures prevented them from ever seeing sales figures that compared equitably with their true ...
Review by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, December 1975
LEON REDBONE, according to the record jacket of his first album, is not to be confused or associated with the Epic recording artists Redbone. Hardly. ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, January 1976
THIS IS AN encouraging album. After a celebrated re-signing with Motown last year, the ponderous Norman Whitfield-produced Me 'n Rock 'n Roll Are Here to ...
Review by Simon Frith, Rolling Stone, January 1976
THERE USED TO be this ad (in the Fifties, I suppose) for a cigarette: YOU'RE NEVER ALONE WITH A STRAND! A guy alone in the ...
Flo & Eddie Post-Turtles: So Snappy Together
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, January 1976
ON THE ROAD IN INDIANA – "Shit," laments Howard Kaylan (Eddie), whose long silver hair and gray beard give him the appearance of a lecherous ...
Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Zuma
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1976
"It's another rock & roll album. A lot of instrumental things... it's about the Incas and the Aztecs. It takes on another personality. It's like ...
Cate Brothers, The: The Cate Brothers: Cate Brothers
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, January 1976
TEN YEARS AGO, Earl and Ernie Cate were playing the same Arkansas bars as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. While the Hawks have moved on ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, January 1976
ONCE A CONSISTENT R&B hit-maker, Ann Peebles's output has seen a precipitous drop in both the vitality of her music and the sales of her ...
Van Dyke Parks: The Clang of the Yankee Reaper
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, January 1976
In rootless Southern California, the only cultural traditions are those which you create for yourself. Maybe that's why Van Dyke Parks is much beloved of ...
Earth Wind and Fire: Signs Rise for Shining Stars
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, January 1976
LOS ANGELES – "Music is a sacred thing and we take it very seriously," Earth Wind & Fire founder/percussionist Maurice White offers during a rehearsal ...
Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter: Johnny and Edgar Winter: Two Hazy Shades of Winter
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, January 1976
OAKLAND – "My band's a dictatorship and Edgar's is a democracy," Johnny Winter blurted out through the hotel-room haze after playing the last of three ...
Faces, The, Rolling Stones, The: Faces Break Up – Wood a Stone?
Report by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, January 1976
LOS ANGELES – After a six-year association, Rod Stewart is leaving the Faces. The news was revealed at a London press conference called by Stewart ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, February 1976
BRITISHER Robert Palmer is another marcher in the growing column of white folks who prefer playing it greasy and getting down (notable recent examples: Bowie, ...
Interview by David Rensin, Rolling Stone, February 1976
ON THE COVER of his first solo album, Teaser, Tommy Bolin's face is creased into a laugh that couples angelic delight and demonic perversity. Considering ...
Osmonds, The: The Family Plan Of The Latter-Day Osmonds
Profile and Interview by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, March 1976
The Wizards who Live in the Land of OsWorship their God and Obey the LawsWear Ice Cream Suits without Bulges or FlawsAnd Smile with the ...
Queen: Four Queens Beat Opera Flush
Report and Interview by Steve Turner, Rolling Stone, March 1976
Cashing In on a Rock Rhapsody ...
Junior Walker & The Allstars: Junior Walker and the All-Stars: Hot Shot
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, March 1976
HOT SHOT is the first Junior Walker album in three years, which is surprising in light of the current reign of disco/dance music, Walker’s natural ...
Review by Simon Frith, Rolling Stone, March 1976
The quintessential 10cc moment comes at the end of How Dare You?: an ethereal voice pleads, "Don't hang up!" The riff is pretty and relaxing. ...
Donna Summer: Love On The Road
Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, March 1976
BEVERLY HILLS – The question was: how do you take a recording-studio orgasm on the road? "I'm sort of eager to find out myself," Donna ...
Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, March 1976
EACH YEAR, the American music industry embarrasses itself by nationally televising a 90-minute display of the irrelevant and the ridiculous, the Grammy Awards. ...
Parliament, Funkadelic: Parliament-Funkadelic: Mothership Connection
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, March 1976
WITH THE "Parliafunkadelicment thang", leader George Clinton has succeeded in creating two distinct identities for one band—the mystical voodoo of the Funkadelics and the stabbing, ...
Archie Bell and the Drells Still Dance All Night
Profile and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, April 1976
NEW YORK – Archie Bell interrupts his rushed, businesslike replies for a moment and works up the faintest trace of a smile: "I didn't know ...
Hank Williams Jr.: Hank William Jr. and Friends
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, April 1976
LAST AUGUST, on a hunting trip near the Great Divide at Missoula, Montana, the recently divorced Hank Williams Jr. fell 500 feet down a mountainside, ...
Sutherland Brothers and Quiver: Reach for the Sky
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, April 1976
THIS CLASSY ROCK GROUP from Britain somehow managed, over the course of its three Island albums, to grow progressively more obscure, despite an infectious '73 ...
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, May 1976
GOSPEL MUSIC is certainly closer to Charlie Rich's natural milieu than anything he's done since he and Billy Sherrill hit on the ‘Behind Closed Doors’ ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Black and Blue (Rolling Stones)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, May 1976
Decembers Children Today: Glimmer Twins Star As Stones Roll On ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, September 1976
IN AMERICA'S LESS CRISS-crossed midsection, young rockers have the opportunity to incubate their dreams – and their talents – free of pressure. The most romantic ...
Emotions, The: The Emotions: Flowers
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, September 1976
SALVAGED FROM THE debris of the Stax bankruptcy, the Emotions have reemerged with one of the year's most refreshing soul albums. Producer Maurice White, who ...
Meters, The: The Meters: Paul's Mall, Boston
Live Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, November 1976
THE METERS may well be the finest performing American band. Without resorting to such modern pop trappings as smoke bombs and gyrating pianos, the Meters ...
Bee Gees, The: Bee Gees: Children of the World
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, November 1976
FROM MUSHY pop ballads through late-Sixties psychedelia and low-key rock, the Bee Gees have demonstrated a chameleonlike ability to adapt to disparate pop trends. These ...
Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, November 1976
LET'S STICK TOGETHER is the least campy of Bryan Ferry's three solo albums. Rather than do suave interpretations of oldies as diverse as ‘It's My ...
Funkadelic: Tales of Kidd Funkadelic
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, December 1976
WHAT YOU SEE ON Funkadelic album covers is what the band is about: "THE SABER-TOOTH, SLIPPERY TONGUED & MOST NASTIC MAU-MAU BOOTYBUSTERS OF NOXIOUS NEEGROW ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, December 1976
NOW THAT the Staples are unabashed sex merchants, the O'Jays are pop's foremost message mongerers. But the O'Jays don't write or produce their albums, so ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, December 1976
The songs of Earth, Wind and Fire combine pure urban fantasy with the type of facile brotherhood messages that also crop up in the music ...
Earth Wind and Fire: Earth, Wind & Fire: Spirit
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, December 1976
THE SONGS OF Earth, Wind and Fire combine pure urban fantasy with the type of facile brotherhood messages that also crop up in the music ...
Parliament, Funkadelic: Parliament/Funkadelic: Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, December 1976
A GOLD PYRAMID glitters onstage. Light beams, like giant mutant insect eyes, stare down at the audience. Musicians dressed for a Halloween party in some ...
Robin Trower: Why Robin Trower’s Not Appreciated At Home
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, December 1976
LONDON– "IN America we’re important; when we hit a town it’s boy..." Robin Trower snaps his fingers and smiles, "it’s that kind of feeling. But ...
Graham Parker and the Rumour: Heat Treatment (Mercury)
Review by Simon Frith, Rolling Stone, December 1976
HEAT TREATMENT, Graham Parker’s second Mercury album, confirms the promise of his debut, Howlin’ Wind, which appeared earlier this year. The rapidity of the followup ...
Sex Pistols, The, Damned, The: U.K. Report: Sex Pistols And Beyond
Report and Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, January 1977
LONDON – So this is how legends are born. Not with a song, or even a death, but with an expletive. ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, January 1977
IF HIS RECORDS ARE ANY indication, Al Green is a troubled, no, haunted man. ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, February 1977
IT WAS THE STUFF from which legends are carved: an office, a studio no larger than a motel room crammed with organs, pianos and a ...
Live Review by John Swenson, Rolling Stone, February 1977
THIRTEEN YEARS after the Beatles played their first American concert at Carnegie Hall, the Electric Light Orchestra pads a headlining set at Madison Square Garden ...
Review by John Swenson, Rolling Stone, April 1977
ROCK & ROLL HAS this bad habit of being unpredictable. You never can tell when a band will undergo that alchemic transmigration from lead to ...
Marvin Gaye: Live at the London Palladium
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, June 1977
ALONG WITH Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye must be considered one of the most reticent pop performers. This is his second live album in three years, ...
Live Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, August 1977
"THIS ONE goes back to 1936," Leon McAuliffe grinned. "Bob told me, 'Leon, just hit a chord and then I'll say something,' and so I ...
Animals, The: The Animals: Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted (United Artists)
Review by Simon Frith, Rolling Stone, October 1977
LONG-DEAD GROUPS usually come back for commercial reasons – individual careers are slipping, the musicians are no longer recognized in the streets – and the ...
Persuasions, The: The Dying Art Of Friendly Persuasions
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, November 1977
NEW YORK – PERSUASIONS leader Jerry Lawson checked the refrigerator in his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment one recent morning and found it nearly empty. ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, December 1977
DIANA ROSS' gifts aren't easy to capture on record. In fact, it's been a decade since anybody has done it consistently. She's campy and prone ...
Rod Stewart: Foot Loose and Fancy Free
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, December 1977
THERE'S SOMETHING to be said for the New Wave rebellion against (to borrow a phrase from the not-so-young-himself Willy De Ville) "old meat". Even if ...
Elvis Presley: Andy Kaufman Does De Elvis
Report by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, January 1978
OH, GOD, where did they find this poor soul, and what desperate circumstances could have resulted in his presence on stage before us? ...
Earth Wind and Fire: All 'n All
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, January 1978
AT THEIR WORST, Earth, Wind and Fire indulge in some of the most pretentious excesses in current black music. As on past Earth, Wind and ...
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, March 1978
WHEN I FIRST heard this record some months ago, I was appalled. "One bourbon, one Scotch and one beee-ah," George Thorogoood was mush-mouthing over the ...
Bonnie Raitt: Freebo's Travels With Bonnie
Interview by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, April 1978
LOS ANGELES – AT AN age when most rock musicians are superstars in decline, prosperous session players, or in their fifth or so year of ...
Foreigner’s Road Map: Destination Top Ten
Interview by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1978
IN THE SPRING of 1976, Mick Jones found himself. With a dwindling bank account and dim prospects, even after twelve years of playing guitar and ...
Beatles, The: Beatlemania’s Boys in the Band
Report and Interview by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, May 1978
JOE PECORINO, A small, affable young man who earns his living by pretending to be John Lennon in the successful stage production, Beatlemania, denies that ...
Manhattans, The: The Manhattans: There’s No Good In Goodbye; It Feels So Good
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, May 1978
IN A FIELD ONCE glutted with heavyweights, lightweights and pretenders, the Manhattans stand almost alone, a throwback to an era when an orange sharkskin suit, ...
Delbert McClinton: Second Wind (Capricorn)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, May 1978
DELBERT McClinton’s music reminds me of a frenzied 1972 R&B nonhit called 'Stoop Down Baby', on which singer Chick Willis runs down many verses of ...
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, June 1978
ONCE, WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN, I bought a copy of "My Dearest Darling" by Etta James, a record I'd heard as an oldie on a ...
Aretha Franklin: Almighty Fire
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, June 1978
THERE'S A SONG on Almighty Fire that has little to do with the rest of this Curtis Mayfield-produced album. 'I'm Your Speed' ends side two ...
