Robert Sandall
For some years the chief rock critic for the London SUNDAY TIMES, Sandall also contributed to Q, MOJO, ROLLING STONE, GQ and WORD. He was also Director of Publicity at Virgin Records in London, and co-host of the groundbreaking BBC Radio 3 show "Mixing It". Tragically, Robert succumbed to cancer in July 2010.
List of articles in the library by artist
Aerosmith: A Quiet Word In Your Ear
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1989
Aerosmith? Mere jumpers on the heavy metal bandwagon? Struggling Stones-meet-Zeppelin copyists? Run-DMC’s backing band? For years they’ve been one of the America’s biggest, most influential ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1989
NOW ON to their tenth album and with sales of the previous nine topping 25 million in the States, Aerosmith are still just about unknown ...
Lily Allen: Talented, Troubled and Wallowing in Her Father's Footsteps
Profile by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, January 2009
WHATEVER AMOROUS tale they really told, the ostensibly loved-up paparazzi shots that flashed around the world in early January telegraphed the fact that Lily Allen ...
Beatles, The, Ringo Starr: Ringo Starr
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1991
"LAST YEAR," says the man with more rings in his ears than on his fingers, "I was sittin' round wondering what I was gonna do ...
Björk: Björk: 'This Time It's Intuition Only – No Brain, Please'
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, August 2004
Icelandic singer Björk has made a compelling new album that contains not a single musical instrument and is named after the Latin for 'marrow'. Robert ...
David Bowie: The star looks very different today
Comment by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, August 2003
SO FAR AS the world knows, David Bowie has been cruising in an enviable holding pattern for at least 10 years: a wealthy rock aristo ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
Fresh out of jail, James Brown got back on the good foot with a couple of UK shows last month. Backstage afterwards, Robert Sandall met ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1989
ROMPING HOME a close second to the Blue Nile in the increasingly competitive Studio Marathon stakes, Kate Bush's sixth album has finally arrived almost exactly ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 1997
WHILE NOBODY questions his status as one of rock's great originals, Captain Beefheart's madcap variations on the blues are an acquired taste. Armed with a ...
Nick Cave: Makes Darkly Melodic Records of Rare Beauty
Interview by Robert Sandall, Word, The, March 2003
He gets up at five a.m. and works. He leads an ordered domestic life. Bob Dylan likes him. He is clean and sober. ...
Eric Clapton: From Sex and Drugs to Domestic Bliss
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, August 2005
It's day four of Eric Clapton's week off from paternal duties, and the born-again family man doesn't know what to do with himself. On Monday ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1990
Quietly reinvented, curiously coiffeured, steadfastly single, and with an unprecedented 18 sold-out shows at the Albert Hall, Eric Clapton enters the '90s more a battered ...
Eric Clapton, Elton John: Ray Cooper: Who Are Those Blokes Up There With Ray?
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1990
Wherever stellar rockular personages gather together he's there at the back, shiny of pate and blurred of hand. But who is this Bongo Basher By ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, August 2003
TO MOST VISITORS and residents, Santa Monica is Los Angeles-on-sea, a breezy, oceanside reprieve from the bad air, nose-to-tail buildings and car-choked "boulevards" that sprawl ...
Ry Cooder, David Lindley: Ry Cooder & David Lindley: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, July 1990
A backroom Stone slides into town ...
Ry Cooder, Little Village: Ry Cooder: At Home In The Village
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 1992
Robert Sandall talks to Ry Cooder about the band that has given his guitar-playing a new sense of pleasure and purpose ...
Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins: Beyond The Nightmares: Billy Corgan
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, June 2005
THE YOUNGER ONES recognise him and stop to say hello, but heaven knows what the older visitors make of Billy Corgan as we wander around ...
Country Joe & The Fish: Country Joe McDonald: No Ordinary Joe
Interview by Robert Sandall, Independent, The, December 2002
THERE'S LITTLE ABOUT the small, stocky frame of the 60-year-old Country Joe McDonald that would lead one to pinpoint him as a firebrand political activist ...
Cowboy Junkies: The Cowboy Junkies: Chill out
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, March 1991
THERE IS something about 547 Crawford Street with its beer crate-strewn hallway, ashtray-scented kitchen (replete with moist, green furry organisms in the unlikeliest of places) ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash: My, How You've Grown!
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, June 1992
On the physique front at least, Crosby, Stills & Nash have paid top whack for the years of drug abuse, gunplay and prison visits, but ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, May 1992
IT'S LATE AT NIGHT; a couple of echoey electric guitars are plinking and howling at each other across a doom-laden backbeat; a frail and young-sounding ...
