Sunday Times
Supremes, The, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson: Motown: The Gold In Their Bodies
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1970
CONSIDERED TOGETHER at a party in New York, Nina Simone, the highly political folk singer, and Diana Ross, principal exhibit of the Motown Record Corporation, ...
George Harrison, Delaney & Bonnie, Eric Clapton: Eric Clapton: God is a Guitarist
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1970
GEORGE HARRISON sat with a painfully thin fellow in a motorway restaurant, a graveyard of the digestion outside London. ...
Champion Jack Dupree: Travelling North
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1971
AROUND 1920, Champion Jack Dupree left the Coloured Waifs Home for Boys, New Orleans, and started walking. He had nobody. His father and mother were ...
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1971
JAMES BROWN will die on the stage one night, on the moving staircase of his own feet in front of a thirty-piece band; and then ...
Johnny Cash: Jailhouse, Jesus and H.G. Wells
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1971
THE HEAVY carved front door into House of Cash, Johnny Cash's state mansion, in Madison, Tennessee, swung inward to reveal blinding sunshine and the awe-struck ...
Sleepy John Estes, Hammie Nixon: Sleepy John Estes: Sleepy, Getting Sleepier
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1972
THE ROAD stops at Sleepy John's house, at the top of a ploughed field, outside Brownsville, Tennessee, where the earth is thick and unyielding as ...
Chet Atkins, Ernest Tubb: The Cold, Cold Heart of Country Music
Report by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1972
FOR ALL that Country and Western hopes nothing will change, its heroes die horribly fast. ...
Radio KBIM: Radio Fun in Roswell
Report by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1972
CLOSE TO Albuquerque, New Mexico, as we hung motionless on the streaming white trans-America road, the voice on the radio-dial faded and returned in yet ...
Everly Brothers, The: The Everly Brothers: Growing Apart
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1972
PHIL IS THE fastidious one. Don was happy to stay at another motel with a northern draught sweeping its gallery and cows grazing round the ...
Hawkwind, Frank Zappa: The Foulk Brothers: Pop Promoting Blues
Report by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1972
"RONNIE..." RONALD Foulk's secretary broke into the conference. "Will you accept a transfer call from America?" ...
Faces, The, Rod Stewart: Rod Stewart: The Familiar Face
Report by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1974
THROUGH THE colonnades they come, along freezing passage-ways. Girls look like ventriloquist-dolls, in black plush and rouge, puffing as dolls do on big cigarettes; boys ...
Suzi Quatro: The Girl in the Gang
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1974
A SEPARATE dressing-room had been provided upstairs, but Suzi Quatro preferred to use the same one as her band. It was large, clean, grey and ...
Frank Sinatra: Palladium, London
Live Review by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1974
THE EMERGENCE of Frank Sinatra from retirement has become as regular a ceremony as when Lloyd George or Churchill used to be wheeled out on ...
Chuck Berry: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1976
IT IS MORE than 20 years since the world first laid startled eyes on a young man with a crouching gait and a skinny guitar ...
Bill Haley: A Piece of Gold in my Pocket
Profile by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1976
CLOSE TO his 50th birthday, Bill Haley seems to be in excellent repair. ...
Fats Domino: Rockin' in Your Seat
Profile and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1976
FATS DOMINO is relaxing among his half-unpacked luggage, his glass-heeled shoes, his address-book, his diamonds and his Gideon Bible. ...
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1976
RINGO STARR was to be viewed ceremonially last week, in Paris. He and his courtiers were accommodated at the George V hotel, where Salade Belle ...
Dolly Parton: Dolly, Tammy and Carl: In The Wembley Wild West
Report by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, April 1976
THE GUNFIGHTER walks alone, staying close to the side of the street. His clothes are black and faintly luminous. His hat is tied insolently under ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Gathering No Moss
Profile and Interview by James Fox, Sunday Times, May 1976
IN GLASGOW tomorrow, the Rolling Stones begin the British section of their European tour, which ends with six concerts at Earl's Court – an unusual ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Not All Fun, Fun, Fun
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1977
WHEREVER BRIAN Wilson goes, his cousin Steve is never far away. ...
Barry White: I'm in a Beautiful Mood
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1977
BARRY WHITE is the singer who turned black Soul music into a product closer akin to soggy white blancmange. ...
Bryan Ferry: Mask Behind A Mask
Profile by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, January 1977
BRYAN FERRY'S jeans are as outmoded in style as high fashion can contrive. He wears a blue shirt and black official tie, framed by a ...
