Songwriters and Singer-Songwriters
Bob Dylan: The First Interview
Press Release by Billy James, (Columbia Records), October 1961
DYLAN: Well, let me say that I was born in Duluth, Minnesota – give that a little plug. That's where I was born and, uh, ...
Report and Interview by Al Aronowitz, Saturday Evening Post, August 1963
2003 note: The following was trimmed down to fit in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post by Bill Ewald, one of the few editors ...
Mort Shuman: The Man Who Writes Hits For The U.S. Stars
Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, January 1964
IF ANYONE bothers to look just under the titles of their records, they'll see a name or names in brackets. Those names are the songwriters. ...
Burt Bacharach, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick: Burt Bacharach: 'Time Is My Enemy'
Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, September 1964
"I JUST DON'T get enough time to cram everything in," top U.S. songwriter, arranger and producer Burt Bacharach told me, during a two-day visit last ...
Beatles, The: Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters — A Portrait from 1966
Interview by Michael Lydon, unpublished, March 1966
Just after the release of Rubber Soul, I had the chance to meet John Lennon and Paul McCartney in London, and I conducted in-depth interviews ...
Simon & Garfunkel: Too Many Releases 'Kill' Simon And Garfunkel 'Rock' Single
Interview by Keith Altham, NME, July 1966
IN AUGUST, 1965, an album titled The Paul Simon Song Book was released by CBS featuring the composition 'I Am A Rock'. In September a ...
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Smokey Robinson: The Other Smokey Robinson — Songwriter
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Detroit Free Press, October 1966
BACK IN 1957 Bill "Smokey" Robinson, then 17, bumped into Berry Gordy Jr. Smokey had a stack of about 100 songs he had written, and ...
Monkees, The, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart: The Story Of Tommy Boyce And Bobby Hart
Report by Derek Taylor, World Countdown News, 1967
THE HOTEL CHESTERFIELD is not one of New York’s most majestic hotels, but it has a virtue prized by lyricists and tunesmiths for it is ...
Scott Walker: Scott Keeps One Step Ahead
Interview by Keith Altham, NME, July 1967
AND SO the moving singer, having moved — moves on. Scott Walker is still one jump ahead of the fans in his pursuit of privacy. ...
Harry Nilsson: Nilsson: An Underground Artist Surfaces
Interview by Jacoba Atlas, KRLA Beat, January 1968
NILSSON IS a new singer-composer who is wholly unique. It is totally superfluous to compare him to anyone else on the pop scene today, for ...
Rod McKuen: 'We're Being Bombarded With Love'
Interview by Jacoba Atlas, KRLA Beat, March 1968
ARE WE rushing headlong into another Romantic Era? The Doors, the Stones, Allen Ginsberg and Andy Warhol all belie that fact, but other trends seem ...
Judy Collins, Tim Buckley, Janis Ian, Tim Hardin: The Folk Poets: Hardin, Buckley, Ian & Collins
Profile by Jacoba Atlas, KRLA Beat, March 1968
MUSIC HAS become a very personal thing. With the advance of the writer-singer, songs have become an expression of internal feelings mirrored for everyone. These ...
Richard Harris, Jimmy Webb: Richard Harris Talks About Jim Webb
Interview by Keith Altham, NME, July 1968
On transatlantic phone to NME's Keith Altham ...
Tim Hardin Talking Of Life's Raw Deal...
Interview by Penny Valentine, Disc and Music Echo, July 1968
THAT TIM HARDIN actually arrived in London last week to embark on his first concert tour is a history-making event in itself. ...
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 ...
Harry Nilsson: Computers to Composer
Interview by Derek Boltwood, Record Mirror, September 1968
SOMETIMES – not very often – but sometimes. What? Sometimes exciting things happen in pop music. Talents emerge that are new, refreshing. A shot in ...
Interview by Derek Boltwood, Record Mirror, October 1968
Cat's back. Dogs and Matthew and his offspring and guns and things and now his wife. Not that he has a wife – but here ...
Jimmy Webb Writes For The Lonely
Profile and Interview by Keith Altham, NME Annual, 1969
IT IS VERY difficult for me to be objective about Jim Webb because there are some composers or artists who hit a chord of sympathy ...
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 ...
David Ackles: The Bitter End, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, New York Times, December 1969
DAVID ACKLES is one of the more interesting young performers working in the Brecht/Weill area of dramatic song. The 32-year-old Californian, a former playwright, writes ...
Tony Joe White: Tony Joe, Elvis, and Polk Salad Annie
Report by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, 1970
TONY JOE WHITE was one of the first of the new school of Southern singer/songwriters – along with Jerry Reed, Joe South, Leon Russell, Dough ...
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 ...
Joni Mitchell: Let's Make Life More Romantic
Profile and Interview by Jacoba Atlas, Melody Maker, June 1970
JONI MITCHELL is a poet whose time has come. Because she uses the vehicle of music, her words and thoughts reach out to countless minds. ...
John Phillips: John The Wolfking of L.A. (Stateside)
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, June 1970
INSIDE THE Mama's and the Papa's, something better was waiting to get out – and this is it. ...
Report by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, July 1970
JONI MITCHELL is a beautiful lady, one who write and sings songs born from the depths of her experience, a word painter who shows us ...
Jimmy Webb: Did Jim Webb Really Need Richard Harris?
Report and Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, October 1970
WORK ON the theory that ‘talent will out’ – and Jim Webb, fantastically consistent young American composer, would have made it anyway. In fact, though, ...
Profile and Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, October 1970
JAMES TAYLOR was in town and you could tell it by the buzz in the air and the musicians who walked around muttering his name ...
James Taylor, Matthews' Southern Comfort: Palladium, London
Live Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, October 1970
THE CLUMSY, gangling, instantly lovable James Taylor conquered the London Palladium and made his eventual return to England a triumphant one on Sunday. ...
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 Richard Williams, Melody Maker, November 1970
THIS IS presumably Buckley's last album for Elektra, being recorded (so I'm told) at the same time as Happy/Sad and before his first Straight album, ...
Beach Boys, The, Brian Wilson: Staying Home: Brian Wilson
Report and Interview by Derek Grant, Melody Maker, November 1970
"IT WAS A MISTAKE but I had to try it. After about half an hour I realised I couldn't go on. My ears hurt, I ...
Bernie Taupin, Elton John: Elton John: New Superstar
Interview by Jacoba Atlas, Circus, December 1970
ELTON JOHN played the Troubadour in Los Angeles and overnight became an industry superstar. Public relations people, having no personal or professional claim to the ...
Randy Newman: In Praise of the Ten Second Song
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, December 1970
THE MOST influential record of 1970 was the Edwin Hawkins' Singers' 'Oh Happy Day', which came out in 1969. It takes a while for people ...
Judee Sill: Judee Sill (Asylum)
Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 1971
JUDEE SILL IS one of those breed of American girls who’ve taken to singing who one supposes were previously engaged in quietly knitting at home ...
Profile by Richard Williams, Times, The, January 1971
THE CURRENT STATE of pop music allows its performers to make the most naked personal statements. Only an artist with considerable character, though, can keep ...
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, January 1971
THERE must be about four generations of pop music fans reading this paper, and to each of them Carole King means something different. ...
Paul Siebel: Woodsmoke and Oranges/Jackknife Gypsy
Review by Ellen Sander, Saturday Review, January 1971
PAUL SIEBEL albums, I have found, are a good prescription for tired ears, sort of country Geritol boosting the funk and grit in the bloodstream ...
Tim Hardin: Contemporary Songwriters: Tim Hardin
Profile by Penny Valentine, Sounds, February 1971
MANY SONGWRITERS could be said to expose a little of their soul during the course of their writing, but there can't be anyone in the ...
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 ...
David Bowie: Contemporary Songwriters: David Bowie
Profile by Penny Valentine, Sounds, May 1971
THE WORK of songwriters is conditioned by many things. Their environment, their childhood, their brushes with love, their hopes and dreams, their disillusionment. And they ...
James Taylor: Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon (Warner Reprise)
Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, May 1971
GOOD OLD predictable James has done it again. He offers not the slightest hint of surprise on his new album, and as expected he has ...
Carly Simon: The Bitter End, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, New York Times, May 1971
CARLY SIMON SINGS AT THE BITTER END ...
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? ...
John Denver: The Bitter End, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, New York Times, July 1971
John Denver Shows Sensitivity and Style In Bitter End Songs ...
Carole King: How Carole King Became Queen...
Profile by Tony Stewart, NME, October 1971
IN MANY ways, and for many reasons, it took Carole King a long time to record her first album, Writer, in 1970. As a writer ...
John Prine: The Troubadour, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Lester Bangs, Phonograph Record, January 1972
EVERYBODY'D BEEN talking about this guy Prine, how he was Kris Kristofferson's boozin' buddy or something, and since I like Kristofferson's Kerouacian American romanticism I ...
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 ...
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. ...
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 ...
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 ...
Bernie Taupin: Bernie Taupin (Elektra)
Review by Lester Bangs, Phonograph Record, March 1972
ON NEW YEAR'S EVE of 1972 I attended a great party thrown by someone I didn't know and inadvertently fell into a protracted conversation with ...
Interview by Phil Symes, Disc and Music Echo, March 1972
CARLY SIMON has been compared to a lot of people. She admits: "I'm told I sound like Judy Collins and my style of writing is ...
Randy Newman: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, March 1972
NEWMAN GIVING HIS ALL ...
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, March 1972
SHE HAS JUST been discoursing on her past activities as lerpatologist when her attention was distracted. "That's the same man who was lying on the ...
Interview by James Johnson, NME, April 1972
ACCORDING to Judee Sill: "Out of the mud grows a lotus". In other words something beautiful comes from something unpleasant. The phrase applies well to ...
Judee Sill: A Sill-y Story: Judee Sill
Interview by Rosalind Russell, Disc and Music Echo, April 1972
JUDEE SILL is quite a remarkable woman. When you consider her past it becomes apparent just how remarkable. She lost both her parents and her ...
Joni Mitchell: An Interview (part 1)
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, June 1972
THE LADY who walks on eggs is sitting in her hotel suite overlooking St. James' Park with her legs tucked up, her chin resting on ...
Joni Mitchell: An Interview (part 2)
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, June 1972
LAST WEEK Joni Mitchell spoke for the first time in over two years about why she virtually "retired" from the music scene during a period ...
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 ...
Interview by Danny Holloway, NME, July 1972
SMOKEY ROBINSON is a hell of a lot more than just a giant of soul or Motown. For more than a decade, his original and ...
Report and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, NME, August 1972
WITHIN a year of its composer Bill Withers taking it high up the American chart, 'Ain't No Sunshine' has become firmly established as a soul ...
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, August 1972
ERIC ANDERSEN is not one who has been graced with the best of luck. ...
John Prine: An Interview with John Prine
Interview by Norman Jopling, unpublished, September 1972
JOHN PRINE IS THE GUY that sang the song about the hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes, and a whole bunch of ...
Profile by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, September 1972
BARBARA LYNN is probably best known for her composition of 'You'll Lose A Good Thing', which she recorded herself in 1962 and gained a Gold ...
Bill Withers: Morale Music For The People In The Ghetto
Interview by Ian MacDonald, NME, September 1972
A TELEPHONE CABLE that runs off the edge of Britain, down under the Atlantic, and up again into the heart of North America to St. ...
Review by Loraine Alterman, New York Times, September 1972
Stephen Stills: Manassas (Atlantic); The Impressions: Times Have Changed (Curtom); The Staple Singers: Be Altitude: Respect Yourself (Stax); Tom Rush: Merrimack County (Columbia) ...
David Ackles: Oh Lord, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood: The Overrating of David Ackles
Essay by Jeff Walker, Phonograph Record, October 1972
A FEW MONTHS ago a sometimes pleasant, sometimes depressing, sometimes intriguing, sometimes boring album by David Ackles, called American Gothic, was released by Elektra Records. ...
Tim Buckley, Domenic Troiano: Tim Buckley: Greetings from LA/ Domenic Troiano: Dom
Review by Simon Frith, Cream, November 1972
DOMENIC TROIANO has just been signed up as lead guitarist for the James Gang (transfer fees?) but I don't know where he came from nor ...
Bill Withers: Lots of Sunshine for Bill Withers
Profile and Interview by Phil Symes, Disc and Music Echo, November 1972
MOST SONGWRITERS dream of one day writing a standard. Singers dream of establishing one. Bill Withers does both – frequently. You only have to look ...
Bill Withers: Making Music Till He Drops
Report and Interview by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, November 1972
THE QUEST for that intangible magic with which so few of us are blessed, can often entail a very long journey indeed. And whilst Bill ...
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. ...
Interview by Tony Stewart, NME, November 1972
DRIVING OUT of London in his sparkling red Citroen, bound for Manor Studios, Oxfordshire, John McCoy talked about his girl Claire Hamill in a manner ...
