The Champagne World of Tom Jones
Profile and Interview by David Hughes, Disc and Music Echo, August 1967
'The doctor says champagne is good for the throat' ...

Neil Diamond: A Boy Who Outgrew His Hits
Interview by Phil Symes, Disc and Music Echo, March 1971
IT TOOK a long while but the U.K. public woke up one day and discovered Neil Diamond. And with 'Sweet Caroline' providing a quick follow-up to ...

John Denver: Rocky Mountain High
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, October 1972
THERE HE IS on the screen of your color TV: blond, bespectacled, and peach-faced – the sight of him makes you want to adjust the hue, ...

Frank Sinatra: Palladium, London
Live Review by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1974
THE EMERGENCE of Frank Sinatra from retirement has become as regular a ceremony as when Lloyd George or Churchill used to be wheeled out on parade, ...

The Carpenters
Report and Interview by Andrew Tyler, NME, February 1974
PEOPLE ARE always saying that the real modern age miracle is how you can fly London to Furt-frank and stand a penny on a table, skinny ...

Neil Diamond: Gold Diamond Vol. 2
Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, September 1974
ALTHOUGH IT'LL never get to the situation where the ramifications of his use of Room 109 are being discussed, the time is probably just about right ...

Billy Joel - Piano Man
Review by Max Bell, NME, May 1975
THE GRAPEVINE WHISPERS Billy Joel is going to be a ...

Cher: Stars/Cher's Greatest Hits; Tammy Wynette: The Best Of Tammy Wynette
Review by Mick Farren, NME, June 1975
IN MANY WAYS Cher and Tammy Wynette make up the two facets of the Cosmopolitan philosophy, that candy coated version of feminism that seems to have ...

Paul Anka: Feelings/Manhattan Transfer: Manhattan Transfer
Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, September 1975
FIRST OF ALL there was that punky Canadian kid with the big voice and the tremor that even got to me ("Put your head on my ...

Elton John: Rock Of The Westies
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, October 1975
FACT: ELTON JOHN is one of the nicest people ever to touch ground while ...

Frank Sinatra: Palladium, London
Live Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, November 1975
ENFORCED AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION – that's what this "black tie" demand on the ticket is. Imagine reading "gauche gaucho" on Roxy tickets or "sequined jockstrap" on ...

John Denver: Why I Made It
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, March 1976
WITH THE SUNSHINE on his shoulders and the mountain water in his veins, John Denver is an enigma surrounded by moonbeams, a v friendly postman who ...

John Denver: What's The Poor Guy Ever Done?
Comment by Mick Houghton, Sounds, April 1976
IT SEEMS as if you can't be complimentary about John Denver without adding some kickback remark to cover yourself. Take Grace Slick's reported comment a while ...

John Denver: Palladium, London
Live Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, April 1976
WILL JOHN SWOOP down to the stage on the back of a pantomime Golden Eagle? Will his teeth be clean in time for the new show? ...

Demis Roussos: Onassis Of Rock
Interview by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, June 1976
TWENTY miles east of the Arc de Triomphe, across the Seine as it meanders north, and a fast drive through grimy Paris suburbs, there looms a ...

Cliff Richard: Cliff Brings Good News To Belfast
Report and Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, October 1976
CLIFF RICHARD wasn't smuggled into Belfast on Saturday night in the back of a furniture van. Nor was his appearance marred by a background of bombings, ...

Leo Sayer: London
Live Review by Danny Baker, NME, October 1978
A NIGHT distinguished for me by the worst support set I've ever heard and the most tuchus-licking tolerant audience ever assembled in one Vaudeville room. ...

Neil Diamond: September Morn (CBS)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, February 1980
THAT SLIGHT tremor in his voice tells you that Neil Diamond is emotional and vulnerable. Those bass notes tell you he's manly and he can take ...

Connie Francis: All-American Girl
Profile by Martin Hawkins, The History of Rock, September 1982
LISTENING TODAY to many of the records Connie Francis made for MGM in the late Fifties and early Sixties it is difficult to see their relevance ...

Johnny Mathis: Play Misty For Me
Live Review by Penny Reel, NME, October 1984
JOHNNY MATHIS stands still long enough to move PENNY REEL at the Hammersmith ...

ZZ Top: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Simon Witter, NME, November 1986
WHERE IS Tushmobile? On the basis of this show I'd guess it got lost somewhere in the mix. Lord knows I've waited to see ZZ Top, ...

Bread
Retrospective by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, August 1989
BREAD VIRTUALLY invented soft rock in the early Seventies, and the group's biggest hits – 'Make It With You', 'If', 'Baby I'm-a Want You' and 'Everything ...

Hi-De-Hi-Me To The Moon: Tony Bennett At Butlins
Report by Michael Gray, Daily Telegraph, December 1990
IT WAS AN ADVERT in a tabloid that caught my eye. "Lose Your Heart To Tony Bennett... Butlin's Super Weekend Break." Mesmerised, I read ...

Who The Hell Does Tom Jones Think He Is?
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, March 1991
THE BIG-BONED "boyo" stands in the centre of the room engaged in an elaborate mime: he crouches as he runs his clenched fists down along his ...

Tony Bennett: Take the L Train
Interview by Chris Bourke, Listener (New Zealand), April 1995
AUCKLAND HAD TWO music legends in town over Easter Weekend. While the Rolling Stones dazzled the Western Springs ampitheatre with millions of dollars of high tech ...

Frank Sinatra 1915-1998
Obituary by David Stubbs, Uncut, July 1998
IN A SENSE, Frank Sinatra represented a lie. Much as beneath Bing Crosby's ambling, indolent persona lay a pointedly less easy-going character, Sinatra was actually a ...

The Lightness of Being Beth Nielsen Chapman
Interview by Debbie Kruger, Performing Songwriter, September 1999
WHAT STRIKES YOU first about Beth Nielsen Chapman, and then again repeatedly on further meetings, is her lightness. She is a woman who has been through ...

Jimmy Webb: Pizza on the Park, London ***
Live Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, October 1999
WHEN THE Boo Radleys wrote a song called 'Jimmy Webb is God' they presumably weren't gripped by a vision of the Lord playing a gig in ...

Robbie Williams: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Sheryl Garratt, The Observer, October 2001
WHAT A SWELL party it was. Not being an opera fan, I don't often see 3,500 people in black tie and evening gowns. It's a magnificent ...

Should Pat Boone be Inducted Into the R'n'R Hall of Fame?
Comment by Gary Pig Gold, Cosmik Debris (cosmik.com), April 2002
SEEMS A simple, even innocent enough little inquiry, doesn't it? But I swear, seldom in all my quarter-century-plus of Piggery has one topic – one MAN, ...

My Breakfast with Boone
Memoir by Gary Pig Gold, Cosmik Debris (cosmik.com), June 2002
AS BIZARRE as even I still consider this lil' factoid to be, Yours Truly honestly did spend the majority of the Reagan administration touring Canada's hepper ...

The Literary Boone
Essay by Gary Pig Gold, Cosmik Debris (cosmik.com), November 2002
[What follows is the concluding portion of our Pat Boone trifecta, part one being the infamous RnR Hall Of Fame Poll, which somehow led straight into ...

Bobby Darin: "And This Is Me"
Retrospective by Kieron Tyler, Mojo, March 2005
FROM '50S TEEN idol to '60s folk singer, Bobby Darin never stopped packing a handful of startling singing careers into 15 short, debauched years. Not bad ...