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 ...

Motown: The Gold In Their Bodies
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, 1970
CONSIDERED TOGETHER at a party in New York, Nina Simone, the highly political folk singer, and Diana Ross, principal exhibit of the Motown Record Corporation, offered ...

AUDIO: Ahmet Ertegün (1971)
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1971
From his youth as an avid record collector and black music fan, up to signing Ray Charles, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegün tells the whole ...

AUDIO: Phil Walden on Otis Redding and more (1971)
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1971
It's 1971, and the Allmans are on the rise, Jimmy Carter is in the Governor's Mansion, and Otis is four-years-dead: Capricorn man Phil Walden and pals ...

The Sun Records Revival
Review by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, November 1971
SUN RECORDS and Phil Spector's Philles Records were the two most important independent record companies in the history of rock and roll. ...

Joe Turner/LaVern Baker/The Clovers/The Coasters/The Drifters/Chuck Willis: Greatest Recordings
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, February 1972
IN 1967, ARETHA Franklin moved from Columbia to Atlantic – in what soon proved to be one of the most important moments in the history of ...

Oldies In The 70's
Overview by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, March 1972
The dog days of rock are upon us. ...

Snapshots of the South
Profile and Interview by Ben Edmonds, Creem, November 1972
MAKING AN AIR APPROACH to Atlanta is like diving into a monstrous tossed salad. The land below is a fluffy carpet of complimentary greens which seems ...

Island Records: Reggae to Riches
Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, November 1972
IF YOU WORK for Island Records, nobody minds if you take your dog into the office every day – or even if it misbehaves on the ...

Philly Days: Cameo-Parkway
Retrospective by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, January 1973
Richard Williams reviews the Cameo recordings, recently reissued on two double albums, which made Philadelphia the 'Crap Capital of ...

Jac Holzman Then and Now
Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, May 1973
If ever I've identified with a record company, the nearest thing in my mind to an ideal would be Elektra Records, for many reasons, not least ...

All Platinum Records: Behind The Scenes With Joe Robinson
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, September 1973
JOE ROBINSON is President of All Platinum Records, a complex of record companies that embraces Stang, Vibration, Horoscope, Turbo and All Platinum labels. ...

Motown the Uptight
Essay by Richard Williams, Let It Rock, July 1974
We’ve got love a’ go-go now
Let’s not wonder why
Love-a, love a’ go-go now
Tomorrow that love may die
– Stevie Wonder, 1966

Sing it loud for your people, ...

A Recording Studio And Offices For Shelter Records: An Interview With Leon Russell
Interview by David A. Williams, unpublished, December 1974
"I ORGANIZED Shelter Records in Los Angeles in 1970. In 1972, I decided to move back to Tulsa to open one of the few recording studios ...

The Promised Land …… And How To Get There: Oval Records
Report by Charlie Gillett, NME, December 1974
Inside looking out; CHARLIE GILLETT, who has started his own record label, Oval Records, reports from the other side of the fence on the processes involved ...

Sun Records: Sun Worship
Book Review by Bill Millar, Let It Rock, June 1975
Martin Hawkins and Colin Escott: Catalyst (Aquarius, £2.90, 176pp) ...

Various Artists: The Stax Story — Volumes 1&2 (Stax)
Review by Cliff White, Let It Rock, August 1975
COMPILATION ALBUMS are like Chinese meals. A wise choice of carefully balanced ingredients can be delicious: sometimes you just get heartburn. ...

All Platinum Records: My Wife, The President…
Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, October 1975
IT'S NICE AND cool and dark in the back room of the bar, and you can sit in your booth and nurse a beer and watch ...

Charly Records: The Dark Side Of The Sun
Retrospective by Charlie Gillett, Street Life, April 1976
SAM PHILLIPS must be shaking his head in bewilderment that somebody should be issuing his ...

Stax: Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)...
Report by Cliff White, NME, August 1976
CLIFF WHITE charts the fall of Stax Records ...

Beserkley Records: The Fabled Label
Overview by Ian Birch, Sounds, October 1976
SOME PLACES become legendary. Mystical meccas for the besotted. That is usually until you sample them first hand. ...

