"The Topless Came In So I Quit, Says Sly.."
Interview by uncredited writer, Record Mirror, August 1968
IT’S NOT every group that can boast a girl trumpeter, but Sly and the Family Stone can — and do. An unusual feature in what is ...

Snooks Eaglin
Retrospective by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, August 1968
That's All Right (Xtra 5051)
Blues From New Orleans, Vol. 1 (Storyville ...

Easy Rider: The Rock Generation Takes Over
Film or DVD Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 1969
Songs by Steppenwolf, the Byrds and the Band underline the message of EASY RIDER ...

Reggae: A Night at Count Suckle's and Reggae
Film or DVD Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 1969
JUST WHEN all hope had been abandoned, the ITV Network surprised us. ...

Buddy Holly and Buddy Knox: Texas Buddies
Discography by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 1969
LIKE THE rest of society, pop music isn't fair. The most successful singers earn more than they know what to do with, and the majority eat ...

Reggay: Son of R & B
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, May 1969
THERE WERE two kinds of reaction when Desmond Dekker's 'Israelites' started up the hit parades in March: blimey, I heard that before Christmas; and, the what! ...

Made in New Orleans: Record Production Techniques and the Land Of Dreams
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, May 1969
THERE WAS a time, not so long ago, when almost all the writing about popular music was descriptive or informative. ...

Born to Sing The Blues
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, June 1969
COLLECTORS of rhythm and blues music are doomed to perpetual frustration, as they witness one white singer after another plundering the culture they love. Occasionally, they ...

Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Charlie Rich and Ronnie Hawkins: Arkansas Rock Pile
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, June 1969
ROCK AND roll was the victory of regional locality over the world, of precise beliefs over general theory, of particular feelings over universal philosophies. ...

R & B in Vogue
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, July 1969
THIS ARTICLE mentions a lot of singers you've never heard of. Why haven't you heard of them? (They're all very good, very important, and have been ...

The Lovin' Spoonful: The Urban Villagers
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, July 1969
POPULAR music is sentimental, trivial or melodramatic, and therefore need never be listened to by people who care about real feelings. ...

The Real White Blues: Tony Joe White/Lonnie Mack
Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, August 1969
TONY JOE WHITE may well be the most sympathetic man making music today. His records show a man who cares about people, a Southerner with an ...

Nik Cohn: Pop; Paul Oliver: The Story of The Blues
Book Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, August 1969
Charlie Gillett reviews two books on music: Pop by Nik Cohn, and The Story of The Blues by Paul Oliver ...

Gospel: Soul Sources
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, August 1969
ON STAGE at the Apollo, Harlem: standing at one microphone, an immaculately dressed man dramatically insists his love. At the second mike, four men bend towards ...

James Brown: Telling The Natural Truth
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, September 1969
'SAY IT LOUD – I'm Black and I'm Proud' sold 20,000 copies in Britain, although the BBC played it only once. Is James Brown surprised? ...

Little Milton and The New Black Blues
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, September 1969
THROUGH THE 1950's, men with loud voices, amplified guitars and a few noisy accompanists made a modest but sufficient living out of singing the blues in ...

The Jive Five: Where Are You Now
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, September 1969
To the editor, R 'n' B World, New York. ...

Gene Vincent Cuts A New LP: John Peel’s Label Gets A New Version of ‘Be-Bop-a-Lula’
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, September 1969
ROCK'N'ROLL, WHICH HAS NEVER been far away since it made its first appearance in the early fifties, is without much doubt about to become all-powerful once ...

Duke/Peacock: 20 Years of Don Robey's R&B Empire
Report by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, October 1969
1969 Is the Twentieth Anniversary of Duke/Peacock Records of Houston, Texas, one of the best R & B Soul ...

Percy Sledge: The Best Of Percy Sledge
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, December 1969
PERCY SLEDGE is here for a three-week tour, and to coincide with it Atlantic have released a single, 'True Love Travels On A Gravel Road', and ...