Fleetwood Mac: Carrying the Albatross
Profile and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1978
FLEETWOOD MAC have returned to Britain, a decade after their song 'Albatross' set a new mood and mellow tone for the rock guitar. But that ...
Blondie: Debbie Harry: Rhapsody in Blonde
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1980
IN A TALL, draughty brownstone house, off New York's Second Avenue, preparations are afoot to videotape a sequence for Blondie's new single record, 'Rapture'. The ...
John Lennon, Beatles, The: John Lennon: I Was Never Lovable – I Was Just Lennon
Obituary by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, December 1980
ONE OF THE more persistent myths surrounding John Lennon claims that he was brought up in poverty by working-class Liverpool parents. ...
Police, The: Sting and The Police: The Rhetoric of Stardom
Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1981
IT IS NOT Sting but his alter ego Gordon Sumner who opens the door of the smart Hampstead house, one hand restraining a large, black, ...
Bruce Springsteen: A responsible rocker
Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, Sunday Times, May 1981
Bob Dylan arrives in Britain next month hoping to repeat his triumphant series of concerts of three years ago. Many observers feel that his timing ...
Bob Dylan: Earl's Court, London
Live Review by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, June 1981
HE WOULD not be Bob Dylan if he did not make us constantly fear the worst. ...
Yoko Ono, John Lennon: Yoko Ono: Life Without John
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, June 1981
IT IS FIVE months since the shots were fired. The Dakota Building shares in that relief which Spring fleetingly gives to New York. Beside the ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: What Makes the Stones Keep Rolling
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, Fall 1981
THE JOHN F. Kennedy Stadium, Philadelphia, is a bleak circle of red-tinted stone, with colonnades and sub-Gothic arch-ways recalling some nineteenth century British colonial fort. ...
Ry Cooder: All-American Music Man: Ry Cooder
Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, May 1982
IT WAS THE MEXICANS that did it. The violent hue of his shirt notwithstanding, the tall, taciturn figure in the centre of the stage looked ...
Marianne Faithfull: My Credit is Good
Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1983
WHEN MARIANNE Faithfull goes out nowadays, it is usually to the Chelsea Arts Club. The whitewashed house in Old Church Street, a cross between country ...
Berry Gordy: The Man in the Middle
Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, 1984
Surrounded by the stars he created – Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross – stands Berry Gordy, the man who 25 years ago founded ...
Van Halen: The Secret of Van Halen’s Excess
Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, 1984
IT IS another perfect day in paradise, and David Lee Roth has decided to go for a drive down Hollywood Boulevard. ...
Smiths, The: The Smiths: Deliberately
Interview by Jon Savage, Sunday Times, January 1984
THESE ARE EXCITING times for the Smiths. A top 20 record with only their second single, ‘This Charming Man’; a non-stop stream of interviews that ...
Ray Davies: Sadness and A Kind Of Fame
Interview by Johnny Black, Sunday Times, March 1984
RAY DAVIES has always been a rough diamond. The famous gap-toothed smile is still there, he mumbles through his polysyllables and, bit by bit, he ...
Bob Dylan: 'Jesus, Who's Got Time to Keep Up with the Times?'
Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, July 1984
This week Bob Dylan comes to Britain. The folksinger-cum-folk hero of the 1960s has not always had a good reception here. In 1965 purists attacked ...
Michael Jackson: Inside the Jackson Dream Machine
Essay by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, August 1984
IN THE Helmsley Palace Hotel, New York – an establishment whose style is best described as neo-Liberace – the lobby was filling up with Michael ...
Bob Geldof: The Rat And The Band Aid "Saint"
Report and Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, December 1984
BOB GELDOF has been transformed from fading Boomtown Rat to charity superstar behind Christmas’s biggest pop hit, helping Ethiopian famine victims. Mick Brown reports. ...
Pete Townshend: A Musician’s Rocky Road To Bloomsbury
Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, 1985
THERE IS about Pete Townshend nowadays a sense of balance which is hard to equate with the Pete Townshend the pop music audience came to ...
Bob Dylan: Times A-Changin’ for a Prophet Who Just Wants to Play
Profile by Steve Turner, Sunday Times, August 1986
When Bob Dylan takes to the stage today at the National Film Theatre in London to face the press, he is unlikely to repeat the ...