Sun Records reissues: Rock’n’Roll – first dinosaur still extant
Review by Cliff White, NME, November 1976
CLIFF WHITE examines a major re-packaging of Sam Philips' Sun ...

Four on the Floor: The Motown Sound
Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Rock 100, 1977
IT WAS EVER MORE THAN A RECORD LABEL. At its zenith, during a span that dominated most (if not all) of the sixties, the hit factory ...

Rough Trade Records
Report by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, January 1977
GEOFF TRAVIS must feel like Dr. Frankenstein sometimes. Geoff is tall and lanky, with a fuzzy afro of light brown hair and a grin guaranteed to ...

Independents Day Revisited
Report by Paul Rambali, NME, August 1978
Last September, in our extraordinarily collectable NME Collectors Issue, we looked at the seemingly unstoppable explosion of independent record labels. Times change, though. Rebels become established, ...

Stiff Records: Be A Killer Or Be A Real Stiff…
Report by Max Bell, NME, October 1978
W. C. FIELDS would have hated the "Be Stiff" tour. A sixteen year child star who toured with Mickey Rooney? A performing punk dwarf called Eric? ...

The Sun King: Sam Phillips
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Palmer, Memphis, December 1978
BACK IN THE MID-'50s, the Sun Records studio at 706 Union Avenue was the epicenter of a sudden, wrenching shift in world consciousness. Tremors had been ...

Ace Records: The Ace Story Vol. 1/Vol.2
Review by Pete Wingfield, Melody Maker, January 1979
THESE TWO VOLUMES, together with the indispensable Huey 'Piano' Smith and the Clowns collection in the same series (Ace CH 9) represent the first time that ...

Rough Trade Records: The Humane Sell
Report and Interview by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, February 1979
Rough Trade aim to break down the barrier between the consumers and the consumed. ...

Modern-ists: The Bihari Brothers
Retrospective by Pete Grendysa, Goldmine, May 1979
TWO FACTORS combined to make the years of the Second World War uniquely fertile for Rhythm and Blues. One, strangely enough, was the shortage of shellac ...

EMI: Saturday Night Beneath The Corporate Umbrella
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, June 1979
MUSIC, FILMS TV, HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, MEDICINE, WEAPONS...HOW A GIANT RECORD COMPANY NOW EXTENDS INTO EVERY AREA OF LIFE – AND ...

Eddy Grant: Living On The Ice Block
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, July 1979
How far can a black musician control his own destiny in white society? Surprise, surprise, not all the way, says the man in the front line. ...

Faulty Towers: Miles Copeland’s New Wave
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, September 1979
MILES COPELAND is prone to saying things like "cracking America and the world is a big job and we're going to have to work really hard ...

Factory Records: Food For Thought
Report by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, September 1979
Lots of people thought that Operation Julie was a bit of an anachronism. Who, in the late Seventies, could be dropping all those tabs? It almost ...

Aspects of Superpop: It Will Stand
Retrospective by Penny Reel, NME, November 1979
The Minit label of New Orleans flourished during the period 1960 to 1962 and consolidated one of the cornerstones of the Superpop era. Allen Toussaint was ...

ZE Night: Hurrah, New York City
Profile by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, June 1980
THE RICH ARE different from you and me, my friends. While we content ourselves with free promos and an occasional "plus-one" at a local bistro, the ...

Orange Juice: The Sneer That Says Wish You Were Here
Profile and Interview by Paul Morley, NME, October 1980
THERE'S SOMEONE knocking on my door. A loud rap. I'm woken up with a start. I open the ...

The Sun Story
Retrospective by Martin Hawkins, The History of Rock, 1981
THE SUN RECORD COMPANY of Memphis, Tennessee, was one of the very few independent record labels to develop a unique and immediately identifiable 'sound'. ...

Mute Speak
Interview by Vivien Goldman, NME, May 1981
Vivien Goldman meets Daniel Miller, the man who brought you The Silicon Teens, The Normal and Depeche Mode. Though only one of these exists – but ...

Why is This Man Hip But a Complete Failure?
Interview by Paul Rambali, NME, December 1981
Paul Rambali meets Mr. ZE, Michael Zilkha and learns how the music on his label has made him fashionable but ...