Donovan: Meditation Is Like A Miracle Cure
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, January 1970
IT IS A FAR CRY from 'Catch The Wind' to songs like 'Winking Blinking and Nod' or 'A Poke At The Pope' but then Donovan has ...

How to Build a Bridge Backwards: Life as a Part-time Disc Jockey
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, January 1970
I HAD A STRANGE TIME the other day, playing records at a college party. ...

The Dave Clark 5's Mike Smith
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, January 1970
NOT UNLIKE 'old man river' the Dave Clark Five keep rolling along and just when the critics are about to re-write their obituaries – missing believed ...

Jimmy Page: Superstar
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, February 1970
JIMMY PAGE is the phoenix who has arisen from the ashes of the Yardbirds to emerge amongst the electric guitarist gods, through the meteoric success of ...

Lonesome Number One: Profile of Don Gibson
Profile by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, March 1970
DON GIBSON is the most original country and western singer of the past 15 years, and that's been his problem. While everybody else has been happy ...

The Moody Blues: When Is A Single Not A Single?
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, May 1970
WHEN IS a single not a single? Apparently when it is the Moody Blues. The Moodies have broken into the Seventies with every indication of making ...

Joe South: The Other White South
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, June 1970
MOST WHITE people in the American South like country and western music. ...

Hyped By Your Heroes: Bob Dylan, Randy Newman
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, July 1970
THE SUMMER of 1970 will go down in the history books as the time when the music of the period finally let loose the truth about ...

Rod Stewart: How Rod's Old Raincoat Didn't Let Him Down
Profile and Interview by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, October 1970
ROD STEWART is a walking synopsis of British rock music. He's been in there from the golden days of CND, through the Rod The Mod era, ...

Black Sabbath: It's All Word Of Foot
Profile and Interview by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, October 1970
THE BLACK SABBATH album Paranoid, slipped into your record shops a couple of weeks ago. No ballyhoo. The release was as quiet as it was for ...

Deep Purple: Rock Is Where We're At
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, October 1970
ORGANIST JON Lord asserts triumphantly that with Deep Purple In Rock the group have finally found their true musical identities following their early 'success' as a ...

The Moody Blues: Why Do People Get Moody About The Moodies?
Profile and Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, October 1970
THE MOODY BLUES – trick or treat? Their talent and ability to produce their unique sounds on live appearances is undeniable but a hard core minority ...

Motown: Still Making It?
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, November 1970
FOUR years ago, there were a lot of people who made a point of going into their local record shops and asking, can I hear 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 to ...

Soul reviews
Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 1971
Ike and Tina Turner: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Sly and the Family Stone: Greatest Hits (Epic) ...

Brinsley Schwarz: The Lost Weekend
Report by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 1971
"COMING DOWN TO LAND in an airplane in New York is like taking a swim in a ...

Rufus Thomas: Push and Pull That Funky Dog
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 1971
REHEARSALS at Top of the Pops. A man who looks close to 50 years old goes up to a taller, younger man in dark glasses. ...

Carole King
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. ...

The Moody Blues
Report and Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, January 1971
'GI-NORMOUS' is the only word to describe the Moody Blues present status in America. They have reached the kind of heights there which are only enjoyed ...

McGunness Flint: My Goodness, McGuinness!
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, January 1971
TOM McGUINNESS has been upon us now for many, many years, peering through little circular windows in a kindly and benign manner at the journalese since ...

Chicken Shack
Interview by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, January 1971
STAN WEBB is Chicken Shack. And at the moment he's quite literally the whole band – the rest of the original members left when the group ...

Black Sabbath: Nobody But The Public Digs Sabbath
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, January 1971
THERE WOULD seem to be a lot of unnecessary resentment over Black Sabbath's success in this business. And even outside it by those bastions of public ...

Grand Funk Railroad: Grand Funk — Or Bunk?
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, February 1971
RESENTMENT from the critics is something that Grand Funk Railroad are having to live with in the United States, but the pill is made the easier ...