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, August 1978
IT IS A cruel irony that had she not been a junkie for thirteen of her forty years, Etta James would probably still be working ...
Doors, The: The Doors: An American Prayer
Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, January 1979
WHAT JIM MORRISON wanted more than anything – more than fame, more than wealth, more than the women's wet submission that fame brought with it ...
Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, February 1979
"WELL IT'S one for the money/Two for the show/I'd dance/But I'm too old," a beaming, bouncing forty-six-year-old Carl Perkins mocked from the Bottom Line stage ...
Richard Thompson, Richard and Linda Thompson: Richard and Linda Thompson's Flight From Convention
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, April 1979
"IF I DON'T seem a part of the recording industry, it's probably because I don't feel a part of it," says Richard Thompson, the guitarist/songwriter/singer ...
George Harrison: An Interview with George Harrison
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, April 1979
UP FOR THE DAY FROM HIS HOME IN OXFORDSHIRE, some 30 miles from London, George Harrison had spent the morning in the recording studio with ...
Police, The: The Police Take to the Street
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, May 1979
"STREET CREDIBILITY..." mutters Stewart Copeland, the American drummer in Britain’s Police, as he wearily runs a hand through his peroxide-blond hair. "Street credibility is full ...
Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, May 1979
Elvis Costello puts his foot in his mouth ...
Ultravox: The Low-Budget Way To See The U.S.A.
Report and Interview by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, June 1979
AS RECENTLY AS January, Britain’s Ultravox — purveyors of highly stylized, often outré music alternately reminiscent of Pink Floyd, Brian Eno and Roxy Music — ...
Punk Attack: 'The Obituary of Rock and Roll'
Book Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, June 1979
Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons: The Boy Looked at Johnny (Pluto Press) ...
Lene Lovich: The Bits and Myths of Lene Lovich
Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, August 1979
A VISION IN black, even her gingerbread pigtails decorated with a wedding cake of black lace, Lene Lovich sits in the unassuming offices of Stiff ...
Earth Wind and Fire: Earth Wind & Fire: I Am
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, August 1979
MAURICE WHITE, Earth, Wind and Fire's presiding genius, ranges across popular music like a robber baron, selecting only the tastiest artifacts for his collection. ...
Led Zeppelin: The Songs Remain The Same: Led Zeppelin at Knebworth Park
Live Review by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, October 1979
...
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, November 1979
"POP IS A MEANINGLESS term," Ian Gomm says as he takes a sip of beer in his manager’s London home. "But I’ve got a vested ...
Frank Zappa: The Myth Of Joe's Garage
Interview by John Swenson, Rolling Stone, December 1979
I'M STANDING ON the loading platform at L.A. International Airport at 2:30 in the morning, listening to a prerecorded voice that keeps repeating "...the white ...
Santana: Carlos Santana’s Journey Toward Perfection
Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, February 1980
"I’VE WANTED SOME Roy Rogers boots ever since I was a kid." Seated in his manager’s office, Devadip Carlos Santana pulls on a glistening red ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, June 1980
AS A FUNDAMENTALLY religious artist, Pete Townshend fashions his music from sermons and confessions. Though it's not an easy thing for intellectuals to admit, this ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, August 1980
PAINTED IN CONTRASTING shades of urban blight, suburban boredom and rural decay, Michigan is perfect primitive rock & roll territory: a place where nothin' to ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, September 1980
LUCID AND DRIVEN, Peter Gabriel's third solo album sticks in the mind like the haunted heroes of the best film noirs. With the obsessiveness of ...
Kurtis Blow Raps His Way To The Top
Report and Interview by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, March 1981
The sound of the streets hits the heartland ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, October 1981
'WHO'S CRYING Now', the hit single off Journey's hit LP, isn't super hip, super deep or even real, real hooky. But it does sound good. ...
Profile and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, February 1982
VAN MORRISON's brown, two-story, shingled house sits alongside a narrow road that snakes up Mt. Tamalpais above the sleepy Marin County town of Mill Valley. ...
George Clinton: the return of Dr. Funkenstein
Profile and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, June 1983
HEADS TURN when George Clinton enters a room. Any room. At the moment, the people in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel are staring ...
Special AKA, The, Specials, The: Special AKA: New Band, Old Cause
Profile and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, November 1984
SAN FRANCISCO: Jerry Dammers, leader of the Special AKA, is a very idealistic man. He believes, for instance, that popular songs can change the way ...
Deep Purple: Perfect Strangers
Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, February 1985
The title track comes blasting out of nowhere, like an I'm-alive-and-well message from an old friend you'd given up for dead. With its steamy vocal ...
John Fogerty: Fogerty Returns To The Stage
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, March 1985
Oldies highlight show for cable TV ...
Bronski Beat: The Age of Consent (London/MCA)
Review by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, March 1985
NOW THAT FRANKIE HAS PROVEN TO BE a remote-controlled sham with less depth (not to mention stage presence) than its sloganeering T-shirts, the gay-rock mantle ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, April 1985
Nobody ever said it was easy being God. Nobody ever said it was a gig Eric Clapton even asked for. The man has spent most ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, April 1985
The Firm is the debut of the new band Jimmy Page has started with Paul Rodgers, the former leader of Free and Bad Company. The ...
Profile and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, April 1985
East L.A.'s favorite sons can play everything from blues to Tex-Mex ...
Profile and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, Rolling Stone, May 1985
Sade's elegant look and cool sound have made her pop music's most stylish female star ...
Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, July 1985
They don't sound like the Ramones, and they don't look like the Sex Pistols, but bands like Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen and the Meat Puppets ...
Seeds, The: Where Are They Now: Sky Saxon
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, September 1985
The leader of the Seeds was 'Pushin' Too Hard' in the Sixties; now he'd into 'flower heaven power'. ...
ZZ Top: Afterburner (Warner Bros.)
Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, December 1985
THE SOURCE of ZZ Top's appeal was never any secret to the beer drinkers and hell raisers who worshiped them the instant the band began ...
The Rolling Stone Interview: Bill Graham
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, December 1985
The P.T. Barnum of rock & roll celebrates his twentieth anniversary ...
Diana Ross, Olivia Newton John: Olivia Newton-John: Soul Kiss/Diana Ross: Eaten Alive
Review by Davitt Sigerson, Rolling Stone, February 1986
HERE WE HAVE two of the biz' primo canaries coming up with long-awaited (and, you can bet, carefully considered) albums and not exactly setting the ...
10,000 Maniacs: The Wishing Chair (Elektra)
Review by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, March 1986
LEST 10,000 Maniacs be mistaken for members of the SoHo establishment, check your map: the sextet's home base, Jamestown, New York, is roughly the same ...
Review by Davitt Sigerson, Rolling Stone, April 1986
WHO BUT PRINCE fills us today with the kind of anticipation we once reserved for new work by Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling ...
Review by Davitt Sigerson, Rolling Stone, July 1986
OF ALL CURRENT superstars, none has manipulated the apparatus of fame more astutely than Madonna. Like Prince, she recognized the virtue of a one-word name ...
Lionel Richie: Dancing on the Ceiling
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, November 1986
Lionel Richie will never surprise you. His triumph has been his ability to turn conservative dependability into a commercial, and at times even an aesthetic, ...
Band, The, Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, April 1987
Fireworks were going off in the Sixties. Music was happening quicker than people could deal with. ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George: Mr. Clean
Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, October 1987
Boy George Straightens Up His Act ...
Review by Davitt Sigerson, Rolling Stone, October 1987
MICHAEL JACKSON is a man. Agreed, he is a young man, emotional age about thirteen, with a young man's interest in cars, girls, scary movies ...
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, December 1987
Nothing Like The Sun – a powerful, often hypnotic album that blends jazz and rock styles into a thoughtful suite of twelve songs about love, ...
Public Image Ltd: Public Image Limited: Happy? (Virgin)
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1988
TEN YEARS ago he was burying Led Zepplin; now he's praising it. Such are the artistic swings from Johnny Rotten (ne Lydon), professional iconoclast. Not ...
Negativland: Escape From Noise (Seeland)
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, May 1988
DOORS SLAM/PEOPLE yell/Children scream/Sirens whine/Trucks rumble and roar/And rock music blares, as Negativland asks the musical question "Is there any escape from noise?" ...
Public Enemy: Rockin' The Joint
Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, September 1988
The incendiary rappers preach black self-sufficiency at New York's Riker's Island. But are they prisoners of their own racist doctrine? By Michael Azerrad ...
David Lindley: The Weird World Of David Lindley
Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, October 1988
DAVID LINDLEY has found the oud of his dreams in a guitar store on Manhattan's Forty-eighth Street. "This is a beauty," he says, admiring the ...
Dwight Yoakam: Buenos Noches From A Lonely Room
Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, October 1988
SINCE FOCUSING the public eye on his archival brand of country music with Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. two years ago, Dwight Yoakam has been good ...
Michelle Shocked: Short, Sharp, Talented
Profile and Interview by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, November 1988
Is country-folk singer Michelle Shocked ready for stardom? ...
Run DMC: Concert Violence: Who's to Blame?
Report by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, November 1988
Action needed in the wake of recent deaths at rap and metal shows ...
Crosby Stills Nash and Young: American Dream
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, January 1989
American Dream fades out on the line "Why not keep on singing anyway?" – and that lackadaisical slogan seems to sum up the spirit in ...
Steve Earle: A Bad Boy Settles Down
Report and Interview by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, January 1989
STEVE EARLE recently released his third album, Copperhead Road, and married his fifth wife, Teresa. Considering that last New Year's Day found him in a ...
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, February 1989
NEW YORK is Lou Reed's rock & roll version of The Bonfire of the Vanities. But whereas Tom Wolfe maintains an ultimately cynical distance from ...
Cowboy Junkies Shoot For Success
Interview by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, March 1989
NASHVILLE'S BLUEBIRD CAFE is packed for the local debut of the Cowboy Junkies. The Canadian bands lethargic cover of 'Sweet Jane' has been talked up ...
De La Soul: 3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy)
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, March 1989
DE LA SOUL HAS already mastered the three Js of postmodernism: juxtapose, juxtapose, juxtapose. Welcome to the first psychedelic hip-hop record. ...
De La Soul's Hippie-hop: Psychedelic Rappers Introduce the DA.I.S.Y. Age
Profile and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, May 1989
"HELLO, YOU'VE reached Mars. What can I do for you?" Trugoy the Dove is on the telephone in the tidy basement of his parents' house ...
Randy Newman: Coach House, San Juan Capistrano, CA
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, May 1989
Old Four Eyes Is Back ...
Bangles, The: The Bangles: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, June 1989
Heroines Take a Fall ...
Tim Finn: All's Well That Enz Well
Profile and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, June 1989
ONE OF TIM Finn's best re-cent gigs was performing at a sheepshearing party in his native New Zealand. Along with his brother, Neil Finn of ...
Wendy and Lisa: Fruit at the Bottom (Columbia) ** 1/2
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, June 1989
ON THEIR 1987 debut album, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman seemed to be bending over backward not to sound like Prince, whose band they had ...
k.d. lang: k.d.lang: Absolute Torch and Twang
Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, July 1989
Absolute Torch and Twang – the third major-label LP by Canadian chanteuse K.D. Lang and the second with her band the Reclines – splits the ...
Retrospective by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, August 1989
BREAD VIRTUALLY invented soft rock in the early Seventies, and the group's biggest hits – 'Make It With You', 'If', 'Baby I'm-a Want You' and ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Mark Farner
Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, August 1989
"THE TRUE JOY that I have now comes from knowing Jesus Christ as my Savior and my Lord, and rendering my life in servitude to ...