‘Home Runs, No Bunts’ — Solar Power On The Rise
Interview by Gene Sculatti, Los Angeles Times, December 1981
Does the Stones' latest album fail to start you up? Has your affair cooled with the New Romantics? You say you didn't grow up to be ...

Animal House: Chris Stein, Blondie, and Animal Records
Interview by Cynthia Rose, NME, 1982
MUSICIAN/PHOTOGRAPHER Chris Stein has spent the last four years becoming what some Americans consider "a compulsive over-achiever", and others call 'an enthusiast'. ...

Berry Gordy: Motown Magician
Profile by Bill Millar, The History of Rock, 1982
Until recently little was known of Berry Gordy Jnr’s background. Such information as was available made no sense at all except on a romantic level, and ...

Leonard Chess: Grand Master Of The Blues
Retrospective by Tony Russell, The History of Rock, 1982
Chess is one the great labels. Along with Sun and Atlantic it has stamped its trademark indelibly on the history of rock. ...

Motown: I Hear A Symphony
Overview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, April 1982
TIMELESS music...a rare and precious thing...hard to find ...even harder to create: that's Motown music when it was in its heyday. It was a music that ...

The Meaning Of Mute
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, Masterbag, September 1982
(1) Not emitting articulate sound:
NOT THAT YOU could blame him if his utterances were totally inarticulate, because Daniel Miller has been having a hard and exhausting ...

Berry Gordy: The Man in the Middle
Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, 1984
Surrounded by the stars he created – Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross – stands Berry Gordy, the man who 25 years ago founded the ...

Atlantic Records
Essay by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 1984
Atlantic and other classic R&B issues are at last being reprinted — in Britain. Mick Brown reports ...

Richard Branson
Interview by Paul Rambali, The Face, June 1984
Notes scrawled habitually on the back of Richard Branson’s hand attest to a hectic day. He had been invited to lunch by the financial editor of ...

Chris Strachwitz: Slices From Arhoolie
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, June 1985
EL CERRITO, Calif. – "Since I only record music I really love, it's like being a preacher or a junkie," mused Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie ...

AUDIO: Stax Records' Estelle Axton (1985)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1985
From Satellite Records to 'Disco Duck': Stax Records' Estelle Axton on the "recording bidness" - pre-Stax Memphis and Sun and Elvis, Rufus Thomas, the Mar-Keys, 'Last ...

The Autumn Records Story
Sleevenotes by Gene Sculatti, Edsel Records, 1986
It was no Sun Records. It wasn't Philles or Dimension, or Cameo-Parkway or even Big Top. But Autumn Records surely qualifies as one of America's most ...

Def Jam Records: Men Or Beasties?
Report and Interview by Don Watson, NME, January 1986
IN CRUMPLED, jeans, trainers and an AC/DC T-shirt Rick Rubin represents the current hippest record company in New York, Def Jam Records. ...

Atlantic Records: Label Of 1,000 Dances
Essay by Penny Reel, NME, August 1986
ATLANTIC RECORDS was the supreme R&B label among many which flourished during the music's pre-eminence from shortly after the Second World War up to the early ...

SST Records: Working Muscles, Packaged Wallop
Report and Interview by Danny (Shredder) Weizmann, L.A. Weekly, September 1986
YOU COULD SAY this is the darkest Dark Age the music world has seen yet, what with commercial radio more dead than death itself and so-called ...

Stiff Records
Report by Adam Sweeting, Q, October 1986
THE CONNAUGHT ROOMS in London, WC2, are used to Lord Mayors, masonic gatherings and businessmen full of brandy, but on a grey August Monday the building ...

The End of 2-Tone: Madness/The Specials/The Selecter
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1986
Farewell, Madness – the last of the 2-Tone tribe. Phil Sutcliffe follows the fate of the three groups that pioneered the ska revival. ...

Chess Studios: Notes for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Retrospective and Interview by Don Snowden, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame booklet, 1987
THE ROCK 'N ROLL scheme of things has offered up any number of delineated "Sounds", those confluences of particularly musical elements that came to be associated ...