Pete Townshend
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, February 1971
WHITHER the Who? you might ask, for despite their Live At Leeds album and Pete Townshend's recently announced plans for "musically computerised character analysis" we have ...

Linda Ronstadt: Get That Ronstadt Message
Report and Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, February 1971
WELL, MY lady took the message, and she wrote it on the wall: "Linda Ronstadt, EMI Press Reception, 4 o'clock tomorrow." ...

Jimmy Page: Zep Come To The People
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, February 1971
"WHAT DO YOU want if you don't want Money?" was the lyrical question once put but never answered by a certain Adam Faith nee Terence Nelhams ...

Jethro Tull: God Is Alive and Starring On…
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, March 1971
AQUALUNG is undoubtedly Jethro Tull's most significant album to date and although comparisons are often odious to the artist concerned, the highest compliment I feel able ...

ELP Is On The Way…
Report and Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, March 1971
DESPITE PROTESTATIONS to the contrary, there is no such thing as an instant group – super or otherwise – and ELP are a testimony to the ...

Tony Orlando: The Last Of The Teenage Idols
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, April 1971
THE ODEON, Kingston-upon-Thames. Or maybe it was The Granada. It's 9.20 p.m. on the 15th February 1962 and Clarence 'Frogman' Henry has just boogied his head ...

Marc Bolan: Energy Is What It's All About
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, April 1971
MARC BOLAN is ready to take on the world following his incredible success with two maxi singles, 'Ride A White Swan' almost indecently closely followed by ...

Hank Williams and Honky Tonk
Overview by Martin Hawkins, Record Mirror, May 1971
MUCH HAS been written recently about the influence of Sam Phillips' Memphis Sun label on rock 'n' roll, especially since its British releases of recent months. ...

Deep Purple
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, May 1971
THE CRY most likely from the touchline as Deep Purple rocket on from standing ovation to standing ovation in the next few weeks is "bring on ...

Family
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, May 1971
FAMILY ARE something else, that is they are not immediately classifiable into a particular bag – blues, rock, folk or progressive. ...

Rory Gallagher: Fresh Taste For Rory
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, May 1971
WHAT WERE the real reasons for the break-up of the late lamented Taste at a time when it appeared they were THE live band and had ...

The Groundhogs: The Hogs Kept Clean And Still Made It
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, May 1971
IF IT had not been for a clever piece of intuition on the part of Liberty Record's knowledgeable young A&R director Andrew Lauder the Groundhogs would ...

James Taylor: On The Road With Sweet Baby James
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, May 1971
AMONG THE very few road managers who have put their heads, hearts, hands and feet into their work is Super-Scot Eric Barrett who hit the rock ...

Van Der Graaf Generator: The Generator Are Staying Very Content On The Continent
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, May 1971
PERHAPS THE most obvious band of our times are Van der Graaf Generator who without any publicity hype – hit single or ballyhoo – have calmly ...

Cat Stevens: The Honest Way For It To Happen
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, June 1971
MR STEVENS is, one might suppose of a young man who has survived the horrors of being initially conceived as a teen idol at 18 and ...

Cajun: Swamp Pop
Overview by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, June 1971
COUNTRY music does not accept outside influences as readily as r&b and r&b doesn't lap them up as greedily as pop music. ...

The Byrds
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, June 1971
THE BYRDS have flown leaving behind them a few thousand satisfied customers and a liberal sprinkling of Her Majesty's Musical Trade Press impressed with their relaxed ...

Deep Purple: "The Stones Are Out Of Date" — Ian
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, July 1971
DEEP PURPLE are the band who made it in spite of the critics, the press and most of the mass media and, for that alone, they ...

Conway Twitty: The Lonely Country Blues Boy
Overview by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, August 1971
WHEN discussing the history of rock 'n' roll, a number of writers have recently implied that the attention paid to black influences has long obscured the ...

Carly Simon Quits The Family Commune
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, September 1971
IT SEEMS ENTIRELY possible that Carly Simon (with one highly successful album high in the American charts, following a top ten single) might well be the ...