Joni Mitchell: The Troubadour, Los Angeles
Live Review by Steven Rosen, Sounds, December 1972
Steve Rosen reports from the West Coast ...
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, December 1972
MORE SONGS OF transient euphoria and stabbing loss, played out against an ambiguous background of relentless fatalism and constant hope, mingled in approximately equal proportions, ...
Dory Previn: Surviving All Odds: Dory Previn
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, December 1972
WHEN DORY Previn wrote: "I no longer plead with heaven or go rummaging in books for the answers to the questions life contains", she had ...
Interview by James Johnson, Rock's Backpages Audio, Spring 1972
The vibrato in his body, the band in his head and the drugs in his veins: the legendary singer-songwriter in revealing, if somewhat dazed conversation.
File format: mp3; file size: 29mb, interview length: 31' 37" sound quality: ****
Joni Mitchell: A Tender Dignity
Guide by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, January 1973
ONE DAY, many years ago, Al Kooper went home with a blonde Canadian chick who used to hang out with the Blues Project. In the ...
Leonard Cohen: Cohen, Cohen, Gone: Leonard Cohen
Interview by Roy Hollingworth, Melody Maker, February 1973
"LET'S sing a song, boys. . . . This one has grown old and bitter"– fragment from Songs of Love and Hate ...
Chuck Berry's Influence on the UK R & B Scene
Essay by John Pidgeon, Let It Rock, April 1973
'DING-A-LING' gave Chuck Berry his only British No 1 seventeen years after his first record release, 'Maybellene'. He had five Top Ten hits in the ...
Carly Simon, Mary Travers, Dory Previn: Record World Forum: Three Artists on the New Consciousness
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Record World, May 1973
Carly Simon, Dory Previn and Mary Travers are three major artists whose work and lives exemplify the independent role women are assuming in society. As ...
Tom Waits: Thursday Afternoon, Sober as a Judge
Profile and Interview by Jeff Walker, Music World, June 1973
IT IS SOMETIMES extremely difficult to separate an artist from the trend he's involved in; even if there's only a single element that makes him ...
Bill Withers: Live At Carnegie Hall (A&M)
Review by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, June 1973
FIRST TIME I saw Bill Withers live he was appearing at the huge Louisiana State Fair in Baton Rouge to a matter of about 20,000 ...
Albert Hammond: Free Electric Band
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, July 1973
ALBERT HAMMOND, despite his recent ascension to the pop limelight, is no overnight phenom. ...
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 Loraine Alterman, New York Times, July 1973
A Bland Carole King ...
Jonathan Richman, Modern Lovers, The: Jonathan Richmond [sic]: Excerpt from an Interview
Interview by Scott Cohen, Interview, August 1973
Jonathan Richmond is the singing lead of the Modern Lovers, a Boston band bound to be the Next Big Thing in rock. They are currently ...
Albert Hammond: Moroccan Strip Clubs To All American Boy
Report and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, NME, August 1973
DESPITE THAT rich, drawling brogue and songs like 'It Never Rains In Southern California', Albert Hammond is no American. As it happens, he was born ...
Judy Collins: Judy In Disguise
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Melody Maker, September 1973
Judy Collins film director? The singer – songwriter has taken a year out of her life to make a movie with a strong Womens' Lib ...
Jaki Whitren: The I Don't Want To Be A Star Star
Interview by Tony Stewart, NME, September 1973
NOT THE USUAL pub or press office for interviewing this newcomer. Oh no. For Jaki Whitren — CBS have put their money where their faith ...
Lowell George, Van Dyke Parks: Van Dyke Parks
Interview by John Tobler, Hot Wacks, November 1973
...with contributions from Lowell George and Pete Frame. ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (Columbia)
Review by Bruce Pollock, New York Times, December 1973
WHEN BRUCE Springsteen's first Columbia album, Greetings From Asbury Park, came out almost a year ago, it was met with the most extravagant and outrageous ...
Interview by Tom Graves, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1974
Interviewed by Kini Kedigh and Tom Graves just as he's starting to hit big, Manilow talks about his background in music, backing Bette Midler at the Continental Baths, and gives his opinions on just about everything under the sun.
File format: mp3; file size: 45.1mb, interview length: 49' 16" sound quality: *
Tim Hardin: The Legend of Tim Hardin
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, January 1974
A CHUNKY, muscular figure. Penetrating eyes. Wispy black hair ever so slightly receding. What the hell is a legend supposed to look like anyway? "The ...
Carly Simon: 'I Don't Enjoy Performing'
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Modern Hi-Fi and Music, February 1974
NOW THAT she and her husband James Taylor are parents, Carly Simon has no plans to perform except on vinyl. And with her fourth album ...
David Ackles: Just A Handful Of Songs
Interview by John Tobler, Melody Maker, February 1974
DAVID ACKLES has got a great house in Pacific Palisades, a few miles west of Los Angeles, and thereby close to the ocean, although the ...
Gallagher & Lyle: Gallagher and Lyle: Music For The People
Profile and Interview by Dave Laing, Let It Rock, April 1974
BENNY GALLAGHER and Graham Lyle aren't singer-songwriters, they're songwriters who sing. They are not really interested in the idea of baring their souls before the ...
Leiber and Stoller: Leiber And Stoller Part One: The Blues (1950-1953)
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Let It Rock, May 1974
JERRY LEIBER AND MIKE STOLLER. They rank alongside Berry as rock ‘n’ roll’s wittiest composers and their influence as record producers has been immeasurable. ...
Harry Chapin: Short Stories of Harry Chapin
Report and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, May 1974
SHORT STORIES is the most apt title for Harry Chapin's new album, for Chapin is not so much a singer as a storyteller, an artist ...
Leiber and Stoller: Leiber And Stoller Part One: Part Two: The rock ‘n’ roll years
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Let It Rock, June 1974
THE SWITCH from blues to rock ‘n’ roll was gradual and, as far as Leiber and Stoller were concerned, never total. ...
Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel: Paul Simon: Not So Simple Simon
Essay by Dave Laing, Let It Rock, June 1974
Dave Laing surveys Paul Simon's ten years in music ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, June 1974
Take a holiday, Elton. Take two. ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, August 1974
Rock verite — the Beatrix Potter way ...
Crosby Stills and Nash, Crosby Stills Nash and Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: So Far
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, September 1974
Gormlessly groping ...
Dory Previn: Dory Previn (Warner Bros.)
Review by Loraine Alterman, New York Times, September 1974
The Perceptive Songs Of Dory Previn ...
Press Release by uncredited writer, A&M Records, October 1974
TOM JANS is a native Californian with a life-long love for music and language. He crammed his adolescence full of books, sports, and music, playing ...
Review by Loraine Alterman, New York Times, October 1974
The Songwriter Sings ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, October 1974
IT MUST BE something of a bringdown for Pete Atkin that so much of the critical interest in his albums is focused on his collaborator, ...
Bay City Rollers, The: Phil Coulter: The Creator
Interview by Harry Doherty, Disc and Music Echo, November 1974
Disc meets the man behind the Rollers and many others ...
Neil Sedaka: The Tra-La Days Are Back
Profile by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, December 1974
I DON'T NEED to refer to any books or charts to tell you that Neil Sedaka's ‘Breaking Up is Hard to Do’ was one of ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
ALTHOUGH AT FIRST he may sound like an early incarnation of Bob Dylan, lyrically John Prine has a voice all his own. Fusing his country ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Loudon Wainwright
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
ANOTHER OF THE new breed of songwriters – sharp, witty, terse, incisive – Loudon Wainwright III arrived on the Greenwich Village scene just as it ...
Linda Creed, Thom Bell: Philly’s Lyric Queen: Linda Creed
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
IN THE ‘70S THE most popular form of music is, once again, R&B, also known as Soul. Emanating primarily from Philadelphia, it is a laid-back ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
THIS HUSBAND-AND-WIFE country songwriting team have been at it for more than twenty-five years, proving the old adage, the family that plays together, stays together. ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
MELANIE EMERGED on the music scene, a tiny figure in the rain at Woodstock in 1969, alone onstage with her guitar and her songs. She ...
John Sebastian, Lovin' Spoonful, The: John Sebastian
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to describe the feeling, being away from the Village for the first time, living in San Francisco in the summer of 1965, ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
DOC POMUS (with Mort Shuman), Jerry Leiber (with Mike Stoller), Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and a handful of others were the seminal figures during the ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books) , 1975
ALONG WITH HIS first wife, composer Carole King, Gerry Goffin has been responsible for some of the most memorable and enduring music of the early ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
FIRST TOM SANKEY brought The Golden Screw to off-off Broadway. Then, summarizing rapidly, Al Carmines applied his lyric touch to the outrageous Home Movies and ...
Grateful Dead, Robert Hunter: Robert Hunter
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
ROBERT HUNTER is the resident lyricist for the Grateful Dead, rock eminences of the San Francisco scene. An underground poet with a solo album, Tales ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, In Their Own Words (Collier Books), 1975
SLOWLY BUT SURELY, almost against his will, Randy Newman has become a legend in his own time although not too many people know it, or ...
Book Excerpt by Bruce Pollock, 'In Their Own Words' (Collier Books), 1975
HARRY CHAPIN IS probably the most novelistic of our songwriters. Using techniques most often found in prose, he has created a series of story songs, ...
Lou Reed Does Not Want Anyone To Know How He Writes His Songs
Interview by Bruce Pollock, Modern Hi-Fi and Music, 1975
LOU REED THINKS he's gone as deep as he wants to go for his own mental health. If he got any deeper, he'd wind up ...
Joni Mitchell: Miles Of Aisles
Review by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, January 1975
THE TWO MOST annoying things (to me) about Joni Mitchell in the early years of her career were her songs, which often seemed impersonal, shallow ...
10cc: The Worst Band In The World?
Retrospective and Interview by Alan Betrock, ZigZag, January 1975
WHILE MANY of the veterans on the 1960s musical scene are still around, few are creating much in the way of new musical excitement. There ...
Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, January 1975
Randy Newman’s album starts:‘Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV showwith some smartass New York Jewand the Jew laughed at Lester MaddoxAnd the ...
Neil Sedaka: Packing Up Is Hard To Do
Profile and Interview by John Pidgeon, Let It Rock, January 1975
1. A Stairway To HeavenAs a Brooklyn-born Jewish boy of Spanish descent, Neil Sedaka may have been a typical New Yorker, but he wasn't a ...
Essay by Nick Kent, NME, January 1975
Question: what well-known biped possesses an upper-register vocalic system, is pleasant to look upon, and is almost universally misunderstood and/or patronised? Answer: any Rock 'n ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, January 1975
ONE DAY WHEN it was raining, I swore a great and terrible oath. ...
Leiber and Stoller: Jerry Leiber And Mike Stoller: By Royal Appointment
Interview by Roger St. Pierre, NME, February 1975
THE SCENE IS the Dorchester Hotel, one of the last vestiges of Britain's Imperial splendour and we've just been refused admission to the restaurant for ...
Leo Sayer: One Man Band No Longer
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, February 1975
WHEN LITTLE Leo Sayer does his Michael Crawford impersonation and becomes disaster prone Frank, protective instincts are aroused, and folk cluster around to prevent him ...
Tom Rush - Ladies Love Outlaws
Review by Max Bell, NME, February 1975
IN THE PAST Tom Rush has been hailed as a great interpreter, someone who can lift a number by nuance and feeling. His latest album ...
Leonard Cohen: The Romantic in a Ragpicker's Trade
Interview by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1975
"I THINK MARRIAGE is the hottest furnace of the spirit today," Leonard Cohen said on the phone from Mexico. "Much more difficult than solitude, much ...
Tim Buckley: Greeetings From L.A.
Review by Max Bell, NME, March 1975
WAY BACK in the dim and distant, old Tim had to sing for his supper, along with the likes of Steve Noonan and Jackson Browne, ...
Harry Nilsson: Nilsson Ratings: Injured, Brilliant
Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, April 1975
NOTE: The interview had to wait until we watched the latest episode of the PBS series, The Ascent of Man. I asked Harry about the ...
Pete Atkin and Clive James: Pete Atkin And Clive James: From Little Atkins Great Oak Trees Grow
Interview by Ian MacDonald, NME, April 1975
A fearsome encounter between two of the foremost minds of a Generation...uh...two of the most cerebral Rock Critics afloat...um, two of the most Accomplished Raconteurs...the ...
Interview by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, May 1975
THE HOUSE WAS set back behind a stone wall, at the end of a cul-de-sac off Coldwater Canyon between Beverly Hills and the San Fernando ...
Review by Tom Nolan, Phonograph Record, May 1975
FLESHED OUT WITH such guest performers as Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Glenn Frey and Steve Goodman, Common Sense comes on like Prine's ultimate supersession production; ...