Full of Philly!
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, NME, January 1987
Before disco there was Philadelphia International Records, the Soul label of the '70s. Now it's been documented in a boxed set of albums. BARNEY HOSKYNS charts ...

Malaco: Rhythm & Business
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, May 1987
MALACO RECORDS isn't exactly a household name in the music industry but the Jackson, Mississippi-based label was behind one of the surprise grass-roots success stories of ...

From Hi to Waylo: the Spirit of Memphis Soul
Report by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1988
LOVERS OF authentic southern American soul are in for a major treat this weekend when a "Memphis Soul Revue" holds court at London's Town & Country ...

Staying Mute
Profile and Interview by John McCready, The Face, August 1990
ELECTRONIC. TEUTONIC. Independent. European. Regardless of the reality of its catalogue, Mute Records has a certain image. Like any record label with a desire to survive ...

Various Artists: Rubaiyat: Elektra's 40th Anniversary
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
IN 1950 NEW YORKER Jac Holzman started Elektra with $600 of his bar mitzvah money, recording artists in their own homes with a tape machine transported ...

Various Artists: The Sun Story Vols 1 & 2
Review by Johnny Black, Q, February 1991
IT WOULD BE convenient to be able to cite Sam Phillips's Memphis-based Sun Records, with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis on its roster, as the ...

Hi Records: That Memphis Beat
Overview by Colin Escott, Record Hunter, July 1991
Long in the shadow of Sun and Stax, Memphis based Hi Records finally hit the big time with Al Green and set the '70s soul trend ...

Rough Trade Records: Life After Debt?
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1991
On May 31, Rough Trade was pronounced dead. Thus ended a 15-year indie dynasty run by "brown ricers" — with a £40 million turnover. But with ...

Ahmet Ertegun And The History Of Atlantic Records
Profile and Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Schwann Spectrum, Winter 1991
"WHEN I FIRST started Atlantic Records," reflects the label founder, Ahmet Ertegun, "I intended to make good blues and jazz music, as well as some pop ...

Who The Hell Does Anthony H. Wilson Think He Is?
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, February 1992
IN THE headquarters of Factory Records, Manchester, I found myself privy to a sight and sound seldom witnessed, I dare say, by any human being or ...

Sub Pop: Go Forth And Grunge
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Q, October 1992
SEATTLE, IN the top left-hand corner of America, is famous for its once-thriving post-war aerospace industry, for its breweries and coffee, pine forests and clean air, ...

The Sultan’s Story: Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records
Retrospective and Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Schwann Spectrum, Fall 1992
FIFTY YEARS AGO, the son of the Turkish ambassador to the United States, then in college, sought to supplement his allowance. He and his partner figured ...

Factory Records: Hacienda that?
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1993
THE LATEST Manchester T-shirt says "Hacienda that". But is it? After the great indie label's collapse under debts of more than £2 million in late November ...

AUDIO: Jerry Wexler (1993)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, March 1993
Smokin' weed in the MOMA courtyard: growing up in NYC and the people he grew up with; meeting the Erteguns; writing for Billboard; the early days ...

Sub Pop: See Label For Details — An Interview with Bruce Pavitt
Interview by Cynthia Rose, Dazed & Confused, 1994
In 1979, when he was a college student, Bruce Pavitt started a fanzine called Subterranean Pop. Although the hipsters around him were pushing UK imports, he ...

Creation Records: Creative Accounting
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, April 1994
Primal Scream, Jesus And Mary Chain, Boo Radleys... Creation has nurtured a family of provocative rock rebels. Alan McGee looks back on the first ten years ...

The South Rises Again: The Improbable Return of Redneck Rock
Overview by Robert Gordon, Creem, 1995
Robert Gordon on Capricorn Records and the Southern Rock Revival ...

Joe Foster’s Rev-Ola
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, Mojo, 1995
Home Taping Is Saving Music

From The Shaggs to... Bruce Forsyth? Joe Foster’s Rev-Ola label, born of "frenzied tape-swapping," is home to all manner of ...

The Past Of Young America
Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995
The Commodores: Best Of The Commodores
Various Artists: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown: A Tribute to Berry Gordy

JUST WHEN we were sure we ...

