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Vintage Rock

Vintage Rock

Vintage Rock is UK magazine which covers the music, artists, lifestyle and culture of the golden era of rock 'n' roll from the early 1950s to mid 1960s.

28 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

The Beatles and Hamburg

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, Winter 2012

THE BEATLES may have come from Liverpool, England – but they were made in Hamburg, Germany. That, at least, is the view of Allan Williams, ...

Rick Nelson: Ricky Nelson: Tragic Teen Idol And Rockabilly Tearaway

Profile by David Burke, Vintage Rock, Summer 2012

FOR SOMEONE who, in his pomp between 1957 and 1963, was almost as big as Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson appeared neither comfortable with or conscious ...

Jackie Wilson

Profile by David Burke, Vintage Rock, Winter 2013

LISTEN TO The Million Dollar Quartet Sessions, the seminal 1956 recording of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash jamming at Sun ...

Fats Domino

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, Spring 2013

WHEN HURRICANE KATRINA devastated New Orleans in 2005, resulting in the deaths of some 1,833 people and causing property damage estimated at £1,300 billion, a ...

Bill Haley

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, Summer 2013

BILL HALEY was an unlikely pioneer of the rock'n'roll revolution. Even in his pomp he looked like your dad. ...

Johnny Horton

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2014

THE ANNALS OF rock 'n' roll are littered with tragic narratives of lives cut short in their prime, whether it be Eddie Cochran's death in ...

Sonny Burgess

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, May 2014

"YOU FOLKS KEPT us alive, thank goodness. If it wasn't for you all over there, a lot of us wouldn't still be playing," says Sonny ...

The Stray Cats

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, September 2014

IT WAS 1979. Year Zero had been and gone, though the confrontational, contrary spirit of punk was manifest in the new wave, while its emphasis ...

Charlie Gracie

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, March 2015

"TO SURVIVE without a hit record for 63 years and make a good living – that's the success of Charlie Gracie," says the rock'n'roll pioneer ...

The Fireballs

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, July 2015

THEY WERE acclaimed as pioneers of the surf sound alongside Dick Dale, Link Wray and the Ventures, but the Fireballs, who enjoyed a US chart ...

Elvis Presley: Elvis and Black Music

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, October 2015

SO THE STORY goes that Elvis stole black music, exploited the influences he absorbed while growing up on the blurred edges of the coloured line ...

Elvis Presley's gospel music

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 1 October 2015

LEGENDARY AMERICAN producer Bob Johnston once suggested of Bob Dylan that he was "filled with the holy spirit". The same could have been said of ...

Waylon Jennings: Best Friend of Mine: Waylon Jennings on Buddy Holly

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2016

HE MAY BE renowned as a pioneer of outlaw country, but Waylon Jennings had a rock'n'roll past long before he caused apoplexy among the Nashville ...

Chuck Berry in Hail! Hail! Mr Rock & Roll

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2017

CHUCK BERRY WAS "more complicated, more difficult, more diabolical" than any movie star, according to the man who directed him in Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll. Yet ...

The Beatles, Roy Orbison: Roy and the Boys: Roy Orbison and the Beatles On Tour

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2017

PICTURE THE SCENE – Roy Orbison is at the back of the bus working on 'Oh, Pretty Woman', the song that would become his biggest ...

Traveling Wilburys: Famous Five

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2017

In the last year of his life, Roy Orbison enjoyed a renaissance in both his solo career and as part of a super group that ...

Chuck Berry: You Can't Catch Me: Chuck Berry's Final Years

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2017

THE ARTIST IS immortalised in death as seldom in life. At least that's mostly the way of things. But not when it came to Chuck ...

Bobby Darin: Songs of Freedom

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, March 2017

AMERICAN CULTURAL icon Dick Clark once described Bobby Darin as "a musical chameleon" who could effortlessly traverse a multiplicity of genres, from heavy duty rhythm ...

The Staple Singers: Working for the Lord

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, March 2017

THE STAPLE SINGERS were Americana before the term was even coined. They may have emerged from the gospel tradition, but the Chicago family – father ...

Frankie Valli: Back in the High Life Again

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, May 2017

IF IT WASN'T for music, Frankie Valli might have ended up in a life of crime – just like Rusty Millio, the character he played ...

Big Mama Thornton: Big Mama's Blues

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, November 2017

BIG MAMA THORNTON – alias Willie Mae Thornton – knew how it worked. Like her black R&B contemporaries, male and female (but especially female), she ...

Cliff Richard: Arise, Sir Cliff

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2018

FOR SOMEONE who'd enjoyed a consistent run of success, not to mention the adulation of the public since 'Move It'launched him as Britain's answer to ...

Little Richard: Great Gosh A'Mighty

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2018

THE FIRST SIGN appeared on a flight from Melbourne to Sydney in 1957. Little Richard was travelling up country as part of a touring bill ...

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Hymn to Her

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, May 2018

THE GODMOTHER of Rock'n'Roll, the Original Soul Sister, the First Lady of Rock are just some of the epithets posthumously bestowed on Sister Rosetta Tharpe ...

Screamin' Jay Hawkins: Spellbound

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, Summer 2018

FOR SOMEONE whose live performances involved climbing out of a coffin, it came as no surprise that Screamin' Jay Hawkins resurrected his career in the ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: Lights, Camera, Action!

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2019

THE YEAR WAS 1957, when Jerry Lee Lewis' parents finally caught up with much of America and bought a TV set. According to Rick Bragg, ...

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters: Hank Ballard: A Simple Twist of Fate

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Vintage Rock, November 2019

Chubby Checker may have become synonymous with 'The Twist', but that didn't bother the song's composer. "It was a blessing for me," said Hank Ballard ...

LaVern Baker, Chuck Berry, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Elvis Presley: Rock'n'Roll and Race: One Nation Under a Beat

Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, December 2019

America was riven by racial conflict when rock'n'roll breached the colour line, uniting black and white youth in a precursor to the hard-won equalities of ...

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