Jackson Browne: Heartache Out, Protest In: Jackson Browne
Report and Interview by Steve Turner, Sunday Times, October 1986
"Doesn’t he look young!" gasped a woman behind me as Jackson Browne strolled on stage to kick off his six-date London run which ends tonight. ...
Terence Trent D'Arby: Terence Trent D’Arby
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Sunday Times, 1987
WHEN Terence Trent D’Arby’s very first single was released four months ago, it became difficult to open a magazine or turn on the television without ...
Prince’s Crown Starts to Slip: Love Sexy
Review by David Toop, Sunday Times, May 1988
It is difficult these days to find a pop musician who enjoys general critical euphoria, but for the past few years Prince has escaped the ...
Ry Cooder, David Lindley: Ry Cooder & David Lindley: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, July 1990
A backroom Stone slides into town ...
Joni Mitchell: A Joni Mitchell Interview
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, September 1990
"WHAT DO I THINK of the new Joni Mitchells?" Joni Mitchell grins, sucks appreciatively on another cigarette and thinks hard, as she often does, before ...
Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, The: Loudmouths: The Disposable Heroes Of HipHopRisy
Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, 1992
It grew out of raw anger. Can rap turn politically correct? ...
Garth Brooks: A Life In The Day Of Garth Brooks
Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, 1992
Original version of piece for The Sunday Times Magazine ...
Ry Cooder, Little Village: Ry Cooder: At Home In The Village
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 1992
Robert Sandall talks to Ry Cooder about the band that has given his guitar-playing a new sense of pleasure and purpose ...
U2: Flying High With a Jet Set
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, May 1992
HAVING, BY his own account, spent most of the 1980s "trying to dodge being a rock star," Bono aka Paul Hewson, the singer and most ...
Neneh Cherry: A Life In The Day Of . . . Neneh Cherry
Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, September 1992
Born of a West African father and a Swedish mother, Neneh Cherry, 28, takes her name from the American jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, whom her ...
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, September 1993
SEVEN STORIES above Frankfurt, in the city's most expensive shopping centre – the Japanese styled glass colossus Zeilgalerie – Europe's most unusual monthly club is, ...
Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, November 1993
WHEN HER STUNNING DEBUT album Tuesday Night Music Club was released, critics rushed to compare Missouri-born Sheryl Crow to everyone from Rickie Lee Jones to ...
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, December 1993
SAN FRANCISCO'S Oakland area has a history of producing great, energetic groups - from Sly & The Family Stone and The Pointer Sisters to Hammer ...
Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, January 1994
"SHHH." THE admonition echoes around the room, stalling conversation in mid-drawl, beer in mid-swallow. The ensuing hush is equal parts reverence and show-me. ...
Profile and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, Sunday Times, July 1996
IN 1989, DE LA Soul's debut album Three Feet High And Rising was hailed by New York's Village Voice as "the Sergeant Pepper of hip ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 1997
WHILE NOBODY questions his status as one of rock's great originals, Captain Beefheart's madcap variations on the blues are an acquired taste. Armed with a ...
Spice Girls, The: Spice Girls: Gone But Not Forgotten
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, June 1998
POOR GAZZA. Or should that be typical Gazza? Looking for a holiday destination as far from the World Cup as possible, he chooses the Ritz-Carlton ...
Rolling Stones, The, Mick Jagger: Mick Jagger: The Old Man and The Sex
Profile by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1999
For years he's been renowned as a serial-philandering, penny-wise dinosaur of rock – still implicated in paternity suits for divorce settlements in his mid-50s. But ...
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 2000
DECEMBER 1973. It's the time of the Middle East oil crisis; the miners' strike that they got away with; the national three-day working week; constant ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley and Dennis Morris: Marley's Ghost
Profile and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 2001
ONE DAY in the troubled winter of 1973, a 16-year-old wannabe photographer named Dennis Morris played truant from school in Hackney, east London, and took ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones in Exile
Retrospective by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 2001
THE TWO pre-eminent British bands of the gaudy 1960s marked the grey dawn of the 1970s in very different ways. ...
Sex Pistols, The: Sex Pistols: History Is Punk
Retrospective and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 2001
More than 20 years after they committed high treason during the Queen's silver jubilee, the Sex Pistols are still the kings of rock rebellion. As ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: The Crowning of King Mick
Retrospective by Chris Salewicz, Sunday Times, October 2002
It is hard to believe that Mick Jagger was once just another Rolling Stone. How did he become an idol? Chris Salewicz, his biographer, tells ...