Berry Gordy: In His Own Write
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Mojo, February 1995
Berry Gordy has finally told his own story. Harvey Kubernik met him in ...

Various: The Complete Sun Singles Vol 1 (Bear Family)
Review by Tony Russell, Mojo, April 1995
SUN RECORDS HAS A SPECIAL PLACE IN the history – or, if you never took to Presley, the demonology – of popular music, and the recordings ...

Russell Simmons: The Emperor Of Rap
Interview by Ben Thompson, Mojo, July 1995
SO WHY DO THEY CALL RUSSELL Simmons 'Rush'? The Def Jam emperor loses little time in answering this question. ...

Chess New Orleans
Sleevenotes by Don Snowden, MCA Records, 1996
THE COMPETITION amongst independent R&B labels after the post-World War II era was understandably fierce. Labels often lived from single to single – moving fast and ...

Apple Corps
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Request, 1996
"It was a good scene even when it was shitty, wasn’t it?"
– Derek Taylor, Beatles publicist, 1970. ...

CTI Records: Coffee Table Jazz For The 1970's
Retrospective by James Maycock, The Independent, December 1997
CREED TAYLOR was extremely shrewd at marketing jazz to those who were nervous of the genre, particularly after the discordant shreaks & squeaks made by John ...

The Story of Pye Records
Sleevenotes by Jim Irvin, Sequel Records, 1998
"AY-YI-YI, THE BEAT IS CRAZY!" ‘Sucu Sucu’, an insanely catchy samba novelty, was a chart sensation in the autumn of 1961. The forgotten theme to a ...

Young Turk Who Got The Blues: Ahmet Ertegun & The 50th Anniversary Of Atlantic
Profile and Interview by James Maycock, The Independent, July 1998
IN HUNDREDS of photographs, Ahmet Ertegun appears anonymously beside the famous. The celebrity might be a gaunt Phil Spector, Mick Jagger grinning widely or a blank ...

Motown: Stop! In The Name Of Love
Overview by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
SECOND ONLY to The Beatles' catalogue as the finest single coherent body of pop music ever recorded are the records made in Detroit for Motown in ...

Manhattan Rides The Range – Atlantic's Rarest Country Records
Discography by Pete Grendysa, DISCoveries, September 1998
NOW CELEBRATING 50 years in business, the Atlantic Record Company is submerged in the corporate swamp of an entertainment megalith. It didn't start out that way. ...

Ninja Tune: Way Of The Ninja
Profile and Interview by Dan Gennoe, 7, 2000
TEN YEARS AGO COLDCUT DECIDED THEY'D HAD ENOUGH OF TOP OF THE POPS AND SET-UP UP NINJA TUNE. XENCUTS, THE ORGY OF FREE-THINKING DECKS, BEATS AND ...

Flaming Lips/Built To Spill/Wheat: City Slang night at the Royal Festival Hall
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, cdnow.com, May 2000
NAMED AFTER a legendary 1976 EP by Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, the German label City Slang has been home to some of the best and most influential ...

Various Artists: The Immediate Single Collection
Essay by Rob Chapman, Mojo, June 2000
A 6-CD, 161-track box set of Oldham and Calder's '60s love-child. Billed as Happy To Be Part Of The Industry Of Human ...

The Soul in the Machine: Whatever Happened to Atlantic Records?
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, What'd I Say, 2001
"UNFORTUNATELY, we’re running a big business here now," Ahmet Ertegun confessed to author Gerri Hirshey in 1982. "And it sort of ... well, it drives you ...

Ahmet Ertegun and Various Authors: What’d I Say: The Atlantic Records Story
Review by Bill Millar, unpublished, 2001
THIS IS ONE muthahumping doorstep of a book as big as the Times Atlas and just as heavy. There are 900 photos and 160,000 words mostly ...

"The Agora of the Wayward": A Quarter Century of Rough Trade
Sleevenotes by Jon Savage, Mute Records, March 2001
"I USED TO buy my records in a shop in Trafalgar Road, and the man there was quite avant-garde for his day. Whenever I bought one ...

Rough Trade 25 Years On...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, March 2001
ROUGH TRADE is 25 years old. In its early days, you wouldn’t have got odds on the firm lasting another 25 weeks. And like so many ...