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 ...
Joan Armatrading: Reluctant Singer Returns
Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, May 1975
"I'M THE most boring person in the whole world," Joan Armatrading announces, sticking her head out the window of A&M's Oxford Street offices, breathing in ...
Singer-Songwriters: Back To The Roots!
Overview by Dave Laing, Melody Maker, June 1975
In this exclusive extract from a major new rock book, The Electric Muse, Dave Laing investigates the post-Woodstock singer/songwriter syndrome, and charts the rise in ...
Elton John: I Want To Chug, Not Race
Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, June 1975
IN AMSTERDAM LAST WEEK, while canals evaporated in the heat wave, eight musicians and three singers were stirring the sluggish air with an electric sound ...
Barry Mann: Rock & Roll Survivor
Profile and Interview by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, July 1975
Who put the bomp in the bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp?Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?Who put the bop in the bop-shoobop-shoobop?Who put the dit in the dit-didit-didit?Who ...
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, July 1975
IT'S STRANGE to think that without Barrett Strong, it is quite conceivable that the whole Motown empire would have never gotten off the floor because ...
Andy Pratt: Nobody Knows My Name
Profile by Vivien Goldman, NME, August 1975
HAVE your albums been deleted? Do they even refuse to take them at second-hand shops? Are you even now living off the dole, wondering where ...
Bob Dylan: Plymouth Memorial Hall, Mass. USA
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, November 1975
BOB DYLAN'S ROLLING Thunder Revue hit the Plymouth Memorial Hall at 8.20 p.m. on Tuesday November 4.That's Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, by the way, and it ...
Report and Interview by Andrew Tyler, NME, November 1975
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN says he just writes down his impressions of stuff whereas here in Hollywood, Calif., there are people in from New York who believe ...
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 ...
Joni Mitchell: Hostess Twinkies for Your Dreams
Live Review by Michael Gross, Swank, 1976
Joni Mitchell: Nassau Coliseum, NYC ...
Carole King: On This Side Of Goodbye
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, January 1976
HE COMES HOME from a night of petting heavily in the back row of the RKO Fordham. Aching from the pains of halted passion, he ...
Steve Goodman: Jessie's Jig And Other Favourites
Review by John Tobler, ZigZag, February 1976
I HAVE an uncomfortable feeling that this is almost exactly the sort of record that the great majority of the critics on the weeklies have ...
Van Dyke Parks: The Clang of Van Dyke Parks
Profile by Penny Valentine, Street Life, February 1976
"He deals in streams of consciousness and clicks someone’s brain on to accepting an abstract concept... he can grab those feelings and wrench them out ...
Neil Sedaka: Sedaka's Rocket to the States
Profile and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, February 1976
NEIL SEDAKA does not look like a wealthy entertainer, not even when he's surrounded by the splendour of his rented luxury apartment above Fifth Avenue ...
Phoebe Snow: Second Childhood (CBS) 39 mins****
Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, March 1976
BEST KNOWN to British audiences for her sing-along duet with Paul Simon on 'Gone At Last', Phoebe Snow is a very talented singer-songwriter who deserves ...
Tom Waits: Personality Without Pretension
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, March 1976
THERE'S NO PLACE like Tom Waits' home. There's no home, at any rate, quite like Tom Waits' place. The Silver Lake court cottage looks like ...
Dory Previn: Children Of Coincidence And Harpo Marx (Warner Bros.) ****
Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, April 1976
OF THE RANDY Newman/Harry Nilsson school of absurdist, black comedy, Dory Previn unleashes her cryptic wit and dry tongue once again. Hallelujah! Dory Previn albums ...
Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon (Asylum)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Phonograph Record, June 1976
THEY'RE ALL HERE – various Eagles, an Everly Brother, Buckingham/Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, Carl Wilson, David Lindley, J.D. Souther, and Jackson Browne himself, acting as producer ...
Tom Waits: Warm Beer, Cold Women
Interview by Mick Brown, Sounds, June 1976
TOM WAITS rocks backwards and forwards in his chair, pulls at a cigarette, draws deep, then turns his face out of the smoke, back into ...
Janis Ian: Society's Child Grows Up
Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, June 1976
ONE JOURNALIST WHO knew Janis Ian in 1969 thought she was the snottiest kid he'd ever met, "the cocky, pretentious product of an 'old Lefty' ...
Andy Pratt: Avenging Andy Rides Again
Interview by Stephen Demorest, Circus, August 1976
THREE YEARS AGO, Andy Pratt had bats in his belfry. Flutter, flutter -you could hear the unrequited passions playing hide-and-go-seek in his psyche. ...
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, August 1976
WHAT'S A MIDDLE-of-the-road singer like Neil Diamond doing with the Band's Robbie Robertson? Making a hit album, Beautiful Noise, that's what. The two first met ...
Jonathan Richman: Town Hall, New York City
Live Review by Lester Bangs, NME, November 1976
THE FUNDAMENTAL things apply, as time goes by. Like Sister Ray, for instance. It had only been out for a couple of years when Jonathan ...
Leo Sayer: Endless Flight (Chrysalis)
Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, November 1976
Leo Sayer (vocals, harmonica). Ed Greene, Steve Gadd, Rick Shlosser, Jeff Porcaro, Nigel Olsson (drums), Andy Muson, Bill Bodine, Willie Weeks, Bob Glaub, Lee Sklar, ...
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, December 1976
The American singer/songwriter – currently touring Britain – who has made his name by writing constantly demanding, complex and mysterious songs, talks to COLIN IRWIN ...
Warren Zevon: Palace Theatre, Manchester
Live Review by Barbara Charone, Sounds, December 1976
LOOKING like a university student with a major in English Lit, Warren Zevon walked onstage at the Manchester Palace Theatre, greeted warmly by an audience ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, May 1977
ELVIS COSTELLO is a cagey sort of fellow. You can talk to him for hours and still not discover quite what makes him tick. ...
Jimmy Webb: Ten Years After 'Phoenix' He's Still Looking For Hit City
Profile and Interview by Todd Everett, Phonograph Record, June 1977
JIMMY WEBB is the still-under-30 composer who appeared from nowhere nine years ago with a spate of pop hits including 'By the Time I Get ...
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, November 1977
I KNOW IT'S BEEN a hectic year full of surprises but if anything 1977 will go down as the year Jonathan Richman (a) Got in ...
Lamont Dozier: The Hitmaker Supreme Who Can't Read Or Write Music
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, December 1977
....but he's got a good ear and keeps cookin' up the goodies! David Nathan investigates the art of culinary composing, according to Lamont Dozier. ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia)
Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Stage Life, February 1978
LIKE IT OR NOT, you’d better watch out 'cause talent will out, which is exactly why you’re hearing so much about Elvis Costello these days. ...
Hirth Martinez: Big Bright Street
Review by Paul Rambali, NME, February 1978
APART FROM its notoriety for encouraging idle hedonism, California also seems to breed an unusually high percentage of oddballs. ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, May 1978
SPEND TOO much time in the sun and you will soon dry up. Let this be a warning to all who make the sound of ...
Elvis Costello is Angry and Convincing: This Year's Model Fulfils Every New Wave Expectation
Profile by Fred Schruers, Circus, June 1978
IT'S 1:30AM IN the Bootlegger Lounge in Syracuse, NY. Elvis Costello, the one with the owlish stare and the spitting mad vocals, the man whose ...
Terry Reid: Still Making Waves
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, December 1978
SANTA MONICA — Suppose for a moment you're a member of some English supergroup in the midst of a 30-city tour of the United States ...
Kevin Coyne: Music Of A Different Coyne
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, February 1979
And my message to the people Is don't tie me to the steeple Don't put me with the stocks and in your market square. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1979
AFTER FIVE ALBUMS and almost ten years of intermittent brilliance, Randy Newman achieves a number one single with a nastily amusing ditty. ...
Randy Newman: Dominion Theatre, London
Live Review by Max Bell, NME, December 1979
RANDY NEWMAN was wandering around backstage at the Dominion gazing disconsolately down. "Why doesn't anyone like my ELO song?" he kept asking no one in ...
Interview by Richard Wootton, Omaha Rainbow, Spring 1979
I WAS born in this tiny West Texas town called Honihans in 1940. Honihans was named after some Irishman who found the well there - ...
John Prine: A Non Philosophical Singer/Songwriter?
Profile and Interview by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, June 1980
WHEN I SPOKE to John Prine during a recent visit he made to Britain, he was searching, in this order, for his girlfriend (who plays ...
Retrospective by Greg Shaw, History of Rock, The, 1982
BEFORE 1960, rock ‘n’ roll had inevitably been seen as a rough-edged, spontaneous invention of teenagers. By that year, however, the teenage performers — and ...
Retrospective by Greg Shaw, History of Rock, The, 1982
MANN AND WEIL were the hipsters of the Brill building set. While Carole King and her friends were basically square, middle-class types who wrote things ...
Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich: Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich: Weavers Of Dreams
Retrospective by Greg Shaw, History of Rock, The, 1982
THE THIRD GREAT husband and wife team of the Brill Building era, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich hit the scene late. ...
Nick Lowe: Life Among "Witless Clods"
Interview by Steven X Rea, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, March 1982
IT'S 1:30 IN the afternoon when Nick Lowe pries open the sliding door of his West Hollywood hotel room and peers up at the sky ...
Essay by Ian Penman, NME, July 1982
IS EVERYTHING AS wonderful as it seems in the current reiteration of the Song? ...
Marshall Crenshaw's True Pop Ways
Profile and Interview by Iman Lababedi, Creem, September 1982
"I don't try to hang anybody up or get anybody over-involved in my hang-ups. I don't try to bore people with my problems. The main ...
Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, September 1982
UNDER THE premise that the Great British Public instinctively turns its nose up at anything that's a little unexpected, or which doesn't meet its carefully ...
Donald Fagen Revisits an Era of Innocence
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, January 1983
"LACK OF IRONY," says Donald Fagen with a wry grin, "is not exactly my specialty." It's an odd apology – more like a boast – ...
Randy Newman: Laughter in Paradise
Interview by Richard Cook, NME, January 1983
Punk, people, performing and parenthood – Randy Newman talked about his life, work and hates to Richard Cook ...
Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil: Still Going Strong After 20 Years
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, May 1983
HOLLYWOOD— The walls of their workroom are covered floor to ceiling in awards certificates, gold records and photographs of the biggest hit-makers of today and ...
Joni Mitchell: Jones Beach Theater, New York
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, July 1983
DURING THE COURSE of her unpredictable but resilient career, Joni Mitchell has been the dewy-eyed sophomore, the slit-eyed hipster, the clear-eyed visionary. Her songs of ...
John Hiatt: Half Moon, Putney, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, NME, September 1983
FOR THE SECOND time in a matter of weeks this body-choked backroom played host to a mislaid American master. In John Hiatt’s territory he has ...
Interview by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1983
The Motown legends tallk about their partnership with Lamont Dozier; songwriting and production; Berry Gordy; their work with the Four Tops; crossing over to the pop market, and leaving Motown.
File format: mp3; file size: 37.2mb, interview length: 40' 35" sound quality: ****
Interview by Ellen Sander, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1983
Te 'Runaway' man on the trials and tribulations of being a still-creative musician on the "oldies" circuit; songwriting; working with Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Dave Edmunds; and his insecurities and struggle with alcohol.
File format: mp3; file size: 50.5mb, interview length: 55' 11" sound quality: ***
Elvis Costello: "Now is the time, and the time is as good as any": The Elvis Costello Interview
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, RAM, November 1983
IF THE GREAT GREY they put the numb into number and the boot into beauty, then who, pray, puts the El into the element within? ...
Carly Simon: Free, White, & Pushing 40
Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, January 1984
"Maybe It Was My Big Mouth" ...
Prefab Sprout: Faith, Hope & Glory?
Profile and Interview by Max Bell, Face, The, March 1984
"IF ALL THIS HADN'T worked out I was resigned to being a librarian. That's what I wanted to do." Thus speaks Paddy McAloon, brains in ...
Bobby Womack: The Poet II (Beverly Glen import)
Review by Richard Cook, NME, March 1984
AN OLD-FASHIONED man in the midst of a booming, disordered black music, Bobby Womack's journeyman career comes to a glorious peak with The Poet II. ...
Barry Manilow: Opium of the Missus
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, Marxism Today, April 1984
IF BARRY Manilow’s career is on the wane, you’d never have guessed it from last summer’s grandiose Concert At Blenheim Palace, when 40,000-odd pilgrims, preponderantly ...
Elvis Costello: 10 Bloody Marys And 10 How's Your Fathers
Review by Ian Penman, NME, April 1984
10 AND 10 is 20 postaged stamps of the left-out-of-mainstream Costello: mislaid or temporarily missing 'B'-side moves, free 45s that got lost on the Press, ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, NME, September 1984
PETER HAMMILL is one of our stranger voyagers. Alone at a piano last month, he put most of the music we cover to shame. He ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The Magazine (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1984
For song, as sung by you, is ... notWooing of something finally attained.Far other is the breath of real singing.An aimless breath. A stirring in ...