Cure, The: The Cure: Caught In The Act
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, May 1989
He denies any grasp of promotional ploys, yet The Cure have built up a vast international following. Is there, behind all that lipstick and conspicuous ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, August 1991
IF A BAND’S success could be measured simply in terms of gold, silver and platinum discs earned, then Deacon Blue have clearly had a lot ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1989
72,000 sunny Californians go monkey-poo to the pitch-perfect sound of Depeche Mode. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1991
THE REASONS FOR the six-year absence are well known: Brothers In Arms – the 15-million-selling album and 250-date world tour – banished an unassuming bloke ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1994
Who's a busy homeboy then? His CV already bulges with a prison sentence, a US Number 1 LP and a still-fresh murder charge. Now, gangster ...
Nick Drake: Brighter Very Much Later: Nick Drake
Retrospective by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, May 2004
POSTHUMOUS ACCLAIM is not uncommon in rock - "death sells" and all that - but the clamour surrounding the English singer-songwriter Nick Drake gets more ...
Duran Duran: The Old Romantics
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Independent, The, September 2004
IN A POP WORLD full of ageing Peter Pans with expensive habits to service, ex-wives to maintain and children to educate, attempted comebacks are common, ...
Earth Wind and Fire: Earth, Wind and Fire: Relighting the Fire
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, September 2005
MAYBE IT'S AN effect of the baking late-August heat, but the concert scene in Houston, Texas has gone all topsy-turvy. ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: Ian McCulloch: Mustn’t Grumble
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, March 1992
Ian McCulloch’s commercial appeal may be "more selective" than it was in the glory days of Echo And Bunnymen, but at least he’s found a ...
Brian Eno: Back to the Future: Brian Eno
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1990
The teenage keyboard pioneer with the left-field dress sense evolved into the amiable egghead in the "gardening clothes". And in between – via the avant-garde, ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1992
"I HATE IT, I hate it, I hate it," says Nuno Bettencourt, nodding at the 48-track mixing console of the New River Studio, Fort Lauderdale, ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1992
THE '80S BOOM IN world music generated much tourism but comparatively few settlers: quick excursions into Township jive, brief flirtations with hot Latin rhythms, the ...
Peter Gabriel: Gawp Factor Ten
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, July 1993
NOBODY LIKES being stuck inside one of those old red telephone boxes with a suspect handset and Peter Gabriel is clearly not a happy man. ...
Gang of Four: The Gang's All Here – Again
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, January 2005
LIKE THE VELVET Underground a decade before them, Gang of Four were one of those bands who never had a proper hit but who created ...
Gorillaz, Blur: Damon Albarn: From Pop to Opera
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, November 2008
He's indifferent to money and drugs. He hates the celebrity circus. And he famously said no to Tony Blair – but yes to getting drunk ...
George Harrison: Jolly George – The Unsung Story
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, October 2003
In a rare interview, George Harrison's widow Olivia tells Robert Sandall of his hidden circle of friends and fun, and that attack ...
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 ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
"We're playing the same halls as before, we just get to go on a few hours later." ...
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. ...
Lenny Kravitz: Fancy Seeing You Here!
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1991
"OH MAN, people are always hitting me with this retro thing. And they're all missing the point. A lot of bands now are being psychedelic ...
Lenny Kravitz's Record Collection
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1995
LENNY KRAVITZ'S record collection is, mostly, in his new house in New Orleans, not far from the pair of Jimi Hendrix's purple flares which he ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 2008
The return of was the music event of the year. On the eve of their comeback show at London's O2 arena, here for the first ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: Last Wild Man Of Rock 'N Roll Standing
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 2007
The six wives, the shootings, the arrests, the addictions – Jerry Lee Lewis was the original wild man of rock'n'roll. And at 71, he still ...
Madonna: Why Madonna's Still A Material Girl
Profile by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, April 2009
Turning 50 and divorcing Guy Ritchie doesn’t seem to have dented Madonna’s fortune – or her bankability. Robert Sandall investigates the business of being a ...
Mission: The Mission: Carved In Sand
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, March 1990
THE GOOD NEWS is that The Mission's third album is easily their best. ...
Joni Mitchell: A Joni Mitchell Interview
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, September 1990
"WHAT DO I THINK of the new Joni Mitchells?" Joni Mitchell grins, sucks appreciatively on another cigarette and thinks hard, as she often does, before ...
Mock Turtles: The Mock Turtles
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
THE FACT THAT HE is considerably more famous now than at any point in his previous 30 years has come as no particular surprise to ...
Mock Turtles: The Mock Turtles: Two Sides
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
AS PROVIDERS OF the best rock single of the year, the entrancingly tuneful, head-to-toe tapper 'Can You Dig It?', the Mock Turtles find themselves now ...
Morrissey: "A gentle adoration"
Report by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1992
Morrissey's US shows have been the scenes of riotous affection. And nobody can figure it out. "It's the intensity of the reverence..." ...
Randy Newman: He Shoots From The Lip
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, September 2003
Randy Newman’s barbed-wire lyrics and arch social commentary are bang on today – and his new album proves it, says Robert Sandall ...
Sinead O'Connor: I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1990
ON THE FACE of it, Sinead O'Connor is an unlikely person to be setting such a cracking pace into the new decade. ...