From the Dawn of Creation to the Birth of Poptones: A Walk Thru’ Joe Foster’s Vaults
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2001
Barney Hoskyns meets Alan McGee’s right-hand man and hears about his ongoing mission to bring lost classics back to ...

A Champion Of Punk Rides Off Into The Sunset: Saluting Howie Klein
Profile by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, July 2001
HE WAS THE CHAMPION OF PUNK ROCK, BACK IN '76 when no one quite knew what to make of it. ...

Lost Highway Blues
Report by Jason Cohen, slate.com, August 2001
The dirty little secret about Ryan Adams and his record label. ...

Escaping Into Le Jardin de Heavenly
Retrospective by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, September 2001
Finding comfort in obscure pop sounds from the past ...

Roots-Music Renegades: Fat Possum Records
Report and Interview by Andria Lisle, Memphis Flyer, December 2001
With artists Robert Belfour, T-Model Ford, and Hasil Adkins, Fat Possum Records captures the last gasps of a dying ...

Various Artists: Good Rockin' Tonight - The Legacy of Sun Records (Sire)
Review by Martin Colyer, Rock's Backpages, February 2002
ANOTHER WEEK, another tribute album, but this one is pretty successful. Beautifully packaged, with only one obvious clunker (Johnny Halliday's 'Blue Suede Shoes'? He don't swing ...

Stan Cornyn with Paul Scanlon: Exploding (Harper Entertainment)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Mojo, June 2002
"THE REALLY important factor was that we were a younger company than Columbia," Warners insider Stan Cornyn said in 1993. "We weren't structured so tightly that ...

Rhythm Kings: The Musicians of Motown
Essay by Richard Williams, The Guardian, November 2002
So many things made the Motown sound special – the singers, the songs, even the food. But what about the ...

Double Figures: Ten Years Of The Domino Effect
Press Release by Ben Thompson, Domino Records, July 2003
CAPTAIN'S LOG, stardate 1993: John Major's village-cricket-and-warm-beer based moral crusade inspires a parallel "back-to-basics" drift in UK rock 'n' roll (with Justine Frischmann as its Edwina ...

Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz: Howling at the Moon (Abacus Books)
Review by Mark Pringle, Rock's Backpages, March 2005
THERE IS AN immutable law of Recovery that states that the man with the loudest voice (and it usually is a man) will consume great swathes ...

4AD: For The Records
Profile by David Stubbs, The Guardian, November 2005
YOU'D IMAGINE THE minimal and portentous name 4AD, with its arcane, spiritual overtones (4AD is the year many historians believe Christ was actually born), to have ...

The Backpages Interview: Jerry Moss and A&M Records
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, December 2005
RBP: Is it true you and Herb Alpert first met in New York? Was he still working with Lou Adler at the ...

Rough Trade: The Second Coming
Profile and Interview by Dan Gennoe, British Council New Routes, 2006
IN THE WORLD of independent record labels, Rough Trade is a bona fide living legend. Born in the late '70s from the West London record shop ...

The House that Herb and Jerry Built: A&M Records
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame programme, March 2006
THE HISTORY of American pop music is filled with great partnerships. Most of them, from Rodgers & Hart to Jam & Lewis, are songwriting teams working ...

ECM, World Circuit, Topic: Groove Is In Their Hearts
Report by Mark Hudson, The Observer, August 2006
In the corporate world of modern music, some niche labels still thrive through their passion and commitment. As jazz pioneer ECM reaches its 1,000th release and ...

The Second Coming of Rough Trade
Report and Interview by Dan Gennoe, British Council/New Routes, Spring 2006
IN THE WORLD of independent record labels, Rough Trade is a bona fide living legend. Born in the late '70s from the West London record shop ...

Two Encounters With Neil Aspinall
Memoir by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, March 2008
RBP REGULARS will doubtless have read last week's obituaries for Neil Aspinall, who worked for the Beatles from 1961 until shortly before he died. He was ...

The Marty Thau Interview
Interview by Jeremy Gluck, Bucketful of Brains, March 2009
"I've always believed there is a fine line between abstract and pure accessibility and that is what I've always looked for ... an artist who can ...