Ashford & Simpson: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Chris Roberts, Sounds, June 1985
REVELATION ONE. Ashford (Mr) gets down on his knees, and tells us the meaning: "Grrr nga nga nga huh witness!" Revelation Two. Ashford: "When I ...
Interview by Mick Brown, promo for 'No Guru, No Method, No Teacher', 1986
Musical Roots ...
Bob Dylan: Gates of Eden Revisited: A Conversation with Bob Dylan
Interview by Toby Creswell, Rolling Stone (Australia), January 1986
IT DOESN'T REALLY matter now whether Bob Dylan is a fundamentalist Christian, anymore than it mattered whether he was going to the Synagogue when he ...
Elvis Costello: The Costello Show And Tell
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, March 1986
The self-proclaimed 'King of America' talks to RICHARD COOK about his new LP, his uncomfortable relationship with the music press, and the mediocrity of today's ...
Rolling Stones, The, Keith Richards: Keith Richards Shares His Songwriting Secrets
Interview by Bruce Pollock, Guitar for the Practicing Musician, July 1986
LIKE A POLITICIAN ON THE PODIUM, whistle-stopping across the boondocks on a flatbed, Keith Richards has his share of timeless bromides, comfortable answers his tongue ...
Lou Reed: The Prince of Darkness Lightens Up
Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, GQ, September 1986
I NEVER SAW the Velvet Underground during their five-year lurch through the New York music scene. From 1965 to 1970 I was on the left ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, NME, 1987
SUBTITLED "Un Operachi Romantico In Two Acts", Frank's Wild Years is effectively the final part of a trilogy that began in 1983 with the extraordinary ...
Jennifer Warnes, Leonard Cohen: Jennifer Warnes: Famous Blue Raincoat (RCA)
Review by Len Brown, NME, June 1987
THE TOTAL exhumation and resurrection of Leonard Cohen gathers alarming pace. Here Jennifer Warnes, one-time backer to ole grumble-guts, runs through nine of laff-a-lifetime-Len's golden ...
Warren Zevon: Rugged Individualism
Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, July 1987
The return of Warren Zevon (with a little help from Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Don Henley, George Clinton, REM...) ...
Interview by Deborah Frost, Guitar World, July 1987
LIKE LOU Reed, Bob Dylan and John Lennon, to whom he has been compared, Robyn Hitchcock's lyrics are so brilliant they tend to obscure everything ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, October 1987
WARREN ZEVON has perfected the art of squirming without perceptible movement. Crumpled on a couch in a windowless record company boxroom, the man with the ...
John Hiatt : Have A Little Faith
Interview by Bill Holdship, Creem, October 1987
JOHN HIATT IS onstage at the Roxy in L.A.; just him and a piano. It's part of this international convention A&M Records is holding to ...
Warren Zevon: Sentimental Hygiene
Review by Bud Scoppa, Creem, October 1987
AS A HARD-BOILED confessional work, Sentimental Hygiene (Zevon's seventh album and his first in five years) has less in common with current rock than it ...
Tom Waits: I Just Tell Stories For Money: Tom Waits
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, NME, November 1987
SOMETIMES YOU CAN get a pretty good idea about someone's music just by checking out their appearance. If clothes maketh the man, they also speak ...
Brian Wilson, Beach Boys, The: What Was And What Might Have Been: A Lost Interview with Brian Wilson
Interview by Jeremy Gluck, unpublished, 1988
NOTE: It's 1988, Brian Wilson had just launched his solo career with the release of the eponymous Brian Wilson album, and Jeremy Gluck gets to ...
Leonard Cohen: Crocodile Tears
Interview by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, January 1988
LET'S TALK misconceptions. Like the one about Cleopatra being Egyptian (she was Greek), Christmas being a time for giving (take take take), Ben Elton and ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Guardian, The, February 1988
WE LIVE IN THE days of the flood, says Leonard Cohen. "Most of my psychic landmarks have evaporated. I'm reluctant to apply the psychic realm ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1988
Laughing Lennie talks to Mat Snow about songwriting, meditiation and religion, the collapse of literary culture, and the misperception of him as a Gloom Merchant.
File format: mp3 File size: 22.7mb Interview length: 24 minute 48 seconds Sound quality: ***
Interview by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, February 1988
Aztec Camera have just completed their first tour for four years and are gradually steering their way back into the nation's heart and soul. Paul ...
Joni Mitchell: Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1988
She's danced to the beat of her own drum all the way from Laurel Canyon to uptown Los Angeles. Joni Mitchell talks about her life, ...
Joni Mitchell: Idol Talk: Joni Mitchell
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, NME, June 1988
"THE POET is the vainest of the vain, even before the ugliest of water buffalo doth he fan his tail." ...
Randy Newman: A Nightmare on Main Street
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, October 1988
RANDY NEWMAN was sitting in the Forum Arena in Inglewood a while ago, watching the Lakers put on yet another basketball clinic at the expense ...
Interview by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1989
The Cros talks about his biography, Long Time Gone (co-written with Carl Gottlieb), his years of addiction and rehab, friends Mama Cass and Graham Nash, and looks back at Woodstock.
File format: mp3; file size: 39.3mb, interview length: 42' 53" sound quality: ****
Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians: The Marquee, London
Live Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, February 1989
THE MESSY BEAT Angels were well and truly bushed after a week of post-Dali wassailing, but the sight of Edie Brickell's band was as startling ...
Randy Newman: Coach House, San Juan Capistrano, CA
Live Review by Holly Gleason, Rolling Stone, May 1989
Old Four Eyes Is Back ...
Carole King: Stepping Out Of The Shadows
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Guardian, The, July 1989
Carole King is coming out from behind her piano because she wants to rock. Mark Cooper reports ...
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, August 1989
MANY OF THE ACTS at Woodstock were already well established names, but if anyone can claim to have been broken by the festival, it must ...
Bernie Taupin, Elton John: Bernie Taupin: Elton's Write Hand Man
Interview by Steven P. Wheeler, Music Connection, August 1989
IT IS THE summer of 1989, six months of phone calls and patience have finally paid off. Bernie Taupin, the man who has been placing ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Dery, Keyboard, September 1989
"MOST MUSIC criticism," griped Leonard Cohen in a recent Musician interview, "is...so far behind, say, the criticism of painting. Nobody is identifying our popular singers ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1989
Earthy but out of this world: at last on CD, Van Morrison's swinging '70s. ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Keeping Her Cool
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Guardian, The, October 1989
Shot to stardom 10 years ago, Rickie Lee Jones has fought her way back – no less cool but much more confident. Mark Cooper reports ...
Edwyn Collins: Hope Springs Eternal: Edwyn Collins
Interview by Len Brown, Cut, The, Fall 1989
Though his brand of jangly guitar pop is oft-imitated, commercial success has eluded EDWYN COLLINS. But the ex-Orange Juice frontman isn't bitter, as LEN BROWN ...
Paul Simon: Spirit Voices Vol. I
Interview by Paul Zollo, SongTalk, 1990
"There is a girl in New York City Who calls herself the human trampoline And sometimes when I'm falling, flying or tumbling in turmoil I ...
Paul Simon: Spirit Voices Vol. II
Interview by Paul Zollo, SongTalk, 1990
"Some stories are magical Meant to be sung Songs from the mouth of the river When the world was young And all of these spirit ...
Tanita Tikaram: Do Not Disturb: Tanita Tikaram
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1990
Bookish, Studious, unsurprisingly naïve, Tanita Tikaram sidestepped university at the age of 18 when her darkly sonorous vocals and "sixth-form poetry" suddenly found an international ...
Suzanne Vega: Godmother Of New Age
Interview by Len Brown, NME, April 1990
Suzanne Vega was brought up as a Puerto Rican, attended the neo-legendary New York School Of Performing Arts and went on to become the sensitive ...
Interview by Larry Jaffee, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 1990
The Bard of Barking talks about being politicised, the Miners' Strike, experiences of racism in the Army, his The Internationale album, and really rather a lot about Margaret Thatcher!
File format: mp3; file size: 30.1mb, interview length: 32' 54" sound quality: ****
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, June 1990
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON occupies an unusual place among American songwriters. His songs have been covered by such legends as his inspiration Bob Dylan ('They Killed Him'), ...
Bob Dylan: The Song Talk Interview
Interview by Paul Zollo, SongTalk, 1991
"I've made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot"(‘I and I’) ...
Leonard Cohen: Porridge? Lozenge? Syringe?
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, 1991
He's been a poet and songwriter for more than 40 years, but Leonard Cohen still can't find a rhyme for 'orange'. "It drives you mad," ...
Joni Mitchell: Lookin' Good, Sister
Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, February 1991
Woodstock days: Joni Mitchell's early songs depicted her as a restless free spirit; men loved her for it and women envied or identified with her. ...
Joni Mitchell: Joni Rides Home
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Vox, April 1991
JONI MITCHELL MAY HAVE CUT HER MUSICAL TEETH DURING THE ERA OF LOVE AND PEACE BUT SHE TAKES NONE TOO KINDLY TO COMPARISONS WITH TODAY'S ...
D Mob, Cathy Dennis: Cathy Dennis: Cathy Comes Home
Interview by Betty Page, Vox, July 1991
Currently the UK's biggest female success Stateside, "D Mob Diva" Cathy Dennis returns to her native Norwich only to be met with a resounding... who ...
La's, The: Have Mersey: An Interview with The La’s’ Driving Force and Angriest Member Lee Mavers
Interview by Tom Graves, Rock and Roll Disc, September 1991
JUST WHEN YOU think you’ve seen or heard everything that could happen in the music business, something like the La’s imbroglio comes along. The ...
Tom Waits: The Early Years Volume I (Edsel)
Review by Max Bell, Vox, September 1991
LONG BEFORE he became the rather self-conscious Harry Dean Stanton type he is today, Tom Waits used to intone straight-to-the-heart-of-the matter barroom blues, most of ...
Suzanne Vega's Book of Dreams, Pt. 1
Interview by Paul Zollo, SongTalk, Winter 1991
"ALL THE MYSTERIES of life come in A minor," Suzanne Vega said, curled up on a couch in Hollywood. ...
Interview by Paul Zollo, from 'Songwriters On Songwriting', 1992
WE ARE SITTING Indian-style on the second floor of Leonard Cohen’s home in Los Angeles. On his bookshelf are many books that he’s written himself, ...
Elton John: Bernie Taupin: Him Indoors
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, July 1992
The 25-year You-wash-I'll-dry relationship between Elton John and lyric-writing househusband Bernie Taupin has never been happier. ...
Elvis Costello: Can I Be Frank…?
Essay by Mark Sinker, Wire, The, September 1992
2005 note: The original manuscript began and ended with some kind of lyrical gibberish swansong for the song as a music-form (in the age of ...
Leonard Cohen: The Loneliness of the Long-Suffering Folkie: Leonard Cohen
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, November 1992
ON HIS NEW ALBUM The Future (Columbia), Leonard Cohen views history's changing currents with more than a little bit of wariness. "Give me back the ...
Interview by Cliff Jones, Rock CD, December 1992
WRINKLED, GREY, HUMOROUS and urbane, wearing a crumpled suit and a huge pair of coke bottle specs that magnify his lacquered brown eyeballs to an ...
Squeeze: Up The Junction With Difford & Tilbrook
Interview by Paul Zollo, SongTalk, Spring 1992
WHEN YOU TALK to Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, unlike other collaborators who finish each other's thoughts, they sit at opposite ends of ...
Interview by Mark Petracca, Entertainment Weekly, 1993
THE LAST PERSON you'd expect pumping the stair master at your local "Y" would be Tori Amos, but lo and behold, there she was in ...
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 ...
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, April 1993
"WE'VE HAD a joke going recently," Aimee Mann says, "that the new album has three themes: despair, defeat and revenge." ...
Leonard Cohen: Inside the Tower of Song
Profile and Interview by Paul Zollo, SongTalk, April 1993
I said to Hank Williams, "How lonely does it get?"Hank Williams hasn't answered yet.but I hear him coughing all night long,a hundred floors above me ...
Interview by Steven P. Wheeler, Music Connection, August 1993
2010 note: Harry Nilsson succumbed to heart failure and died on January 15, 1994, less than six months after this interview took place. ...