Tir Na Nog
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, September 1971
HAVE YOU HEARD the one about the Englishman, the Irish Protestant and the Irish Catholic in a pub at lunch time? And – the first Englishman ...

Jethro Tull: Ian Anderson Is No Rock Hitler
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, September 1971
THAT BEARDED prankster Ian Anderson is amongst us once more with his reshuffled ensemble now featuring Barrie-More Barlow on percussion in place of Clive Bunker (now ...

Keith Moon: Pitch And Bowl For A Pig!
Report by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, September 1971
THERE WAS a Moon landing in Lyne, Surrey last week when the Who's very own 'lunar-tick' did his bit for his new community by putting in ...

The Miracle of Smokey Robinson
Profile and Interview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, September 1971
ABOUT twelve years ago, Berry Gordy told Smokey Robinson how to write songs: "Every song should have an idea, tell a story, mean something." Smokey put ...

Lecherous, Indolent, Stupid…and Comical: The Coasters
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, October 1971
THERE IS A passage in the Coasters' 'Sweet Georgia Brown' where the lead baritone flies off on the immortal line "she gotta walk that make a ...

Marc Bolan: I Am The Cosmic Dancer
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, October 1971
I DO BELIEVE I am in grave danger of becoming a pleb! For example in the opinion of a number of eminent musical critics Marc Bolan ...

Family Are A MAN'S Band
Report and Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, October 1971
THEIR MUSIC is both uncompromising and aggressive but like most musical hard men they have their other side and their latest album Fearless is likely to ...

Alvin Lee
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, October 1971
'THE FASTEST Guitar in the West', 'The Elvis Presley of the Woodstock Generation', 'King Guitar' (Bert Weedon would dispute that – rock on Bert) – those ...

Chicano Rock
Special Feature by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, October 1971
ON 3 February 1959 Richard Valenzuela died in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly whose final recordings foretold the Beatless sixties; a more pop than ...

Mott The Hoople: Mott — An Enigma
Profile and Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, December 1971
"THE PLOT thickens" as they used to say in all the best detective stories and the mystery as to why Mott the Hoople cannot break into ...

Leslie West
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, December 1971
JEFF BECK has called him 'The greatest living guitarist in the World' and whatever you think of the American band Mountain there is no ignoring the ...

Frank Zappa: Rude, Pompous…And Frank
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, January 1972
EVERY ONE has a right to an opinion but there are some who believe he has no right to express it in public. There are occasions ...

British Rock 'n' Soul
Overview by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, January 1972
THERE'S A HOT SEAT in my house. Right by the record player. Victims are required to sit in it and hazard a guess at the identity/race/influences ...

Lindisfarne: Selling Newcastle
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, January 1972
LONG AGO AND far away when Hyde park was just a flower pot and underground meant the Bakerloo line to me I was given to lurching ...

A Little Rift In Curved Air?
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, February 1972
IT WAS SCOTT Fitzgerald who held to the theory that the test of a first rate intelligence was to hold two opposed ideas in the mind ...

The Cadillacs: Speedo's Back In Town
Interview by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, February 1972
EARL CARROLL is still a rocker. The other Coasters wear Afros but Mr. Earl's hair is black, shiny and slickered back. Thumbing through a copy of ...

Echoes: Jerry Lee Lewis
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, March 1972
ON 22nd MAY 1958, an immigration officer manning the desk for TWA flights from New York to London Airport North scratched his head, sighed, picked up ...

Lindisfarne Tell All
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, March 1972
DEFINING Lindisfarne's success is rather like pulling the wings off a butterfly at present but there seems little doubt after having seen them on stage or ...

Seals and Crofts: Faith The Music
Interview by Keith Altham, Record Mirror, March 1972
NICE PEOPLE – Jim Seals and Dash Crofts. A couple of less unlikely Texans I have yet to meet, currently residing somewhat ironically in the Whitehouse ...