Cure, The: Searching For The Cure
Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, September 1989
Can the masters of "mope rock" enjoy life at the top? ...
Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, October 1989
HAD SOMEONE predicted in 1978 that 49,223 people in a stadium would one day clap and sing along as the Gothic rockers in the Cure ...
Tears For Fears: Tears for Fears: Fear of Finishing
Report and Interview by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, November 1989
Songs From The Big Delay: How Tears For Fears Took Four Years To Sprout The Seeds of Love ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Flying Cowboys
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, November 1989
Flying Cowboys simultaneously bears the distinctive mark of Rickie Lee Jones's wild, unruly talent and continues the steady process by which her art is achieving ...
Tears For Fears: Tears for Fears: The Seeds Of Love (PolyGram) ****
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, November 1989
AFTER THE release of Tears For Fears' mammoth-selling second album, Songs From the Big Chair, in 1985, an English music paper remarked, "It'll soon be ...
B.B. King: Mississippi Homecoming
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, November 1989
RILEY B. KING, a son of the Mississippi Delta and by everyone's admission but his own the King of the Blues, stands by a two-lane ...
Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan: Jeff Beck & Stevie Ray Vaughan: Guitar Slingers Shoot It Out
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Rolling Stone, November 1989
Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan go head-to-head on U.S. tour ...
Echo & The Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch: Ian McCulloch
Interview by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, February 1990
AN HOUR BEFORE Echo and the Bunnymen went onstage in Osaka, Japan for the final date of a world tour in April 1988, singer Ian ...
Roxanne Shanté: Bad Sister ****
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, February 1990
RECORDED BETWEEN laundry loads in 1985 when she was fourteen years old, Roxanne Shanté's first single, 'Roxanne's Revenge', was a spontaneous storm of sassy rap ...
Jungle Brothers, The: Jungle Brothers: Done by the Forces of Nature (Warner Bros.) ***1/2
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1990
THE JUNGLE Brothers are part of the Native Tongues, a triumvirate of innovative rap groups (including De la Soul and A Tribe Called Quest) united ...
B-52s, The: The B-52s: Mission Accomplished
Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, March 1990
...
A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm ***
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, April 1990
INASMUCH AS THE arch and arty New York hip-hop foursome A Tribe Called Quest exudes any enthusiasm at all on its debut album, that enthusiasm ...
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, June 1990
AS EDISON MIGHT have put it, most great disco is one-percent inspiration, ninety-nine-percent perspiration. Its unguarded vulgarity is what puts it over – "I'm not ...
Retrospective and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, August 1990
"My eyes were opened. There's a new world and a new society and a new spirit." ...
Neville Brothers, The: Neville Brothers: Brother's Keeper
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, September 1990
SHOUDN’T IT BE A CLINCH TO PRODUCE a consistently breathtaking Neville Brothers album? Wouldn’t one have only to hand Aaron Neville a collection of worthy ...
Alice In Chains, Posies, The, Mother Love Bone: A Seattle Slew
Report and Interview by Dave DiMartino, Rolling Stone, September 1990
Record companies are flocking to the Great Northwest, signing bands like crazy and hoping to find the Next Big Thing ...
Obituary by John Swenson, Rolling Stone, October 1990
STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN has died, and with him goes the spirit of Jimi Hendrix once again. Vaughan was linked to Hendrix throughout his playing life. ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, October 1990
IN VIEW OF MÖTLEY CRÜE’S AND OZZY Osbourne’s ongoing mega-stardom, it’s hard to imagine that success in heavy metal is the result of anything other ...
Pixies, The: Surfing With The Aliens: The Pixies
Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, November 1990
THE KIDS AT England's annual Reading festival are a scruffy lot. A ‘90s hybrid of hippie and punk, they wear tie-dyed T-shirts, asymmetrical hairdos, jeans ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Rolling Stone, November 1990
SINCE THE HEYDAY of Little Richard, one of the things that teenagers have liked most about rock & roll is that it can provoke parents ...
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, April 1991
Hot Ticket Chris Isaak: The last time he played Los Angeles, he couldn't get a sound check. ...
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, April 1991
EVER SINCE the Who and the Stones, if not the Revolutionary War, uppity British ironists have made a habit of "elevating" vulgar American pop crazes ...
Temptations, The, David Ruffin: Former Temptation David Ruffin Dies
Obituary by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, July 1991
DAVID RUFFIN, a former lead singer for the Temptations, died of a drug overdose in the early-morning hours of June 1st at the Hospital of ...
Review by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, November 1991
DESPITE THE hand-wringing the fanzines do each time an indie-rock hero signs a major-label deal, righteous postpunk stars from Hüsker Dü to Soundgarden have joined ...
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, December 1991
ON SUNDAY, November 3rd, more than 300,000 people showed up at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park for the biggest rock concert ever held ...
My Bloody Valentine: The Sound of the Future: My Bloody Valentine
Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1992
"WE'D LIKE TO COME OUT FROM the shadow of the greatest things ever done," declares Kevin Shields, the soft-spoken, bookish-looking leader of My Bloody Valentine. ...
Bryan Adams: The Ritz, New York City
Live Review by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, March 1992
THE BIRTH OF ROCK & ROLL WAS A messy business. With an instinctive need for communication that just couldn’t wait for formal language, the baby ...
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, March 1992
A CHARTER MEMBER of England's class of '77, XTC is one of the few bands from that era to remain virtually intact. ...
Nirvana: Inside the Heart and Mind of Kurt Cobain
Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, April 1992
FOR NOW, Kurt Cobain and his new wife Courtney Love, live in an apartment in Los Angeles's modest Fairfax district. The living room holds little ...
Melvins, The, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Supersuckers, Soundgarden, Green River: Seattle: Grunge City
Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, April 1992
For real rockers Seattle is the ultimate wet dream. By Michael Azerrad ...