Pete Townshend: The Kid's Still Alright: Pete Townshend
Interview by Gerrie Lim, Big O, September 1993
"WHAT A PLEASURE to meet you," Pete Townshend says, hiding nothing behind blue eyes once I'd mentioned the magic mantra (BigO). He quickly extends his ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 1993
The legendary songwriter on his early years: L.A. cruisin', high school jazz, getting odd jobs in the music biz, playing piano for Johnny Rivers and starting to write songs, up to the breakthrough with the 5th Dimension and 'Up, Up And Away'.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 44.1mb, total interview length: 48' 08" sound quality: ****
Kate Bush: Little Miss Can't Be Wrong
Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, December 1993
She might be a self-confessed power head, prone to control freakery and studio-hermitdom and a total stranger to the nightclub dancefloor... "bit I'm never grumpy, ...
Review by Mick Houghton, MOJO, December 1993
HAS TIME STOOD STILL? Fifteen years on and Jackson Browne's running on empty again. He's out of love yet surviving, holding himself together but now ...
Interview by David Sinclair, MOJO, April 1994
THEY SAY THERE'S ONE IN EVERY CROWD. BUT HE'S ALWAYS hard to spot because he looks so normal. Quiet, polite, a little shy even. You ...
Beck: Kip Winger With A Protein Shake: The Punknology According to Beck
Interview by Gerrie Lim, Big O, April 1994
THOSE OPENING NOTES attempt to warn you: a slinky salvo of slide guitar and then some hip-hop percussion, and then some dude starts rapping, wending ...
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Q, June 1994
"POPULAR MUSIC, in all its rich varieties, has milestones." So began the Sunday Times review of David Ackles's 1972 album, American Gothic, which compared the ...
Randy Newman: Thunderclap Newman: Randy, Poet Laureate of New Orleans
Interview by Chris Bourke, Real Groove (New Zealand), July 1994
I'VE ALWAYS WONDERED what Southerners think of Randy Newman's Good Old Boys, his 1974 concept album about the American Deep South. With its sardonic but ...
Retrospective and Interview by Ben Edmonds, Contemporary Musicians, September 1994
AFTER SPENDING years in classical piano training, then experimenting with the Los Angeles rock scene, Tori Amos attracted a popular music audience with her pure ...
AUDIO: Joni Mitchell at 50 (1994)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1994
The First Lady of the Canyon looks at her past and present, from her Canadian youth through the Canyon days, the nightmare of the '80s and to her place in 1994. Songs, places, lovers, friends, gender and politics. Oh, and Bob Dylan's bad breath.
File format: mp3; in 4 parts, total file sizes: 111.4mb, total interview length: 2h 1' 41" sound quality: ***
John Martyn: The Boy Can't Help It
Interview by Nick Coleman, MOJO, October 1994
Rambunctious loons, Soave-swilling romantics, tireless anarchists, people who fill baths with dead fish, all detect in him some sort of kindred spirit. John Martyn by ...
Prefab Sprout: Phone Home: Paddy McAloon
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1994
"I'M ACTUALLY going for the record of being the longest hold-out character on the face of the earth. I'm trying to evaporate into a realm ...
Soft Boys, The, Robyn Hitchcock: Robyn Hitchcock Rocks Groovily On
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, B-Side, 1995
ROBYN HITCHCOCK is confused. At least, he's as confused as anyone who's been told they'll be called by a writer in America, with all the ...
Lloyd Cole: Causing a Commotion: Lloyd Cole
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1995
AT THE BEGINNING, he seemed tailor-made for rock stardom. Young, good-looking and menacingly literate, Lloyd Cole exploded out of nowhere (well, Scotland actually) in ...
Laura Nyro: Union Chapel, Islington, London
Live Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, February 1995
WHEN LAURA PLAYED MONTEREY, nerves and rushed rehearsals saw her flounder as the hairies waited for Hendrix. Tonight there are enough baldies in the pews ...
Interview by Colin Harper, Folk Roots, March 1995
"THE REASON," says David Gray, at the end of our interview, "that journalism doesn't work most of the time is 'cos the artist isn't there ...
Dan Penn: Once More With Feeling
Interview by Robert Gordon, MOJO, March 1995
Otis. Janis. Aretha. Gram. Each cut classic songs by the hallowed Dan Penn. Coaxed out of retirement, he recorded last year’s universally acclaimed Do Right ...
Elvis Presley, Leiber and Stoller: Jerry Leiber And Mike Stoller: By Royal Appointment
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, March 1995
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the greatest rock 'n' roll songwriting team of all time, have their songs celebrated in the musical Smokey Joe's Cafe ...
Leiber and Stoller: A Yakety Yak
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Goldmine, April 1995
IF THEY'D only written, say, 'Hound Dog', 'Kansas City' and 'Stand By Me', they would already deserve their place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame ...
Scott Walker, Walker Brothers, The: Scott Walker: “That Francis Bacon, In-The-Face Whoops Factor...”
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 1995
TWENTY-TWO YEAR OLD Noel Scott Engel was on the run from Uncle Sam. He was fleeing from a country that would never connect with his ...
Elvis Costello: They Think It's All Covers... Er, It Is Now!
Interview by Terry Staunton, NME, May 1995
After 18 years of being either a sneering young turk or cumudgeonly old bugger, ELVIS COSTELLO has decided it's time for a change – he's ...
Warren Zevon: Left Jabs and Roundhouse Rights
Interview by Steve Roeser, Goldmine, August 1995
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE a romantic. These might be the words of wisdom for those who have ever counted themselves fans of singer/songwriter Warren Zevon, especially the ...
Burt Bacharach: Bacharach to the Future
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, October 1995
As grey-haired, 67-year-old composers go, Burt Bacharach is pretty f***ing cool. Paul Lester interviews the melodic inspiration behind Oasis, Stereolab and Pulp. ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Professional Confessions: Loudon Wainwright
Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, November 1995
INTELLECTUAL SINGER-songwriters, doncha jus' luv 'em? LW3 has been at it for 20 years, spilling his guts, sharing his fears and generally earning a living ...
Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson And Van Dyke Parks: Orange Crate Art
Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, December 1995
BH: Was it hard getting Brian involved in the making of Orange Crate Art? ...
Interview by Elaine Cusack, Rock's Backpages Audio, Spring 1995
Chesnutt talks about Athens, Georgia; alcohol; his Is The Actor Happy album; the poetry of Stevie Smith and the writing of Flannery O'Connor, and his upcoming film debut in Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade.
File format: mp3; file size: 55.5mb, interview length: 1h 00' 36" sound quality: ****
John Denver: Reflections (Songs Of Love & Life)
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, RCA Records, 1996
NO ONE WAS ever less ashamed of wearing their heart on their sleeve than John Denver. No one was ever less afraid to share moments ...
Jeff Buckley: Grace under Fire
Interview by Toby Creswell, Juice, February 1996
"THE RECORD IS FANTASTIC, you and I know that. The band is really great and, let's face it, all the women want to get into ...
Lou Reed, Velvet Underground: A Dark Prince at Twilight: Lou Reed
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1996
THE DAY DOES not begin auspiciously. The first flakes of a snowstorm descend as I open the curtains in my hotel room, adding yet another ...
Burt Bacharach: "Do you know the Way to Monterey? Santa Fe? Whitley Bay?"
Retrospective and Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, March 1996
Thankfully, Messrs Bacharach and David got there in the end, polishing yet another pop gem and putting an unremarkable California city on the map forever. ...
Burt Bacharach: See You Later, Elevator!
Profile and Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 1996
Imprisoned in music's metaphorical lift for years, Burt Bacharach has emerged on to a mezzanine packed with thousands of dewy-eyed disciples. "It's sensational news," he ...
Marshall Crenshaw, Amy Rigby: Marshall Crenshaw/Amy Rigby: Park West, Albany, NY
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1996
ON THE first date of an East Coast mini-tour, Marshall Crenshaw and Amy Rigby are playing things semi-safe: Park West is a club sandwiched between ...
Interview by Jim Irvin, unpublished, 1997
What first made you want to write a song? ...
Burt Bacharach: What's It All About, Bacharach?
Special Feature by Bill DeMain, Switch, June 1997
"WHERE IS that whistling coming from?" ...
Neil Young: The Year Of The Horse
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1997
2-CD, 13-track live document of last year's Broken Arrow tour, recorded mainly in America but featuring tracks from Berlin, Toronto…and downtown Saskatchewan. ...
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Uncut, July 1997
Absolutely Prefabulous: Far from the sonic mainstream with Paddy McAloon ...
Elvis Presley, Leiber and Stoller: Elvis, homoeroticism and 'Jailhouse Rock'
Essay by Peter Silverton, Observer, The, August 1997
'Oh yes,' said Stanley, a builder - though not a man known ever to have displayed his bum cleavage beyond the privacy of his own ...
Fountains of Wayne: Fountains Of Wayne: A Tossed Off Masterpiece
Interview by Bill DeMain, In Natural, September 1997
JAMES THURBER once said that what he strived for most in his humor pieces was a "tossed off quality." ...
Phil Ochs: AUDIO: Van Dyke Parks on Phil Ochs (and the Byrds) (1997)
Interview by Steve Roeser, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1997
VDP on his relationship with Phil Ochs, Ochs' relationship with Bob Dylan, producing Greatest Hits, and his dislike of the Byrds
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 38.2mb, total interview length: 41' 41" sound quality: * (phoner)
Ron Sexsmith: Westbeth Theater, New York City
Live Review by Jeff Apter, No Depression, September 1997
WHILE THE REAL world is tough on outsiders, they'll always be welcomed in the land of thinking-person's music. Toronto troubadour Ron Sexsmith has perfected the ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1997
RICHARD DAVIES is cooped up in the Turtle Creek barn, a hallowed old recording studio haunted by ghosts of Woodstock past and present. (A picture ...
Leonard Cohen: More Best Of (Columbia)
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 1997
A CATCH-UP collection of the best of the past couple of decades for those who fell in love with, or to, early Len and may ...
Kinks, The, Ray Davies: Kinks: The Singles Collection/Waterloo Sunset — The Songs Of Ray Davies
Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, December 1997
It's a shame about Ray: Classic chartbreakers and their creator's solo furrow ...
Burt Bacharach: Anyone Who Had A Heart: The Songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David
Retrospective and Interview by Robin Platts, DISCoveries, December 1997
AS THE 1960s sped from Beach Blanket Bingo through Beatlemania to Psychedelia, Vietnam and beyond, the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David played on ...
Essay by Mick Gold, unpublished, 1998
IT MUST HAVE been 1969 or 1970. There was a rave review of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere in Rolling Stone and I bought it ...
Bernie Taupin, Elton John: Bernie Taupin
Interview by Paul Zollo, Musician, January 1998
AS ELTON John's lyricist for three decades, Bernie Taupin is one of the most famous British songwriters of all time. ...
Richard Thompson: Waterfront Hall, Belfast
Live Review by Colin Harper, Independent, The, January 1998
BELFAST'S WATERFRONT Hall embodies all the characteristics of a provincial Barbican – a kind of clinical, beige Gormenghast of a place where corridors lead to ...
Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, March 1998
BRIAN KENNEDY is caught between a pillow and a soft place. On the one hand, he's an emerging solo artist whose debut album in 1990 ...
Paul Brady: The Ever-Changing World of Paul Brady
Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, March 1998
A MENTOR ONCE told me there were two rules to writing about other people's lives: First, always remember that as the journalist, you're not the ...
Donnie Fritts: Leanin' Man from Alabam'
Interview by Chris Bourke, Real Groove (New Zealand), April 1998
DONNIE FRITTS MAY be one of the unsung heroes of American music, but a peek inside his address book shows how his talents are appreciated. ...
Frank Sinatra: Sinatra's 'My Way'
Essay by Peter Silverton, Observer, The, May 1998
As songs go, 'My Way' doesn't so much wear its heart on its sleeve as rip it from its chest, throw it down and shout: ...
Neal Casal: Out-duding the early James Taylor
Profile and Interview by Tom Cox, Uncut, July 1998
NEALCASAL grins craftily — he's been careful to bring his electric guitar to Uncut's photo session and not his acoustic. "No Nick Drake shots today. ...
Randy Newman: Here Comes The Rain
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
Ian MacDonald salutes Randy Newman's first solo album as a flawless masterpiece ...
Neil Finn, Crowded House: Neil Finn: Former Crowded House Frontman
Interview by Bill DeYoung, Goldmine, August 1998
THERE'S A lush, green exotic-ness to Neil Finn's songs, as if they were created in some kind of hothouse rain forest where only the most ...
Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello: Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 1998
ONLY FIVE years ago in the UK, it needed to be reaffirmed that Burt Bacharach is one of the greatest popular musicians of the second ...
Vic Chesnutt: Gravity's Rainbow: Vic Chesnutt
Profile by Will Hermes, Village Voice, November 1998
LIKE PLENTY of other folks in wheelchairs, Vic Chesnutt doesn't want your sympathy. In fact, he can challenge the compassion of even those closest to ...
Elliott Smith: An Interview in NYC, 30th April, 1998
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, Spring 1998
BH: From Kill Rock Stars to DreamWorks – it sounds like some kind of fairy tale. Does it feel like one? ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Goes Mellow?
