Library Rock's Backpages

MSN.com

MSN.com

34 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

Carrie Underwood: An Interview

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, July 2006

"AT FIRST I felt like maybe I cheated a bit, getting in the way I did," said Carrie Underwood. "But I paid my dues my ...

Tori Amos

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, January 2007

"AT THE END of the day," says Tori Amos, "if I'm not inflammatory, I wouldn't be Tori." ...

The Beatles, George Martin: The Real Fifth Beatle: Sir George Martin On Sgt. Pepper, Why Abbey Road is Better and More

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, June 2007

There were many who vied for the title, but in the recording studio, there was really only one Fifth Beatle. ...

Emmylou Harris on Songbird

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, August 2007

"FOR ME," says Emmylou Harris, "it's always about finding a song, one at a time, that I love and that I can make my own." ...

Mick Jagger

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, September 2007

"I THINK YOU just learn as you go along," says Mick Jagger, "whether you're playing with the Rolling Stones or playing with other musicians." If ...

The Bee Gees, Robin Gibb: Robin Gibb remembers Saturday Night Fever

Retrospective and Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, September 2007

FOR BABY BOOMERS, this year marked the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. For hipsters worldwide, 2007 means that it's been three decades since ...

Led Zeppelin: Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, October 2007

IT IS A ROCK and roll fantasy that most people had abandoned. On November 26 at London's O2 Arena, the three surviving members of Led ...

Steve Winwood: The Lives of Steve Winwood

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, March 2008

THE TITLE OF Steve Winwood's new album is Nine Lives – which refers to the number of songs the disc contains, but could just as ...

Steely Dan

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, May 2008

THE WORSE THINGS get, the better Steely Dan sounds. The songs of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen stand as the definitive account of urban decadence ...

Billy Joel on The Stranger

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, July 2008

IN 1977, BILLY Joel was struggling to catch a break. The Long Island native was approaching 30, and had released four albums to no great ...

David Byrne

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, August 2008

IN NEW YORK CITY this summer, David Byrne is everywhere. His installation titled Playing the Building transformed the Battery Maritime Building into a giant musical ...

Kenny Chesney, Steve Earle, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dave Matthews Band, John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, The Pretenders, Neil Young: Farm Aid

Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, September 2008

"THIS IS OUR twenty-third Farm Aid," said John Mellencamp, "and when we started this thing, we were naïve enough that we thought we'd have this ...

The Four Tops, The Supremes, The Temptations: Motown at 50

Retrospective and Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, January 2009

FIFTY YEARS AGO this month in Detroit, a 29-year-old African-American songwriter named Berry Gordy, Jr – a former boxer, autoworker, and Army veteran – borrowed ...

Fleetwood Mac Unleashed: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham speak

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, February 2009

A FEW WEEKS ago in Los Angeles, the members of Fleetwood Mac – Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Stevie Nicks – gathered together ...

John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen: Pete Seeger's Birthday Concert: Madison Square Garden, NYC

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, May 2009

IN THE NEW biography The Protest Singer, folk music paragon Pete Seeger tells writer Alec Wilkinson that the single word he believes in above all ...

Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Richie Havens, Santana: Woodstock's 40th anniversary

Retrospective and Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, August 2009

Woodstock was a beginning, and it was an end. ...

Jeff Beck, Stevie Wonder: Jeff Beck

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, April 2010

"EVERY TIME I hear a really attractive chord sequence, I'm on my way again," says Jeff Beck. "I think, what can I do with this?" ...

Levon Helm

Profile and Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, May 2011

LEVON HELM is standing in his kitchen, grinning. At the head of the table, singer-songwriter Garland Jeffreys is showing guitarist Larry Campbell, best known for ...

Harry Belafonte

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, October 2011

"NOBODY'S EVER known what to call me," says Harry Belafonte. "Was I a folk singer, jazz, pop? Or was I even a singer at all? ...

Paul Simon

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, October 2011

"CAN YOU IMAGINE us years from today?" wrote Paul Simon in 'Old Friends', from Simon and Garfunkel's 1968 album Bookends. "Sharing a park bench quietly/How ...

The Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on Some Girls

Retrospective and Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, November 2011

"THE IDEA WAS ten songs, very direct, not a lot of backing vocals or horns, no duets or guests, very straightforward," says Mick Jagger. "We ...

Van Halen: Café Wha?

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, January 2012

"WELCOME TO Occupy Van Halen!," said a grinning David Lee Roth, as the band took to the stage of New York's tiny basement club Café ...

Lisa Marie Presley

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, May 2012

LISA MARIE Presley had to go to England to come home. The only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, she had released two albums – ...

Buddy Guy on his autobiography

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, June 2012

"A LOT OF people have the blues and don't even know they got it," says Buddy Guy. "But just keep living and you'll figure out ...

Neil Young on Americana

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, June 2012

"I JUST DIDN'T want any new songs," says Neil Young. "I was not anxious to go down that road – to have people analyzing them ...

Jay-Z: Carnegie Hall, New York City

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, July 2012

LIKE ANY REAL MC, Jay-Z loves a challenge. He just takes things to a higher level than, well, anyone. So it wasn't enough that on ...

Jimmy Cliff

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, July 2012

THERE IS exactly one reggae singer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame whose name is not Bob Marley. The truth, though, is that ...

The Band, Levon Helm: Love for Levon: Izod Center, New Jersey

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, October 2012

LEVON HELM wasn't exactly a household name. But when the former drummer and vocalist for The Band died in April after a long battle with ...

Bon Jovi, Coldplay, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, The Who: 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief: Madison Square Garden, New York

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, December 2012

IT MIGHT HAVE been the single greatest gathering of talent for a rock show – or it might just have been, as Mick Jagger put ...

Neil Young

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, December 2012

"THERE'S A day of reckoning coming," says Neil Young. "These superstorms and disasters — they're not a surprise, they were predicted, and they're only going ...

Elvis Costello, D'Angelo, Kat Edmonson, Prince, The Roots, The Waterboys, Wendy And Lisa: The Music of Prince: Carnegie Hall, New York

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, March 2013

PRINCE HAS long been considered a gold standard as a singer, guitarist, stage performer, and producer. He's such a singular force, though, that he hasn't ...

Allman Brothers Band, Eric Clapton, Booker T. Jones, John Mayer, Keith Richards: Crossroads Guitar Festival: Madison Square Garden, New York

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, April 2013

Two nights. Nine-and-a-half hours. Thirty-three guitar players (more or less). Ninety-one songs. ...

The Band, Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, September 2013

ROBBIE ROBERTSON isn't exactly known for being prolific. In the almost 37 years since The Last Waltz marked his final show with The Band, he ...

Cheap Trick, John Fogerty, Foo Fighters, Stevie Nicks, Queens Of The Stone Age, Rick Springfield: The Sound City Players: Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC

Live Review by Alan Light, MSN.com, February 2014

"THAT ROCK fantasy camp shit?," screamed a shirtless Taylor Hawkins. "This is it right here!" The Foo Fighters drummer – taking a rare turn standing ...

back to LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE