Mark Leviton
Los Angeles native Mark Leviton had his first national publication in Rolling Stone while still in high school (a vicious pan of David Peel’s American Revolution album that he now feels was a bit harsh) and has written on music, film and books for over three decades, with hundreds of credits in Fusion, Phonograph Record Magazine, UCLA Daily Bruin, L.A. Weekly, BAM Magazine, Music Connection, New Musical Express, Let It Rock, Cream, The Los Angeles Times, Mojo and many other fly-by-night publications. From 1979-2004 he was with the Warner Music Group in Burbank, overseeing the release of over a thousand compilation albums and boxed sets, including The Cure’s Join The Dots, Left of the Dial: Dispatches From the ‘80s Underground and Time-Life’s Rock and Roll Era series. Before that he managed one of the original Rhino Records retail stores in Claremont, California.
Mark Leviton's Rock's Backpages blog
List of articles in the library by artist
Adolescents, The, Circle Jerks: The Adolescents/Circle Jerks: The Starwood, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, January 1981
A PACKED house and a dance floor that demanded knee pads and crash helmets provided the Black Hole of Calcutta ambiance for an evening of ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, April 1980
LOS ANGELES — "About the time we were doing our first album we used to play a club up the street here on Lankershim that ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, Phonograph Record, May 1972
ONE WOULD THINK that a group as successful as Badfinger, a group with their momentum (three top-selling singles, one LP million seller, association with Bangla ...
Joan Baez: Speaking Of Her Dreams
Interview by Mark Leviton, Village View, December 1989
NO DOUBT the desk clerk at the Registry Hotel in Universal City who gave Joan Baez her suite number was unaware that 1961 was a ...
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 ...
Stephen Bishop's Escape From Hollywood
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, January 1981
IN APRIL 1975, an obscure singer-songwriter named Stephen Bishop wrote an article for the small Los Angeles publication Folkscene which stated he'd been writing songs ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, August 1983
LET'S FACE IT – much of what passes for music in our country is, in fact, nothing more than product, the worthless, soulless result of ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, May 1982
Records can be great, but hearing a great live performance is still, for me, the essence of music. Vinyl is only the documentation of a ...
Captain Beefheart: The Country Club, Reseda
Live Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, February 1981
"YOU EITHER LOVE it or hate it," explained the guy standing behind me to his wary girlfriend during Captain Don's blistering set. "It's the weirdest ...
Cheap Trick Meet The Dream Police
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, L.A. Weekly, September 1979
IN THE conference room of Epic Records in Century City, Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen is good-naturedly taunting the group's producer, Tom Werman, who can't ...
Review by Mark Leviton, Let It Rock, April 1973
THE NEW Fairport Convention LP is going to alienate some fans – a radical change in musical approach by a popular band will always do ...
Flying Burrito Brothers: More Hot Burritos: the Flying Burrito Brothers
Report and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1980
LOS ANGELES — If tradition in music is meaningful in any way, it is because performers can emerge and fade, groups can split up and ...
John Fogerty: The Natural Is Back
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1985
WHAT BECOMES a legend most? You won't find John Fogerty in mink. He favors checked flannel shirts, suspenders, jeans and work boots, would rather go ...
Lowell George, Little Feat: Lowell George: A Feat Of His Own
Review and Interview by Mark Leviton, Blank Space, December 1978
FOR YEARS, fans of Little Feat have heard rumours about a solo album being prepared by Lowell George, the group's main songwriter, lead guitarist and ...
The Grandmothers: Grandmothers: We Are The Motherpeople
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, May 1981
LOS ANGELES — In Don Preston's Echo Park rehearsal room, a band is running through what they refer to as a "punk version" of Frank ...
Review and Interview by Mark Leviton, Village View, December 1990
INSPIRAL CARPETS are not just another band from Manchester, England, the city that's become one of the most exciting music centers on earth, home of ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The World According to Rickie Lee Jones
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, December 1984
RICKIE LEE Jones is telling a story on the radio: "In the dreamscape where you write, there are people who shadow you. Like I have ...
Little Feat : A Fan Remembers America's Greatest Unsung Band
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, August 1981
LOS ANGELES – I have in my closet a roll of grainy 8mm silent film taken in spring 1970 at a concert near the base ...
Long Ryders, The: The Long Ryders Shoot 'Em Up
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, September 1983
LOS ANGELES – Fringe jackets, mini-skirts, turtlenecks, striped trousers, long hair, 12-string guitars, LSD, acoustic instruments, garage rehearsals – lots of things are coming back ...
Ray Manzarek Opens Another Door
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, November 1983
FEW MUSICIANS have the opportunity, or possess the talent, to expand the capabilities of their instruments, to redefine for ensuing generations just how far musical ...