Interview by Tim Footman, Flipside, 1999
IT'S A TOUGH JOB, but someone's gotta do it. Declan Patrick 'Aloysius' McManus, aka Napoleon Dynamite, aka The Imposter, aka Tiny Hands Of Concrete; a ...
XTC: Andy Partridge: Lemons And Lemonade
Interview by Bill DeMain, unpublished, 1999
"I'M A LUDICROUS optimist," says Andy Partridge. "I'm in front of the firing squad and I've got the clown's makeup on and I'm telling gags ...
Sheryl Crow, Joan Osborne, Alanis Morissette: Silent Partners: Writers, Producers, Players
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Phil Sutcliffe looks at the men who helped midwife albums by Sheryl Crow, Joan Osborne and Alanis Morissette ...
Elliott Smith: He's Mr Dyingly Sad, And You're Mystifyingly Glad
Profile and Interview by R.J. Smith, Spin, January 1999
ELLIOTT SMITH recovers nicely. Just one hour ago he was sitting in a tiny backstage room, enjoying a postshow libation and breathing in a blue ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 1999
THERE'S NOTHING BILL Callahan likes better than watching a Polaroid develop, "struck in this transition state, always surprising me". Some might say he needs to ...
Lee Hazlewood: The Return of Nancy's Boy
Profile and Interview by Andrew Smith, Observer, The, June 1999
NEW YORK CROWDS don't get much hipper than this. The women look either like a young Patti Smith or Marianne Faithfull circa Girl On A ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
BRITISH SINGER-SONGWRITER Kevin Coyne is a strange one. As influenced by the rough-and-tumble sounds of Mississippi blues as by his job as a counselor to ...
Richard Buckner: Bloomed (Slow River/Rykodisc)
Retrospective by Matt Hanks, No Depression, Summer 1999
RICHARD BUCKNER'S 1994 debut album, Bloomed, heralded the arrival of a uniquely expressive and honest songwriter and reaped Buckner tomes of critical praise, a deal ...
Interview by Joe Matera, International Songwriter, 2000
Joe Matera: Tell me a bit about your background. You started writing songs at 13?Andrew Gold: Yeah, I started around then (13). My first song ...
Mary Gauthier: The Darker Side of Dixie
Interview by Chris Smith, Rockrgrl, January 2000
MIDNIGHT HAS LONG since passed, and we're sitting in the dim alley behind the legendary Club Passim in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The fire ...
Mickey Newbury: On the Porch With Mickey Newbury
Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, allmusic.com, January 2000
MICKEY NEWBURY is 60, and he's slowed down a bit, spending much less time on the road than at his home in Oregon, where he's ...
Warren Zevon: Pictures From Life's Other Side
Interview by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, February 2000
'Death doesn't scare me. I have the impression that life is the lobby and death is the apartment – maybe it's OK' ...
Review by Rob Hughes, Uncut, May 2000
Ninth dry—lipped album from the Buster Keaton of sadcore ...
Burt Bacharach: We're In Love With This Guy: Hal David
Interview by Terry Staunton, music365.com, May 2000
Lyrical legend HAL DAVID has just become the first non-Briton to be honoured with a prestigious Ivor Novello Award by the British Academy Of Composers ...
Badly Drawn Boy: The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, July 2000
Could Damon Cough's long-awaited debut be the indie Pet Sounds? ...
Laura Nyro: Oh My Love-Trumpet Soul: Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
AND A GREAT tenderness came forth from the unforgiving streets of the East Side. It's easy to dislike Laura Nyro. Your first requirement is to ...
Mark Eitzel: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, August 2000
It's not all doom and gloom ...
Bob Dylan: The Point Depot, Dublin
Live Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, November 2000
YOU CAN trust in Bob, the magnificent minstrel and incredible icon, the prime preserver and arch plunderer of 20th century Americana, to pull a surprise ...
PJ Harvey: Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Self-produced sixth album is curate's egg ...
Bobby Bare: The Singles 1959-1969
Sleevenotes by Colin Escott, BMG International, 2001
AN OUTLAW before his time, a folk singer who never played a coffee house, a rock 'n' roller who gave away his biggest hit. Bobby ...
Rufus Wainwright: The Rueful Master Wainwright
Interview by j. poet, Stereotype, 2001
"A LOT OF SONGWRITING is revenge," Rufus Wainwright quipped, from his New York City hotel room. ...
Jesse Winchester: Taking Another Shot
Profile and Interview by j. poet, San Francisco Chronicle, January 2001
Eclectic singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester cuts his first new album in 11 years ...
Chrissie Hynde, Pretenders, The: The Backpages Interview: Chrissie Hynde
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, February 2001
Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders have just finished a fall 2000 U.S. tour opening for Neil Young. Hynde and her group included versions of Young's ...
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, April 2001
KEVIN COYNE has been balancing on the border of sanity for more than 30 years now. Adolescent jobs as a psychiatric nurse, arts therapist and ...
Bob Dylan: The Art of the Ageless Bob Dylan
Retrospective by Michael Gray, Daily Telegraph, April 2001
Bob Dylan is approaching his 60th birthday on a tide of adulation. Michael Gray, a long-time Dylan chronicler, considers his lasting appeal. ...
Laura Nyro: Songs in the Key of Life: Laura Nyro's Angel in the Dark
Review by Richard Williams, Guardian, The, April 2001
THIS ALBUM IS incomplete, but so was Laura Nyro's life. It is the project on which she was working when she died of ovarian cancer ...
Nick Cave: Sweet Misery: The Mellowing of Nick Cave
Review by Nick Hornby, New Yorker, May 2001
IT'S THE SHEER UBIQUITY of pop music that presents such an obstacle to older fans. When I was fifteen, it was satisfyingly hard to hear ...
Rufus Wainwright: "My Parents the Folk Heroes"
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Guardian, The, June 2001
THE WITTIEST REQUEST from the crowd at Rufus Wainwright's New York show last week was for ‘Rufus is a Tit Man’, a song written aeons ...
Leiber and Stoller: The Backpages Interview: Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Interview by Cleothus Hardcastle, Rock's Backpages, June 2001
The names Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller are inseparable from the stories of rhythm’n’blues and rock’n’roll. They were two Jewish teenagers who felt black and ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2001
Wednesday Morning, 3am*/The Sounds Of Silence****/Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme***/Bookends*****/Bridge Over Troubled Water*** (All Columbia) Sixties folk-rock digitally done up and decorated with extra tracks ...
Roy Harper: The Spirit Lives: Roy Harper
Retrospective and Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, August 2001
"I DON'T THINK I'm very good at interviews, because I have too many thoughts going off at the same time to be able to explain ...
Luke Haines: The Oliver Twist Manifesto
Review by Paul Morley, Uncut, September 2001
Solo debut from sometime Auteur, Black Box Recorder and Baader Meinhof pop terrorist. ...
Aimee Mann: Key Largo: A Catchup Chat with Aimee Mann
Interview by Alvaro Costa, Rock's Backpages, September 2001
AC: So you haven't become a "Lady of The Canyon" after all... ...
Prefab Sprout: The King Of Rock'n'Roll
Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, September 2001
FOR SOMEONE who's only ever strived to bring a little wistful beauty into our pop lives, with an honest and artisan approach to the craft ...
Obituary by Richie Unterberger, No Depression, September 2001
FRED NEIL, one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the early folk-rock era, died in his sleep on July 7 at the age of 65. ...
Interview by Jason Cohen, Stereophile, Winter 2001
THE NEWS was right up there with Brian Wilson playing Pet Sounds live, Steely Dan making a new record and Mario Lemieux lacing up the ...
Cream: AUDIO: Pete Brown on Cream (and more) (2001)
Interview by Steve Roeser, Rock's Backpages Audio, Spring 2001
The redoubtable Battered Ornament talks about his long writing partnership with Cream's Jack Bruce, getting into blues and poetry, and the Brit Blues boom.
File format: mp3; file size: 27mb, interview length: 29' 28" sound quality: * (phoner)
Phil Collins: His Turn to Testify: An Exclusive HITS dialogue with Phil Collins
Interview by Roy Trakin, Hits, 2002
JUST WHEN IT SEEMED like Phil Collins was ready to kick back and relax with his new wife Orianne and his 14-month-old son Nicholas in ...
James Taylor: One Part Genius...The Trail to October Road
Essay by Craig W. Thomas, unpublished, 2002
WHEN I WAS 14 years old the person I most wanted to be was James Taylor. It's a long time ago now. 1971. I remember ...
Elvis Costello: Elvis Gets His Groove Back
Interview by Roy Trakin, Hits, 2002
THE ONCE-ANGRY young man of punk-rock is now practically a pop music singer-songwriting icon. It's been more than 25 years since a bespectacled nerd with ...
Ryan Adams: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Uncut, January 2002
I SAW rock'n'roll's future and its name is… all right, calm down everybody. ...
Kelly Joe Phelps: Blackheath Halls, London
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, January 2002
THIS PLUSH municipal concert hall in the well-heeled south London neighbourhood of Blackheath may seem a strange destination for the blues. But it's not as ...
Steely Dan: Hey 19: It's About Time
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Los Angeles Times, March 2002
"WHAT RECORD COMPANY are we on, by the way?" Donald Fagen wants to know. "I'm not kidding." ...
Smokey Robinson: 10 Questions for Smokey Robinson
Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, April 2002
Bill DeMain speaks to Motown's legendary songwriter and singer about Billy Eckstine, Marvin Gaye, school plays and positive rap. ...
Interview by Angus Batey, Times, The, April 2002
IT'S JUST another rainy night in April, and the Green Mill, a bar on Chicago's north side, is hosting its regular Monday resident. Opening with ...
Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, April 2002
Second phase of Bonus-packed reissue programme for Costello catalogue ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 2002
On Charley Patton and James Brown, encounters with William Burroughs and Keith Richards, and being a 'rectal thermometer' for Frank Zappa...
File format: mp3; file size: 61.8mb, interview length: 1h 07' 29" sound quality: ****
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Uncut, May 2002
ON HIS SECOND LP, Home, Nashville-based Nebraskan Josh Rouse seemed to favour the brass-brushed country-soul sound of friend and fellow citizen Kurt Wagner. But new ...
Elvis Presley, Otis Blackwell: Otis Blackwell 1932 - 2002
Obituary by Tony Russell, Guardian, The, May 2002
Prolific writer behind some of Elvis’s greatest hits ...
Interview by Graeme Thomson, Herald, The, August 2002
YOU DON'T REALLY interview Elvis Costello. It's more a matter of tossing a few loaded questions at him then taking cover as each enquiry explodes ...
Interview by Paul Lester, Guardian, The, September 2002
Beck's new album, written after a nasty split with his fiancee, is so forlorn that the music press is afraid for his health. But, he ...
Cathy Dennis, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Songwriters: Musical Chairs
Special Feature by Pete Paphides, Guardian, The, September 2002
Today's pop stars, say their critics, aren't half as talented as their predecessors because they have little or nothing to do with writing their songs. ...
Jeff Buckley: Keeper of the Flame
Report and Interview by Mark Paytress, Guardian, The, October 2002
IT IS FIVE YEARS since Jeff Buckley took his final, mid-evening stroll into the Wolf River, a sleepy tourist spot on the outskirts of Memphis, ...
Warren Zevon: Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon
Sleevenotes by Will Self, Rhino Records, Fall 2002
WHAT I DO is this; I leave the city and go about 50 miles away to a town in the county of Wiltshire called Swindon. ...
Interview by David Dalton, Another Magazine, Fall 2002
LATE AFTERNOON, hotel room in L.A. I’ve just downloaded four tracks from Beck’s new album. A song is playing. ‘The Golden Age’. ...
Freddy Cannon: Chuck Barris: Confessions of a Populist Mind
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, March 2003
Steven Rosen talks to self-confessed CIA assassin Chuck Barris – inspiration to George Clooney – about the pop classic he penned back in 1962. ...
Ed Harcourt: From Every Sphere
Review by Pete Paphides, Word, The, March 2003
IF THEY DON'T write songs like they used to, no one told Ed Harcourt. Before the 26-year-old former chef put out his first album — ...
Chuck Barris: Confessions of a Populist Mind
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, March 2003
Steven Rosen talks to self-confessed CIA assassin Chuck Barris – inspiration to George Clooney – about the pop classic he penned back in 1962. ...
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, March 2003
ED HARCOURT has always been a solo artist, but tonight, he seems even more alone, maybe even lonely. ...
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant: Felice Bryant 1925-2003
Obituary by Phast Phreddie Patterson, Rock's Backpages, April 2003
SONGWRITER FELICE BRYANT (77) died of cancer at her home in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on April 22. She and her husband Boudleaux Bryant were very ...
Townes Van Zandt: Wanderin' Star
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2003
What do you do when you're really down? Listen to Townes Van Zandt Sylvie Simmons charts the artistic triumphs and personal disasters of sadness's most ...
Vic Chesnutt: Dark Side of The Tune
Interview by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, April 2003
IN 1983, VIC CHESNUTT, an obscure country misfit, was 18, drunk again, and crashing his car in America's southern state of Georgia. When he woke ...
Homer Banks, Earl King, Little Eva, Nina Simone, Edwin Starr: The Grim Reporter May 2003
Obituary by Phast Phreddie Patterson, Rock's Backpages, May 2003
Phast Phreddie Patterson on those gone but not forgotten ...
Randy Newman: Is Randy Newman the Old Eminem?
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, September 2003
The funniest and least sentimental songwriter in America has revisited his back pages on The Randy Newman Songbook, Volume 1. BARNEY HOSKYNS asks him about ...
Rufus Wainwright: Chelsea Mourning: Wanting Rufus Wainwright
Comment by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, September 2003
YOU’RE WALKING, you’re virtually running, exhilarated, exultant, across West 23rd Street, away from Chelsea where you’ve tripped the Apocalypse of Rufus Wainwright and at once ...
David Gates, Bread: Legends of Songwriting: David Gates of Bread
Profile and Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, December 2003
REMEMBER "soft rock?" You don't hear the term much anymore, but in the early 1970s, this musical genre floated onto the AM airwaves in the ...
Scott Walker: It Don't Come Easy: Scott Walker’s Five Easy Pieces (Universal)
Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, 2004
Idiosyncratic. Inspired. Perplexing. Well, how else would you want your multi-disc "Godlike Genius" retrospective served? ...
Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, February 2004
POSTMODERNISM HAS jacked it all up. In its wake, the cultural zeitgeist of irony has become so prevalent and requisite that plain old earnestness ceases ...
Elliott Smith: You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Retrospective and Interview by R.J. Smith, Spin, February 2004
WHEN ELLIOTT SMITH played Los Angeles in the fall of 2002, after more than a year of semi-seclusion, he didn't look so good. His hands ...
Sufjan Stevens: The 50 States of Rock: Sufjan Stevens
Interview by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, June 2004
THERE HAVE BEEN MANY extra-curricular activities traditionally associated with the life of the travelling rock'n'roller. Teaching knitting to the blind is not one of them. ...
Jam, The, Paul Weller: Paul Weller: The MOJO Interview
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2004
KEITH ALTHAM PR’d The Jam in the late '70s. In his book of post-retirement open letters to former clients, No More Mr Nice Guy, he ...
Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits: The Rock’s Backpages Interview: Mark Knopfler
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, September 2004
RBP: You recorded your new album Shangri-La at the studio of the same name in Malibu. When was the studio refurbished? ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, September 2004
Third set from Sussex singer-songwriter and follow-up to last year’s acclaimed From Every Sphere. ...
Elvis Costello: Almost Blue/Goodbye Cruel World/Kojak Variety
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, September 2004
AS THE AMBITIOUS Costello reissue programme heads towards completion, the contents of the bonus discs take on a greater significance, bolstering releases that may struggle ...
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Nick Cave: Old Saint Nick: Nick Cave
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Dazed & Confused, October 2004
ON ABATTOIR BLUES, the cheerily-titled first half of the new double album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, there is a song called ‘There ...
Elliott Smith: Shooting Star: Elliott Smith
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, November 2004
A YEAR AGO I was sitting in the Los Angeles living room of Mr. Roger Steffens, curator of a huge Bob Marley archive that was ...
Jim Croce: The Way We Used To Be (Sanctuary)
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, November 2004
KILLED IN A PLANE crash in 1973, just weeks after his first US Number One single, Jim Croce was a master of tender beauty and ...
Warren Zevon: Various Artists: Enjoy Every Sandwich - The Songs Of Warren Zevon
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, November 2004
LONG BEFORE his death last year from inoperable lung cancer, Warren Zevon knew his time was almost up. Undeterred, he carried on making records bulging ...
Tom Waits: Real Gone (Anti/Epitaph)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, November 2004
SINCE IT’S HARD and possibly verboten to say a bad word about Tom Waits, unholy shaman of whacked-out Americana, I’ll content myself with expressing a ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, November 2004
RBP: 15 years into your recording career, how do you look back on it? Are you content with what you’ve achieved? ...
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2004
IT HAS BECOME an irritatingly common marketing ploy for any new release by a music veteran to be declared a "return to form". If we ...
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2004
ALREADY FAMILIAR to fans of Lucinda Williams after a lengthy stint as an opening act, Australian-born McCue has effortlessly mastered the bluesy drawl of her ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, Summer 2004
RBP: Not to suggest that Uh Huh Her must be entirely autobiographical – or "confessional" – but you don’t sound terribly happy in these songs. ...
PJ Harvey: Love in All the Wrong Places: PJ Harvey
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Tracks, Summer 2004
POLLY HARVEY reclines in regal splendour at the end of the very long and pompous Promenade Room of London’s legendary Dorchester Hotel. Buffed Eurotrash couples ...
Elvis Costello: A Man with a Mission (In Two or Three Editions)
Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, Fall 2004
ELVIS COSTELLO is about to take over the world. No, he's not going to reveal himself as a nefarious arch-villain in league with Doctor Octopus ...
David Byrne Looks Forward...and Back
Interview by Carol Cooper, The L Magazine, Fall 2004
Q: AS A SOLO ARTIST you have worked with horn sections and now with string sections to color and embellish your songs. Aside ...
Live Review by Jude Rogers, Guardian, The, January 2005
PLUSH'S LIAM HAYES isn't a man who does things easily. He released his first single in 1994, his first woozy LP in 1998, and didn't ...
Interview by Mac Randall, Harp, March 2005
With every album he creates, Beck Hansen's music shifts in shape while his lyrics gain sharper focus, revealing a fascination with the dark side of ...
Rufus Wainwright: The Backpages Interview: Rufus Wainwright
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2005
RBP: Is Want Two in any way the flipside to, or a contrast to, Want One? Or is it just a companion collection? ...
AUDIO: Chris Isaak (with Kenney Dale Johnson) (2005)
Interview by Joel Selvin, Selvin On The City, KSAN 107.7, March 2005
The American icon, together with sidekick Kenney Dale Johnson, spins some favourites and sings a couple of tunes too!
File format: mp3 File size: 32.2mb Interview length: 35' 13"; Sound quality: *****
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Scotland on Sunday, March 2005
ON THE SURFACE, nothing is wrong with Beck Hansen. No wires protrude from his dirty-blond moptop. No glazed expressions, no shifty answers, no sense of ...
Martha Wainwright: Going Her Own Way: Martha Wainwright Makes Her Musical Mark
Report and Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, LA CityBeat, March 2005
MARTHA WAINWRIGHT almost didn't bother to pursue music. Because of her parents, singer-songwriters Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, who occupy certain esteemed places in ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, April 2005
LATE LAST YEAR Rufus Wainwright was a guest on Tom Robinson's BBC6 radio show, answering questions about music, life and celebrity while pointedly avoiding allusion ...
Jimmy Webb: The Backpages Interview: Jimmy Webb
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, May 2005
RBP: Bones Howe remembered you as being very shy when he first met you circa 1967. Is that how you remember it? ...
Jimmy Webb: Almost Blue: Jimmy Webb
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, June 2005
JIMMY WEBB is sad. He looks around him at the world we inhabit and sees culture nose-diving everywhere. Subtlety is squeezed, ambiguity flattened. People don’t ...
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, June 2005
FILM DIRECTOR Paul Thomas Anderson used Aimee Mann's music as the starting point and inspiration for his Oscar-nominated Magnolia, about the intertwining, desperate lives of ...
Jim Ford, Bobby Womack: Bobby Womack on Jim Ford (2005)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, June 2005
The Last Soul Man talks about his friend and collaborator Jim Ford: being introduced by Ford to Sly Stone, such great songs as 'Harry Hippie' and 'Point Of No Return', and writing songs with the man.
File format: mp3; file size: 19.8mb, interview length: 21' 35" sound quality: * (phoner)
James Blunt: Strange Life Of An Army Dreamer
Interview by Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times, July 2005
James Blunt came to pop stardom the hard way, via Harrow, Sandhurst and the Household Cavalry. ...
Nick Cave: The Songwriter Speaks
Interview by Debbie Kruger, Weekend Australian, July 2005
Writer Debbie Kruger spoke to the biggest names in Australian music for her new book Songwriters Speak. In this exclusive extract, Nick Cave explains why ...
Chip Taylor: Lock 17, London ****
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Guardian, The, July 2005
EVEN BEFORE he met Carrie Rodriguez, Chip Taylor's life had the authentic ring of fiction about it. ...
Interview by Bud Scoppa, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 2005
Mr. Young on the Prairie Wind album; his aneurysm and surgery; the great Spooner Oldham; his archive project; and the Heart of Gold movie.
File format: mp3; file size: 46.6mb, interview length: 50' 55" sound quality: ****
Jimmy Webb: Interview: Jimmy Webb
Interview by Graham Reid, New Zealand Herald, August 2005
BEFORE HE WAS 21 Jimmy Webb had already written some of pop's most enduring songs, including 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix' (which Frank ...
Burt Bacharach: The Backpages Interview: Burt Bacharach
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, October 2005
RBP: What exactly did Sony BMG's Rob Stringer say that prompted you to try something so different with At This Time? ...
Burt Bacharach: At This Time: Burt Bacharach
Report and Interview by Gene Sculatti, ICE, November 2005
AFTER 40-PLUS YEARS, one of America's greatest songwriters finally has something to say. Which is not to suggest that songs like 'Close to You' or ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis and the Songsmiths
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut Legends, Spring 2005
CLYDE OTIS and Ivory Joe Hunter had just returned from a day's duck-hunting when the phone rang. It was the song publishers Hill and Range ...
Mike Scott, Waterboys, The: Mike Scott
Profile and Interview by Graeme Thomson, Word, The, 2006
OF ALL THE PLACES to establish a spiritual community, one mile from a RAF base seems a trifle ill-conceived: transcendence must require every ounce of ...
P. F. Sloan: P.F. Sloan Reveals the Jewish Origins of 'Eve of Destruction'
Retrospective and Interview by Steven Rosen, Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, 2006
'EVE OF DESTRUCTION', the famous folk-rock-protest hit record from 1965, isn't usually regarded as a specifically Jewish song. Or even a religious one, for that ...
Jerry Lynn Williams: The Lone Ranger: Jerry Lynn Williams
Retrospective by Bill Bentley, Austin Chronicle, January 2006
You say you want it and you want it bad And that you'd sacrifice all you ever had And that you'd be happy instead of ...
Al Stewart: A Reticent Recording Artist
Profile and Interview by Larry Jaffee, Record Collector, February 2006
AL STEWART’S four-decade career recently was capsulated by a 5-CD boxed set Just Yesterday from EMI. His first four UK albums on CBS never were ...
Kinks, The, Ray Davies: AUDIO: Ray Davies (2006)
Interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 2006
The King Kink on getting shot in New Orleans, his relationship with brother Dave, his childhood and upbringing, and on songwriting and lyrics, plus so much more.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 53.4mb, total interview length: 58' 21" sound quality: ****
Live Review by Larry Jaffee, Record Collector, February 2006
RAY DAVIES, the leader of the Kinks, is back in circulation after an extended layoff, due to getting shot in New Orleans while trying to ...
David Ackles: The Golden Horse Is In Hell: David Ackles' Theatre of Melancholy
Retrospective by Michael Baker, Perfect Sound Forever, May 2006
To be born is to be wrecked on an island. J.M.Barrie, in a review of Coral Island ...
Pete Townshend: The Deluxe Edition Solo Albums (Universal Music)
Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, May 2006
THIS IS IN DEFENSE of Pete Townshend, who'd probably be the first to argue that he doesn't need anyone defending him in public—least of all ...
Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon: Surprise Surprise: Paul Simon
Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, September 2006
"THE TRUTH is flexible and complex," says Paul Simon. On the eleven songs that make up his latest album Surprise, the legendary songwriter sizes up ...
Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, Harp, September 2006
PF SLOAN was a 19-year-old bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders when he wrote the protest classic 'Eve of Destruction' back in ...
Interview by Mark Kemp, Harp, December 2006
Whackv.tr.1. To strike (someone or something) with a sharp blow; slap.2. Slang: To kill deliberately; murder.n.1. A sharp, swift blow.2. The sound made by a ...
Bryan Ferry, Bob Dylan: Knockin' on Dylan's Door: Bryan Ferry
Interview by Ken Scrudato, Flaunt, March 2007
HIPPIES. PERHAPS no other collective of modern countercultural revolutionaries has left a more ambiguous imprint. Dada, Situationism, Punk—all boast fairly intact legacies, the original philosophical ...