Blur, Pulp, Oasis: Britpop: And The Beat Goes Off
Retrospective by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, February 2003
Britpop recalled the halcyon days of the Beatles and the Stones – but the party didn't last ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, August 2003
TO MOST VISITORS and residents, Santa Monica is Los Angeles-on-sea, a breezy, oceanside reprieve from the bad air, nose-to-tail buildings and car-choked "boulevards" that sprawl ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Alive and Kicking
Book Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, August 2003
According To The Rolling Stones edited by Dora Loewenstein, Philip Dodd and Charlie Watts (Weidenfeld £30 pp359) ...
David Bowie: The star looks very different today
Comment by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, August 2003
SO FAR AS the world knows, David Bowie has been cruising in an enviable holding pattern for at least 10 years: a wealthy rock aristo ...
Randy Newman: He Shoots From The Lip
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, September 2003
Randy Newman’s barbed-wire lyrics and arch social commentary are bang on today – and his new album proves it, says Robert Sandall ...
George Harrison: Jolly George – The Unsung Story
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, October 2003
In a rare interview, George Harrison's widow Olivia tells Robert Sandall of his hidden circle of friends and fun, and that attack ...
Sarah McLachlan: Her Own Woman
Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, January 2004
IN LA, EVERYONE knows her name. Indeed, for many American women, Sarah McLachlan is an icon. In London, however, she is usually confused with Craig, ...
Tom Jones, Jools Holland: Tom Jones: Boyo's Got The Blues
Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, September 2004
THE MUSIC WORLD is definitely out of kilter. Rod Stewart has become a crooner and Tom Jones is singing rock'n'roll. At an age when most ...
James Blunt: Marching To A New Beat
Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, April 2005
GENETICALLY, JAMES Blunt is much too posh to rock. Public school (Harrow), a top university (Bristol), Sandhurst and a commission in the Household Cavalry is ...
Nancy Sinatra: Her Boots Are Walkin' On Back
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, March 2006
Ol' Blue Eyes' daughter, Nancy Sinatra, is mixing with the cool crowd now, says Robert Sandall ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: Last Wild Man Of Rock 'N Roll Standing
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 2007
The six wives, the shootings, the arrests, the addictions – Jerry Lee Lewis was the original wild man of rock'n'roll. And at 71, he still ...
Joss Stone: The Undoctored Ms Stone, I Presume: Joss Stone
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 2007
MEETING JOSS STONE in the Electric Lady recording suite in downtown Manhattan feels curiously appropriate. Set up in 1968 by Jimi Hendrix, who named his ...
Joni Mitchell: The Renaissance Woman
Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, February 2007
At last the times have caught up with Joni Mitchell – musician, artist and now inspiration for a ballet ...
Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, May 2007
MIKA MAKES Marmite pop music. Back in January, when 'Grace Kelly' first leapt out of the radio, people rushed to instant judgment. Indifference was not ...
Report by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, July 2007
Library gigs, recycled sleeves, free CDs – our correspondent finds novel ways to get your music to the masses ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, September 2007
RECOGNISING HIM is not a problem. As he strides purposefully across the concourse of Waterloo station it's easy to figure why Paul Weller is referred ...
PJ Harvey Steps into the Light
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, September 2007
ON THE FACE OF IT, precious little has changed in the world of PJ Harvey in the 14 years since we first met. On that ...
Harry Connick Jr: When Harry met Katrina
Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, Sunday Times, September 2007
Harry Connick Jr wasn't one to write about personal grief – until the hurricane hit his beloved New Orleans ...
Gorillaz, Blur: Damon Albarn: From Pop to Opera
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, November 2008
He's indifferent to money and drugs. He hates the celebrity circus. And he famously said no to Tony Blair – but yes to getting drunk ...
Lily Allen: Talented, Troubled and Wallowing in Her Father's Footsteps
Profile by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, January 2009
WHATEVER AMOROUS tale they really told, the ostensibly loved-up paparazzi shots that flashed around the world in early January telegraphed the fact that Lily Allen ...
Madonna: Why Madonna's Still A Material Girl
Profile by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, April 2009
Turning 50 and divorcing Guy Ritchie doesn’t seem to have dented Madonna’s fortune – or her bankability. Robert Sandall investigates the business of being a ...
Massive Attack: The Return of Massive Attack
Profile and Interview by Will Self, Sunday Times, January 2010
SOMEWHERE BACK in the early 1990s, when Britain was dull in a different way, I first heard Massive Attack's Blue Lines. Then in my early ...
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