McGuinn, Clark & Hillman: McGuinn Clark and Hillman: Flight From The Past
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1979
LOS ANGELES — To examine the fates of original Byrds members Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman as they form a new act for ...
Motels, The: The Motels: Checking In With The Motels
Interview by Mark Leviton, Music Exchange, April 1982
SHE'S HAD LOVE affairs and bands break up around her, and she has steered a course to a successful career by combining the tough pragmatism ...
Review by Mark Leviton, Phonograph Record, October 1973
I CONSIDER it unfair, even immoral, for Maria Muldaur to look and sing so well. I mean, a reviewer like myself can get pretty worked ...
Michael Nesmith: Mike Nesmith: Nevada Fighter
Review by Mark Leviton, Phonograph Record, September 1971
MIKE NESMITH is about as noncommital as a person can be. Ask him about his music's derivation and he's likely to say that no, he ...
Randy Newman: Ragtime to Riches
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, January 1982
EVER SINCE his 1968 debut album, many have considered Randy Newman one of the greatest songwriters in America. ...
Review by Mark Leviton, Words & Music, September 1972
Randy Newman deals with subjects and values that are all but forgotten in contemporary pop music, reflecting in his ironic, witty songs some profundities which ...
Van Dyke Parks: Discover America
Review by Mark Leviton, Words & Music, September 1972
Van Dyke Parks, surely one of the most inventive musical minds in the business, is definitely not for everybody. His first album Song Cycle came ...
Christine Perfect/McVie: Fleetwood Mac's Songbird Flies Solo
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1984
"’Got a Hold On Me’ is totally fictional, 'cause at the time I wrote it no one did have a hold on me. If all ...
Pink Floyd: Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1980
MONEY CAN'T buy you love, but it can buy you the most expensive, elaborately mounted rock show you've ever seen. As spectacle, there's no question ...
Procol Harum, Robin Trower: Procol Harum: Grand Hotel and Robin Trower: Twice Removed From Yesterday
Review by Mark Leviton, Let It Rock, June 1973
TIME WAS when I'd say that my favourite group and guitarist were Procol Harum and Robin Trower. It seemed all so simple, the steady intelligence ...
Boz Scaggs: Middle Man (Columbia)
Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, April 1980
WATCHING THE degeneration of an artist's talents is no fun, especially when they've done truly classic work in the past. Boz Scaggs has never recovered ...
Seatrain: Marblehead Messenger (Capitol)
Review by Mark Leviton, Phonograph Record, November 1971
SEATRAIN WAS the first major splinter of the Blues project (now reformed in rather truncated version) and have consistantly been one of the best recording ...
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, April 1983
THE BEVERLY CENTER IN LOS ANGELES is a mod-a-go-go kind of shopping mall, acres of parking, chock full of stores devoted to video equipment, "intelligent ...
Specials, The: The Specials: The Whisky, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, March 1980
BEFORE THERE was reggae as we now know it, Jamaica had a ferociously happy, syncopated music variously called bluebeat, rock steady or ska. ...
John Stewart: Wheels of Thunder
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, April 1980
If you can laugh in the face of the fireIf you can dance in the light of the flamesAnd if you don't look down when ...
Rod Stewart: Never A Dull Moment
Review by Mark Leviton, Words & Music, November 1972
ONE CAN ALWAYS COUNT on Rod for superb vocalizing, but his recordings sometimes slip because of the spottiness of the material, from marvelous to mediocre. ...
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 ...
Wall of Voodoo: Separating The Myths From The Lies
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, November 1980
HOLLYWOOD – They warned me. They all warned me. The woman at Index Records warned me. The disc jockey who interviewed them on the air ...
Bob Welch: Three Hearts Up His Sleeve
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, February 1979
IT ISN'T EVERY DAY that a song, Phoenix-like rises from the ashes of its own failure and goes on to be a hit. It's even ...
Review by Mark Leviton, Phonograph Record, February 1973
...AND I WAS STILL raving about it the next week: And they had this piano player (assulter more like it) named Pianos Demolished who pounded ...
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, September 1980
A Journey Into the Dark Underbelly of L.A. ...
Review by Mark Leviton, Creem, March 1971
THIS ALBUM IS a preview of what is the ultimate rock opera-symphony, 200 Motels, which is constantly growing and taking on amazing proportions. ...
List of genre pieces
Undisputed Heavyweight Champions of the Mix Tape: 30 Years of Transatlantic Friendship on Cassette!
Memoir by Mark Leviton, Rock's Backpages, August 2009
MY ENGLISH FRIEND Neil and I have one of the longest, strangest, and most voluminous correspondences in the history of the world – a correspondence ...
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