Jimmy Webb: Legends of Songwriting : Jimmy Webb
Profile and Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, March 2007
"SOMEONE LEFT the cake out in the rain." No single lyric is more infamous in pop music than the one Jimmy Webb wrote forty years ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, March 2007
BARTON LEE Hazlewood remains the cult artist's cult artist, an American maverick who's operated by his own supremely offbeat rules ever since producing Sanford Clark's ...
Review by Dan Gennoe, dotmusic.co.uk, May 2007
IT'S A TESTAMENT to the immense songwriting genius of Elliott Smith that even his decade old cast-offs are worth hearing. It's also a massive relief. ...
Warren Zevon: Keep Him In Your Heart: Swan Songs of the Late Great Warren Zevon
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, July 2007
LIFE'LL KILL YA, Warren Zevon sang in one of his most grimly humorous songs - and it did. The grotesque multiplication of cells we know ...
Legends of Songwriting: Diane Warren
Interview by Bill DeMain, Performing Songwriter, September 2007
ASKED WHETHER she could ever love a person as much as she loves songwriting, Diane Warren doesn't miss a beat in answering an emphatic "No." ...
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 ...
Chuck Berry: Hail, Hail, Chuck Berry!
Essay by Jonh Ingham, Jonh Ingham's Blog, October 2007
"If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry."– John Lennon ...
Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Paste, October 2007
ONE OF THE MORE telling songs in John Lennon's solo catalog is the tender 'Look at Me.' Not the well-scrubbed version on his first album, ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, November 2007
JONI MITCHELL declared in 2002 that she was done with the music biz and would never, ever, make another album. I can't have been the ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, November 2007
BACK IN THE protopunk wars of the early '70s, we were all supposed to revile James Taylor and his kind. "James Taylor Marked For Death," ...
Retrospective and Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, November 2007
THE LEGENDARY songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller will be honored in person at the 2007 Gala Benefit Concert of the Lauri Strauss ...
Laura Marling: 'My songs are not pretty'
Interview by Jude Rogers, Guardian, The, February 2008
IN A RECENT POSTING on a music website, one of Laura Marling's growing army of fans described her output as "pretty folk songs about boys". ...
Bob Dylan: Stories and Questions
Comment by Kirk Silsbee, Life after 50, March 2008
Well I'll be damned; here comes your ghost again... (Joan Baez, 'Diamonds and Rust') ...
Carole King's Monumental 1971 Tapestry Returns In 2 CD Deluxe Edition
Special Feature by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, May 2008
Harvey Kubernik tells the story of the making of this epochal album, and interviews producer Lou Adler ...
Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
Review by Jude Rogers, Guardian, The, May 2008
HEARTBREAK OFTEN buckles sad records, turning sentimental confessions into whiny navel-gazing exercises. So thank heaven for Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, who avoids this problem beautifully. ...
Randy Newman: Harps For Harps' Sake
Interview by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, August 2008
The new record is in the shops, but RANDY NEWMAN admits he has no excuses for his "ridiculous" output of three albums in 20 years. ...
Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah, We Love Him So: Leonard Cohen's Comeback
Report by Johnny Black, Audience, September 2008
How the world's pre-eminent septuagenarian Jewish Buddhist singer-poet staged 2008's most remarkable comeback. ...
Hoyt Axton: My Griffin Is Gone
Review by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, October 2008
HOYT AXTON'S 1969 LP My Griffin Is Gone, originally released to little notice on Columbia, belongs to that group of orchestrated baroque pop albums that ...
Elliott Murphy at the Hotel Café, L.A.
Review by Roy Trakin, Rock's Backpages, January 2009
BACK IN 1973, this celebrated Long Island singer/songwriter and the New York Dolls were the twin toasts of the town's still-nascent rock-crit community. ...
Procol Harum's Keith Reid (2009)
Interview by Carl Wiser, Songfacts, April 2009
Procol Harum lyricist Reid looks back at the writing of such classics as 'Whiter Shade of Pale', and brings us up to date with his current projects.
File format: mp3; file size: 19.7mb; Interview length: 42' 59"; sound quality: ***
Leiber and Stoller: Hound Dog: The Leiber & Stoller Autobiography
Press Release by Harvey Kubernik, promotional interview, May 2009
LEGENDARY SONGWRITERS Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were in the delivery room for the birth of rock and roll, yet as Stoller said the day ...
Jackie DeShannon: Return Of The Starry-Eyed Girl
Interview by Jude Rogers, Guardian, The, May 2009
IT'S LUNCHTIME at Claridge's, and a glamorous blonde in sparkling stilettos shimmers out of the lift. No one bats an eyelid, but then she starts ...
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, Music Week, June 2009
IT'S OBVIOUS to anyone with even a smattering of pop music suss that without Neil Sedaka there would be no 'Breaking Up Is Hard To ...
Obituary by Richard Williams, Guardian, The, August 2009
NOT LONG AFTER Ellie Greenwich, who has died at the age of 68, met her future husband and songwriting partner Jeff Barry at a Thanksgiving ...
Ellie Greenwich: Remembering Songwriting Legend Ellie Greenwich
Retrospective by Jude Rogers, Guardian, The, August 2009
SHE CHANGED the shape of 60s pop by writing some extraordinary songs, including 'Be My Baby' and 'Da Doo Ron Ron' ...
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, Rock'n'Reel, November 2009
DESPITE ALL HER best efforts to stick a spike in the wheel of success, Laura Marling is fast-becoming the most talked-about young singer-songwriter of recent ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Album by Album: Rickie Lee Jones
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, December 2009
THOUGH SHE will always carry the pop albatross that was her Top 5 hit 'Chuck E's in Love' (1979), Rickie Lee Jones remains one of ...
Neil Young: Sugar Mountain - Live At Canterbury House
Review by Larry Jaffee, Audiophile Review, December 2009
NEIL YOUNG HAS BEEN such a music staple in our collective consciousness for so long that it’s nearly impossible to remember that he was once ...
Buzz Linhart: BUZZY's buzzy (BuzzArt Enterprises Inc.)
Review by Steve Roeser, hollywoodconcerts.com, December 2009
THIS WAS Buzzy Linhart's first album, released in the late '60s, and Buzzy (with a big assist from his partner, Art Berggren) re-issued it himself ...
Interview by Archie Patterson, Rock's Backpages, December 2009
The man who bore the weight of being the "New Dylan" in the mid-'70s looks back at his early days, his move to Europe, and brings us up to date with where he's at in the 21st century
File format: mp3; file size: 20.9mb; Interview length: 22' 52"; sound quality: ***
Nick Drake and Five Leaves Left: An Interview with Omnibus' Chris Charlesworth
Interview by Eddie Blower, unpublished, 2010
In 2010, Chris Charlesworth was interviewed by Eddie Blower about Nick Drake and Five Years Left for an unpublished article. ...
Interview by Johnny Black, Rock'n'Reel, March 2010
"I DON'T OWN MANY THINGS," Laura Veirs tells me. "I'm not a things person." ...
Retrospective and Interview by Larry Jaffee, Audiophile Review, April 2010
Sept. 2011 note: I spent 18 months working on this piece. Richard was the easiest to get hold of. When I shared this tidbit with ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2010
"WE DON'T shy away from the fire, us McGarrigle-Wainwrights," Rufus Wainwright laughs. "We're made of stern stuff." ...
Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach: Déjà Vu: The Unstoppable Dionne Warwick
Retrospective and Interview by Kirk Silsbee, Arroyo Monthly, June 2010
You could be a good singer from now 'til hell and back and if you haven't got material, you're just standing there with your mouth ...
John Hiatt, Little Village: Hello Goodbye: John Hiatt and Little Village
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2010
WE CONVENED at Ry [Cooder]'s house in Santa Monica. Set up some amps in a ground-floor room which opened out on to his garden. ...
John Grant: Success At Last For A Rock'n'roll Survivor
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, January 2011
Dangerous sex, addiction and self-loathing – John Grant's turbulent life inspired one of the best albums of last year. Andy Gill meets him ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2011
A GOLDEN RICH GUITAR PHRASE pulses out warmth and beauty and Neil Young keens "I want to live/I want to give/I've been a miner for ...
Ron Sexsmith: Long Player: In Praise of Ron Sexsmith
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, February 2011
"We have had a gutful of fast art and fast food. What we need more of is slow art: art that holds time as a ...
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Hi-Fi News & Record Review, March 2011
THE RECENT, TRAGIC, DEATH of Gerry Rafferty reminded thousands of fans just how vital his contribution to the '70s was, first as a member of ...
Retrospective by James Maycock, Daily Telegraph, November 2011
IT'S EVERYWHERE. It's become part of the air we breathe. 'Summertime' certainly feels like it's been with us forever. One day this June, while making ...
Review by Bud Scoppa, Uncut, November 2011
LESLIE FEIST'S career path has been a zigzag. The Nova Scotia-born, Toronto-based artist played guitar with rapper Peaches (who nicknamed her Bitch Lap Lap) and ...
Retrospective and Interview by Bruce Pollock, brucepollock.com, December 2011
ONE OF THE MOST enigmatic and evocative and emotionally intense songwriters ever to hit the Top 40, Laura Nyro's career survived numerous dips and bends. ...
Todd Rundgren: The MOJO Interview: Todd Rundgren
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 2012
TWO DAYS AFTER a throat-shredding three-night stand at London's Jazz Café, Todd Harry Rundgren seems relieved merely to be talking. Still sporting multi-coloured – black ...
Dory Previn: Remembering Dory Previn
Memoir by Loraine Alterman, Rock's Backpages, February 2012
MY DEAR FRIEND of nearly 40 years, Dory Previn, died last week. She was a great songwriter who exposed her deep feelings about love ...
Paul McCartney: Macca's Ration Book Romance: 'We Three'
Comment by Fred Dellar, Rock's Backpages, February 2012
PAUL MCCARTNEY'S latest album, Kisses On The Bottom, is, to a great extent, based around a number of songs his father once loved: age-old standards ...
Tim Hardin: The Unforgiven: Tim Hardin and the Shock of Grace
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, February 2012
NOTE: This is the "director's cut" version – at almost twice the length – of a piece written for MOJO and subsequently used as the ...
Tim Hardin: The Unforgiven: Tim Hardin
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 2012
AS CONCEPT ALBUMS go it was one of the more eccentric creations of the late 1960s. The mouthful of a title alone (Suite for Susan ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 2012
"TEA ANYONE?" says Rumer from the doorway of her beach hut. "Plenty of sandwiches left." Dazed by the mad March sun, her audience of biz ...
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, Catalog for Doug Aitken's Song 1 exhibition, June 2012
I WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD – a glam-rock brat awakening to the golden innocence of pre-Beatles American pop – when I shelled out for the ...
Rufus Wainwright: The MOJO Interview
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2012
WHAT WAS ON Rufus Wainwright's mind while making his new album, the sparkly, pop-ish, Mark Ronson-produced Out Of The Game? Only this. ...
Jonathan Richman: The Echo, Los Angeles
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Hits, July 2012
IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME since I've seen the legendary founder of the Modern Lovers, the man-child my fellow companion at a show once showered ...
Rodney Crowell's Melodic Literacy
Interview by Charles Bermant, Rock's Backpages, August 2012
RODNEY CROWELL, who turns 62 on August 7, has been on our radar since the 1970s, when he was the freshest horse in Emmylou Harris' ...
Aimee Mann: The Discreet Charm of Aimee Mann: An Interview
Interview by Martin Colyer, Rock's Backpages, September 2012
A freewheeling chat, taking in Mann's new Charmer, her talented collaborators, reality TV, turning up the treble, Laura Linney's focus, Jack Kerouac's drying-out and women's ...
Retrospective and Interview by Rod Tootell, Rock's Backpages, December 2012
IN SEPTEMBER 1974, a Swedish journalist was interviewing a rock singer pretty much unknown in Sweden. His name was Bruce Springsteen. ...
Rosanne Cash: Union Chapel, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2012
A HOST OF FACTORS, including brain surgery, have conspired to keep Rosanne Cash away from London for the last six years. Returning to a full ...
Martha Wainwright: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, December 2012
AMONG THE prodigal polymath musicians of the Wainwright-McGarrigle clan, Martha seems destined to come second to her brother Rufus. Among the prodigal polymath musicians of ...
Ron Sexsmith: Forever Endeavour
Press Release by Barney Hoskyns, Cooking Vinyl Records, February 2013
IN A WORLD of workaday singer-songwriters mired in vacuous self-regard, news of a new Ron Sexsmith record can only gladden the heart of those who ...
Yip Harburg and the Story of 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead'
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, Rock's Backpages, April 2013
THOUGH I HAVE tremendous sympathy for those who lost their jobs, their dignity and sometimes their lives, following the pit closures and ensuing strike of ...
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