Nirvana: Reading Festival, England
Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, October 1992
"FUCK WOODSTOCK," read one popular T-shirt here, although this twentieth annual jamboree also began with lots of wasted folks frolicking in the mud and ended ...
Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, January 1993
After a successful European summer tour and a sold-out show at the mammoth 45,000-seat Velez Sarsfield Stadium, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, what has the world's ...
Beastie Boys, The, Henry Rollins: The Beastie Boys, Rollins Band: Roseland Ballroom New York NY
Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, January 1993
THIS PAIRING wasn't as odd as it seemed, because the Beastie Boys have created ― or at least mobilized ― a new kind of fan. ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Anthology 1961-1977
Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, February 1993
CURTIS MAYFIELD and the Impressions: The Anthology, a two-CD, forty-song set, is a remarkable document. Lovingly assembled by Chicago-soul authority Robert Pruter, this collection connects ...
Screaming Trees: The Lost Boys
Profile and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1993
IT IS THE second of a pair of Seattle homecoming shows that close their tour with Alice in Chains, and Screaming Trees are well into ...
Dinosaur Jr: Where You Been (Sire) ****
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1993
TODAY'S TWENTYSOMETHINGS didn't grow up on the Beatles and the Stones. They grew up on Kiss, Peter Frampton and Neil Young. Making something meaningful out ...
Butthole Surfers: The Butthole Surfers: In Through the Back Door
Profile and Interview by Jason Cohen, Rolling Stone, June 1993
The Butthole Surfers are the certified shock jocks of the next wave ...
Bruce Springsteen: Bruce Rocks the U.K - But He Can't Match His Own Impossibly High Standards
Live Review by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, June 1993
"WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I truly didn't think music had any limitations," said Bruce Springsteen in an interview with New York Newsday last year. "I ...
Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, August 1993
"HELLO, I'M A little fat chap that plays records on the radio," DJ John Peel announced at the start of a recent broadcast. ...
Interview by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, August 1993
PJ Harvey beat the sophomore jinx and get their mojo workin' with an American tour and their powerful new album, Rid of Me ...
Fall, The: Mark E. Smith's Wrath & Roll
Profile and Interview by Jason Cohen, Rolling Stone, September 1993
MARK E. SMITH is one of Britain's great misanthropes. On the 1980 live album Totale's Turns, only the third record by his band the Fall, ...
PJ Harvey: P.J. Harvey: 4-Track Demos
Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Rolling Stone, November 1993
THE POP INDUSTRY loves to simulate authenticity, a trick that, like the manufacturing of fake antiques, puts demands on the consumer. It's hard to tell ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, December 1993
BEFORE UNCLE TUPELO'S No Depression sneaked out of Belleville, Ill., in 1990, the respective sounds of Sonic Youth and Lynyrd Skynyrd probably never occupied a ...
Report by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1994
CBGB celebrates its 20 years of rock & roll ...
Kate Bush: Dear Diary: The Secret World of Kate Bush
Interview by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, February 1994
CRICKLEWOOD IS not at all the kind of place you would expect to find Kate Bush. Although immortalized long ago in the title of a ...
Nirvana: Kurt Cobain: Live Through This
Obituary by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, June 1994
LAST SPRING, Kurt Cobain sat at his kitchen table at 3 a.m., chain-smoking and toying with one of the medical mannequins he collected. "It's hard ...
Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd: Pink Floyd: The Division Bell; Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond
Review by Tom Graves, Rolling Stone, June 1994
IS THIS still really Pink Floyd? That seems to be the question, as it has been since Roger Waters left the band in 1985 to ...
Laurie Anderson: The Nerve Of Her
Interview by Gillian G. Gaar, Rolling Stone, June 1994
THE GENERAL PUBLIC MAY HAVE heard little from performance artist Laurie Anderson in recent years. But that's certain to change in 1994, a hectic year ...
Paul McCartney: Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest and Come Together: Motown Sings The Beatles
Review by Gillian G. Gaar, Rolling Stone, June 1994
THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, Paul McCartney has occasionally ventured into atypical musical genres anonymously or under an assumed name. In 1974, under the guise of the ...
Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, September 1994
COOLIO gets a phat return on his dues with 'FANTASTIC VOYAGE' ...
Grateful Dead: Land of the Dead
Report by Ben Fong-Torres, Rolling Stone, 1995
WHEN IN THE MID-SIXTIES San Francisco came to represent nothing left to lose, there was a handful of identifiable pioneers who changed the face, the ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
YOU'D THINK he’d be pissed off, but the title of his new album — Peacemaker — should have given me a clue. The man still ...
Gary Moore, Peter Green: Gary Moore on Peter Green
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
"TONIGHT IS a bit different", says Gary Moore from the stage to a packed London theatre. "We’re celebrating the music of a very special man." ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
"KING CRIMSON," says Adrian Belew, "does a brand of music that no-one else does, a sound that no-one else makes." Robert Fripp calls it "the ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
"THE LAST couple of years", says Thom Yorke, "have been pretty mind-altering." Thom, 26, is so thin and sharp-edged you’d cut yourself if you touched ...
Counting Crows — Adam Duritz interviewed
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1995
BACKSTAGE AT the Shepherd's Bush Empire, Adam Duritz is opening a gift from a fan. Coasters. Normal ones, the sort you'd buy your dad for ...
Report by Gillian G. Gaar, Rolling Stone, February 1995
"HEY... AM I on?" were the uncertain first words delivered by Pearl Jam singer-cum-DJ Eddie Vedder at the start of the band's latest frolic on ...
Simple Minds: Moore Theater, Seattle
Live Review by Gillian G. Gaar, Rolling Stone, March 1995
IT COULD be coincidence that Simple Minds kicked off their first tour in three years in Seattle. Given the band's unveiling of a rougher-edged, guitar-based ...
Thurston Moore: Psychic Hearts
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, June 1995
THURSTON MOORE has said that although he's flattered when younger bands cite Sonic Youth as an influence, it would be nice if the group were ...