Fats Domino: Walking To New Orleans
Profile by Martin Hawkins, Record Mirror, May 1972
IN RECENT years the music of New Orleans in the 50's has been well documented on albums, but maybe now is the time to be picking ...

Acappella: The Rise And Fall Of Acappella
Guide by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, June 1972
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, 1954. Five young men stood around a tape recorder in a church cellar and gang. They couldn't afford a band but wouldn't have ...

Willie John: A Soul Who Died In Jail
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, June 1972
THE DEATH of Little Willie John is chronicled in the June 8th 1968 edition of Billboard. Datelined Walla Walla, Washington, May 27th, the notice reads: ...

Echoes: Richard Berry
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, July 1972
"They took me to see that friend of mine
yeah District court-room two-twenty-nine
the judge said 'your payments are way behind'
I said 'Don't worry Daddy it won't happen ...

Johnny Otis: The Godfather of R&B
Retrospective by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, July 1972
I THOUGHT Johnny Otis was suffering from over-exposure Dave Wolf who has drained his life savings to bring over Johnny's entire package thinks not. So "Echoes" ...

Charlie Rich: Rich and Mellow
Discography by Bill Millar, Record Mirror, August 1972
"ULTIMATELY there was Charlie Rich. Rich was a Georgia cotton farmer and he was into his thirties, he had grey hair and a paunch. Still he ...

Reggae
Overview by Kevin Allen, Record Mirror, September 1975
You either love it or hate it. It's either boring, and all the same, or the most exciting thing you've ever heard. No other current musical ...

The Temptations: Moving With The Times
Interview by Kevin Allen, Record Mirror, October 1975
IT'S SURE tough work being a Temptation. Before replacing Damon Harris in soul music's top fivesome, Glenn Leonard not only had to learn the group's songs ...

Martha Reeves: Our Martha Aims Higher And Higher
Interview by Kevin Allen, Record Mirror, December 1975
"IF I won any fans over here on my first trip I still have them. They're so much more devoted than the people back home, they ...

Johnny Guitar Watson: Beware The Guitar Gangster
Profile and Interview by Kevin Allen, Record Mirror, January 1976
SUPERSTAR? MAYBE not. But despite a lack of any major hits, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson has long been acknowledged as a super-talent of the black American music ...

The Future Of Rock 'N' Soul
Comment by Kevin Allen, Record Mirror, February 1976
JUST ONE glance at the pop charts over the past decade is sufficient to indicate the domination of black music in general and soul music in ...

The Sex Pistols: Winterland, San Francisco
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, January 1978
London's pride take over USA – The Pistols' last gig? ...

Ol’ Bill: Be-Bop Deluxe’s Bill Nelson
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Record Mirror, February 1978
"THE AMERICAN interviewers have been saying, 'Hey, are you going to wear the suits again this time?' and I say, 'We've worn them the last two ...

Blondie: More Males Per Oxide
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, April 1979
EVER HEARD the one about New Yorkers in Los Angeles? Well there's more than one, as Woody Allen knows, and Blondie have a few on tap. ...

The Pretenders: Talk Of The USA
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, May 1980
LAST YEAR'S "next big thing" rarely succeeds in becoming "This year's model" with the ease with which the Pretenders have performed the feat in ...

Bruce Springsteen: The Man, The Myth, The Magic
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, October 1980
MILWAUKEE IS up by the Great Lakes in the industrial badlands. Concrete freeways, steel chimneys, cloudy skies and breweries. The kind of place "where Mister when ...

John Lennon
Obituary by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, December 1980
WHEN WE were growing up, my brother and I, he loved John Lennon especially. Our parents used to give us a Beatles album every Christmas. Sergeant ...

T'Pau: For Crying Out Loud!
Interview by Betty Page, Record Mirror, November 1987
STEP INTO CAROL Decker's parlour and she'll greet you with a firm but welcoming handshake. This is characteristic of this forthright, intelligent and sharp young woman ...