Roy Orbison: It's Over: Roy Orbison
Obituary by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1989
Roy Orbison died on the crest of sudden universal acclaim for his soaring and deliciously mournful ballads, ending a 30-year recording career in which life ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, June 1989
Sans Heartbreakers, Tom Petty revives the Golden Age of Pop. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, MOJO, May 1994
Three decades and 140 million albums later, the sheer familiarity of the Pink Floyd phenomenon obscures the strangeness of it all. Unlike any of their ...
Prefab Sprout: A Life Of Surprises: The Best Of
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, August 1992
Prefab Sprout: whatever happened to great songs? ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1991
THESE ARE TESTING times for little PR Nelson. His Graffiti Bridge movie, due out last autumn, has never been publicly shown, and the accompanying double ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, July 1991
SOME BRITISH ROCK MUSICIANS move to America to make their fortunes; others go to avoid sharing them with the Inland Revenue. Quite what the Psychedelic ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1994
Adopt Murray Walker voice: "Aaahnd aaas Nigel Mansell attempts radical chassis reshaping at Starkey's Bridge, whooo's this bringing up the rear?" It's Chris Rea, actually, ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1991
Whenever he makes an album nowadays, it duly finds its way inside a million houses. The biggest of budgets are his to command. And yet ...
Profile by Robert Sandall, GQ, August 2008
ROCK STARS were never supposed to be regular guys, though that's the way most of the ones who stick around usually end up. It's hard ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1992
SINCE POWERING HIS WAY BACK info everybody's good books three years ago with the New York album, Lou Reed has become more creatively focused than ...
Jonathan Richman: Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, 1989
BESERKLEY HAVE re-issued their entire catalogue of Jonathan Richman albums but they should have stopped with this one, a brilliant piece of East Coast proto-punk ...
Rilo Kiley: Dark and interesting corners: Rilo Kiley
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Telegraph, January 2005
MEETING HALF of the LA quartet Rilo Kiley in a London hotel, my first thought is how much nicer this pair are - as in ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: A Game of Two Halves
Report by Robert Sandall, Q, August 1990
There are 287 workers on the Day Shift, ensuring the impeccable construction of the Stones' three gigantic stages as they "leapfrog" around the European stadium ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Alive and Kicking
Book Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, August 2003
According To The Rolling Stones edited by Dora Loewenstein, Philip Dodd and Charlie Watts (Weidenfeld £30 pp359) ...
Rolling Stones, The, Charlie Watts: Charlie Watts: The Rock
Interview by Robert Sandall, MOJO, May 1994
INTERVIEWS WITH CHARLIE WATTS were once memorably described as being "as rare as rocking horse shit". Like many of the jazz players he admires so ...
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, December 1988
Hers was the face that graced a thousand magazine covers, the sound that became a fashion accessory, the image that seemed to encapsulate effortless video-age ...
Nancy Sinatra: Her Boots Are Walkin' On Back
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, March 2006
Ol' Blue Eyes' daughter, Nancy Sinatra, is mixing with the cool crowd now, says Robert Sandall ...
Sisters of Mercy: Some Girls Wander By Mistake
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, June 1992
"I LIKE to think it was the songs that made this band," Andrew Eldritch writes in the sleevenotes, "I know it wasn't." And as this ...
Joss Stone: The Undoctored Ms Stone, I Presume: Joss Stone
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, February 2007
MEETING JOSS STONE in the Electric Lady recording suite in downtown Manhattan feels curiously appropriate. Set up in 1968 by Jimi Hendrix, who named his ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1990
POP STARDOM, AND all the tabloid accolades which followed his unofficial award "Most Beautiful Man in Britain" 1981, did not agree with David Sylvian. ...
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 ...
U2: Flying High With a Jet Set
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, May 1992
HAVING, BY his own account, spent most of the 1980s "trying to dodge being a rock star," Bono aka Paul Hewson, the singer and most ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1989
Earthy but out of this world: at last on CD, Van Morrison's swinging '70s. ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, May 1991
"NOBODY SETS OUT TO BAFFLE PEOPLE; at least, I don't think they do." As general observations go, this sounds sensible enough, and it causes no ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, September 2007
RECOGNISING HIM is not a problem. As he strides purposefully across the concourse of Waterloo station it's easy to figure why Paul Weller is referred ...
Robert Wyatt: Triumph Of A Late Bloomer: Robert Wyatt
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, October 2003
CONTRARY TO THE impression given by the list of cool, metropolitan mates who play on his latest album - Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Paul Weller, ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1989
XTC’s Andy Partridge is from that eccentric, uniquely English school of songwriters that brought you Ray Davies and Vivian Stanshall. His problem has been his ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times Magazine, November 2005
HIS COMPLEXION is perhaps a little ruddier than we're used to but otherwise Neil Young is looking pretty good for a man who turns 60 ...
List of genre pieces
The Q New Year Summit 1995: Where Are We Now?
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1995
We teeter on the lip of a New Year, and, let's not flagellate around the shrub-like foliage here, The Future. In an attempt at stocktaking ...
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