Interview by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, August 1995
The women of TLC stay cool under fire ...
Report and Interview by Jason Cohen, Rolling Stone, August 1995
While the Courtney saga continues, Hole prove that a rock & roll band is the sum of its parts ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, September 1995
IN THE TITLE TRACK of Lenny Kravitz's new album, the singer struggles with the dictates of reality that come to bear on fantasy. "Welcome to ...
Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry: Bryan Ferry
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, October 1995
You’ve just celebrated your 50th birthday. Traumatic? ...
Report and Interview by Jason Cohen, Rolling Stone, October 1995
Garbage's masterminds craft murky pop into an album that's impossible to refuse ...
Profile and Interview by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, October 1995
IT'S A GLORIOUS SUMMER DAY in Oxford, city of dreaming spires in the heart of England. Three young tykes laugh and joke with each other ...
Afghan Whigs get Soulful on Their New LP, Black Love
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Rolling Stone, November 1995
JOE PIXIE IS PISSED. TWO FEET TALL, with a voice like a pubescent munchkin, he has been phoning around local fast-food joints trying to get ...
Review by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, November 1995
With this LP, our former Prince turns in his most effortlessly eclectic set since 1987’s Sign O’ The Times. ...
Review by Geoffrey Himes, Rolling Stone, December 1995
EVEN TODAY the stereotype lingers that country songs are all words – storytelling lyrics backed by merely functional music. That cliché can be shattered once ...
Tony Rich Project, The: The Tony Rich Project: Words
Review by Carol Cooper, Rolling Stone, 1996
If ’94 and ’95 were the years that quirky auteurs like Dionne Farris and Des’ree caught the public’s imagination, 1996 may be the year that ...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
"HELLO", says Gavin Rossdale, slumped against the sofa on the trailer floor after a day of interviews. "We’re Bush — calculating, conniving, formulaic opportunists. Who ...
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
DIRE STRAITS is dead. Or as good as. The grave may open once in a while for the odd charity appearance, but as to another ...
Little Axe: Sugar Hill to Stoke Newington
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
THE MAN the critics are calling the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and King Tubby is sitting in a grim pub in an untrendy part ...
Kula Shaker and the New Psychedelia
Report by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
BRITPOP’s ‘60s revivalism has brought in its wake all manner of cosmic hoo-hah. Hallucinogens have taken over from cigarettes-and-alcohol as the switched-on Englishman’s millenium-blues-buster of ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1996
THEY'RE LIVING in a house, a very big house, in the country. "Actually", says Robert Smith, showing me around the candlelit ground floor, smoky log ...
Junior Walker & The Allstars: Junior Walker 1931-1995
Obituary by Geoffrey Himes, Rolling Stone, January 1996
IN EARLY 1965, a new single lit up American radio. It began with a gunshot, echoed by the snare drum that followed. Then a tenor ...
Grateful Dead: Dead End: The Grateful Dead Call It Quits
Report and Interview by David Gans, Rolling Stone, January 1996
Surviving members focus on solo projects ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Rolling Stone, April 1996
"Repetition in the music and we're never gonna lose it," sang Mark E. Smith of the English post-punk legends the Fall in the aptly titled ...
Girls Against Boys: House Of GVSB
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, May 1996
FOR ALL their rebel posturing, many so-called alternative bands still adhere to the old-fashioned conventions of melody and verse-chorus-verse. But not Girls Against Boys. ...
Robert Hunter, Mickey Hart: Hart and Hunter: Opening the Mystery Box
Interview by Richard Gehr, Rolling Stone, May 1996
So what's so mysterious about the Mystery Box?Mickey Hart: The musical mystery is, How do you marry tuned percussion and voice? And on a metaphorical ...
Chic: Bernard Edwards, 1952-1996
Obituary by Geoffrey Himes, Rolling Stone, June 1996
BACK IN THE DISCO era, when most records went thump-thump-thump, the music produced by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers went bumpity-bip-bop, bing-bang-boom. ...
Phish: Billy Breathes (Elektra)
Review by Richard Gehr, Rolling Stone, September 1996
Phish's sixth album, A Live One (released last year) distilled a decade's worth of dedicated roadwork by a group that reinvented improvised rock for a ...
Prodigy, The: Prodigy: End Fest, Bremberton, Washington
Live Review by Gillian G. Gaar, Rolling Stone, September 1996
ON THE one hand, it was hard to see why Prodigy were chosen to close End Fest; the annual daylong outdoor music festival is usually ...
Sex Pistols, The: The Sex Pistols: Finsbury Park, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, Summer 1996
"WELL?" Johnny Rotten asked the 30,000-strong crowd dotting the park — not a sell-out, despite weeks of hype and a festival-sized bill, though more than ...
Sex Pistols, The: Return of The Sex Pistols
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, Summer 1996
The jury’s out. It’s either the ultimate joke, the perfect punch-line — plump, forty, pimple-free Johnny Rotten with a tan only sensible living and serious ...
R.E.M., Mark Eitzel: Mark Eitzel with Peter Buck: Union Chapel, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1997
AN OLD CHAPEL in Islington, North London, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s old ‘hood. The stage is set up around the pulpit; the audience sits in ...
Cure, The: The Cure: An interview with Robert Smith
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1997
THE ROAD to Christmas is choked with compilation albums. Greatest Hits and Best Ofs, collections of the safe-and-familiar-plus-bonus-new-track clog up the record shops at this ...
Offspring: Ixnay On The Hombre
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, January 1997
IN PURE IQ-test terms – singer Dexter Holland is just inches away from his microbiology Ph.D., for Christ's sake – the Offspring might rank as ...
Erykah Badu: Baduizm (Kedar Entertainment/Universal)
Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, Rolling Stone, February 1997
PERHAPS THE first thing you notice about Erykah Badu is her uncanny vocal similarity to Billie Holiday – from the very beginning of Baduizm, Badu's ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, March 1997
SOMETIMES YOU JUST feel like telling the '60s to go away. As if all those gleefully plagiarizing Brit-pop bands weren't enough, now we have a ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, March 1997
IT IS HARD to believe we’re a whole decade away from The Joshua Tree – U2’s very own Born In The USA, its Purple Rain, ...
Prodigy, The: Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, August 1997
RARELY HAS a pop trend been so shamelessly spoon-fed to America as the hold-all genre dubbed "electronica". Rarely, indeed, has the music industry tried so ...
Fela Kuti: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti 1938-1997
Obituary by Vivien Goldman, Rolling Stone, September 1997
KING OF AFRO BEAT DEAD AT 58 ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, October 1997
PITY THE cerebral technicians of Stereolab, whose coolly subversive fusion of muzak and krautrock has for too long condemned them to the Critics’ Darling ghetto. ...
Beatles, The: Derek Taylor 1932-1997
Obituary by Philip Norman, Rolling Stone, October 1997
THE SIMPLE term "music publicist" does not begin to describe Derek Taylor, who died from cancer of the esophagus at his home, in Suffolk, England, ...
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, December 1997
THE FIRST thing you notice about Shania Twain's Come On Over, once you get past her pretty pictures on the cover, is how the titles ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin: Page & Plant
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1998
THE VERY IDEA of MTV as deus ex machina is enough to send shudders down the hardiest spine. But MTV it was who approached Robert ...
Black Sabbath: NEC, Birmingham
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, February 1998
BLACK SABBATH. Industrial hell turned up to 11, baptised in blood and leather, and leather is cows and cows are sacred, and Heavy Metal doesn't ...
Review by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, February 1998
WHAT DOES A defiantly anti-corporate rock band do when it starts getting too much attention? In Pavement's case, they recoil. ...
Massive Attack: Mezzanine (Virgin)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, May 1998
ELDER STATESMEN of the moody dance genre that used to be called trip-hop, Massive Attack like to take their time making albums. So long, indeed, ...
Ronnie Spector: Rolling Ronette
Report by Jaan Uhelszki, Rolling Stone, December 1998
YOU CAN BET it wasn't the first time Keith Richards has given up a night's sleep, but it may have been one of the more ...
Talking Heads: 1999 – Not So Eighties, After All
Report by Jaan Uhelszki, Rolling Stone, April 1999
David Byrne joins his fellow Talking Heads ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, June 1999
THAT THE TERM "singer-songwriter" is no longer one of abuse is at least partly because of the excellent Ron Sexsmith. A thirtysomething Canadian who sounds ...
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, August 1999
THE TITLE TRACK of Jackson Browne's second album, For Everyman, was a response to the escapist vision of Crosby, Stills and Nash's 'Wooden Ships'. As ...
Cher: Live At Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California, August 20th, 1999
Live Review by Erik Himmelsbach, Rolling Stone, September 1999
BY EMBRACING her inner Studio 54, Cher recently landed the biggest hit of her four-decade career with the dance-house thumper ‘Believe’. Her mammoth stage show, ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, October 1999
ON WHAT IS something of a transitional album, the recently separated Mariah Carey moves still further away from the warmed-over Whitney Houston of Carey's early ...
Elvis Costello: Fathers & Sons: The Costellos
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, November 1999
DECLAN MACMANUS took to the stage in 1977, an angry young man sporting Buddy Holly glasses and a strange name: Elvis Costello. But he wasn't ...
Live Review by Erik Himmelsbach, Rolling Stone, February 2000
THE KINGS of Country Rock have been on ice for the better part of two decades. Still, they earned most of their reported $7 million ...
Aimee Mann, Michael Penn: Aimee Mann and Michael Penn
Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, Rolling Stone, March 2000
In which two of L.A.’s best songwriters get dumped by their labels, get married and live happily ever after. ...
Buffalo Springfield: Will Buffalo Springfield Roam Again?
Live Review by Charles Bermant, Rolling Stone, April 2000
NEIL YOUNG'S NEW album, Silver and Gold, features a plaintive ballad titled 'Buffalo Springfield Again', where he expresses nostalgia for the band that first put ...
Review by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, June 2000
On his first two solo albums (I Can't Stand Still and Building the Perfect Beast), Don Henley made yearning his great theme. Something had disappeared ...
Pearl Jam: Live in Europe 1-25
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, October 2000
PEARL JAM's late-spring 2000 tour is remembered for the mosh-pit tragedy that claimed the lives of nine fans in Denmark. But up until then, the ...
Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne: Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt: Rock for Java
Live Review by Charles Bermant, Rolling Stone, June 2001
BACK IN THE 1970s, when Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt became notorious for spearheading benefit concerts, the issues were, well, more clear cut: Vote for ...
Iggy Pop: The Importance of Being Iggy
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Rolling Stone, July 2001
JAMES NEWELL OSTERBERG, a.k.a. Iggy Pop, once billed himself as the "world's forgotten boy," but that is no longer the case. From fronting the proto-punk ...
Buffalo Springfield: The Box Set
Review by Ben Edmonds, Rolling Stone, July 2001
BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD are that rarest of beasts: an influential 1960s band whose recorded legacy hasn't been recycled into dust. Classic-rock radio stations don't dig much ...
Kinks, The: Ray Davies: Rocking My Life Away
Interview by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, March 2002
Lost Davies interview illuminates the "underrated" Kinks ...
back to LIBRARY
Best Databases: RBP is Runner-up in Best Niche category
Video: Johnny Marr talks about Rock's Backpages
download eBooks and audio interviews
RBP on Spotify: The Very Best of 40-year-old Virgin
RBP Album Club, June 13th: Miki Berenyi and Lucy O'Brien celebrate a Blondie classic
Essential Listening: Green Day grilled by Roy Trakin
RBP Album Club, July 11th: Nick Hornby and Nick Coleman celebrate Southside Johnny's debut
Essential Reading: Bud Scoppa's 1971 Byrds classic