Rock's Backpages: Search Results

Review by Laura Barton, The Word, April 2012

Paul Weller's unchanging image limits our view of him. His third "experimental" record fizzes with aural innovation. ...

Paul Weller: Sins Of The Modfather: Paul Weller Speaks About Leaving His Comfort Zone

Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 19 April 2010

After running into Paul Weller at a Sunn O))) gig last year, The Quietus have been obsessed with finding out exactly how deep Paul Weller's ...

Paul Weller: "Be Mutton Dressed As Ram!"

Interview by Jude Rogers, The Word, April 2012

Curmudgeonly theorist, phone-hacked serial dad, raffish poster-boy for inquisitive middle age — Paul Weller gives himself a good talking-to ...

Jam, The, Paul Weller: Paul Weller: "The Jam? They were a way of life."

Retrospective by John Harris, The Guardian, 3 February 2006

As Paul Weller prepares to receive a Lifetime Achievement Brit, John Harris salutes a giant. ...

Pretenders, The, Chrissie Hynde: The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde (2010)

Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages Audio, 22 January 2010

The Pretenders frontwoman on songwriting and songs; being a band member, and an extended exposition on her vegetarianism and the brutality of the meat business.

File format: mp3; file size: 70.8mb, interview length: 1h 17' 22" sound quality: *** (phoner)

Warren Zevon (2000)

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 2000

Taking tea in Soho's brand-new Sanderson Hotel, the great singer-songwriter talks about... well, almost everything: getting older; being perceived as a "dark" moralist; not being commercial; his good pal Jackson Browne; David Geffen; addiction, sobriety and therapy; his parents; plus songwriting and his diffidence in talking about it.

File format: mp3; total file size: 43.6mb, interview length: 45' 22" sound quality: ***

Bob Dylan (1991)

Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages Audio, 4 April 1991

Bob on why he writes songs, how he writes songs, what he writes songs about, what he doesn't write songs about, the keys he writes songs in, where he likes to write songs, what songs are and aren't, and some memories of his own songs.

File format: mp3; file size: 75.5mb, interview length: 1h 22' 29" sound quality: **½

Tony Joe White (1977)

Interview by Cliff White, Rock's Backpages Audio, June 1977

The Louisiana Swamp God on having his best stuff rejected by Warner Bros.; selling songs to others, and his pleasure at some of their versions; Elvis doing 'Polk Salad Annie'; on songwriting; on being compared to Barry White; on going fishing with his mom, and eating catfish; his new album, Eyes, and looking back at how he got started.

File format: mp3; file size: 21.9mb, interview length: 22' 47" sound quality: *****

Tim Hardin: Remembering the lost genius of his music

Retrospective by Graeme Thomson, Daily Telegraph, 18 January 2013

BOB DYLAN once called him "the greatest songwriter alive" and Joe Strummer regarded him as a "lost genius of music". Yet when Tim Hardin died ...

Jill Sobule: The sweeter the bitter

Profile and Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 9 April 2004

Beneath the pop veneer, Jill Sobule's songs carry a subversive sting. ...

Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel (Charisma)

Review by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 7 June 1980

YOU COULDN'T call Peter Gabriel prolific. And neither of his solo albums so far have lived up to expectations, mainly because the ideas and the ...

Kate Nash: Village Underground, London

Live Review by Rick Pearson, The Evening Standard, 23 April 2010

Growing up and away from Lily ...

Prefab Sprout: Sprout's honour

Interview by Graham K. Smith, Record Mirror, 3 March 1984

IN THE beginning, I wasn't convinced. With a name like that they just had to be jokers, or terminally dour, or both, and cursory (I ...

Ed Sheeran: Mercury Lounge, NYC

Live Review by Iman Lababedi, RockNYC, 2 February 2012

WHAT'S WITH Ed Sheeran and homelessness? The subject provides two short stories and three songs during his second set ever in the US at Mercury ...

Felice and Boudleaux Bryant: Felice Bryant 1925-2003

Obituary by Phast Phreddie Patterson, Rock's Backpages, April 2003

SONGWRITER FELICE BRYANT (77) died of cancer at her home in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on April 22. She and her husband Boudleaux Bryant were very ...

Last Shadow Puppets, The: The Last Shadow Puppets: The Age Of The Understatement

Review by Paul Moody, Uncut, May 2008

NOW IT ALL makes sense. Anyone who, on hearing Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare, wondered where Alex Turner had mislaid his melodies now has their ...

Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel: Paul Simon: 'I Thought I Was a Has-Been at 19'

Interview by David Griffiths, Record Mirror, 30 April 1966

PAUL SIMON is the composer of 21 songs, most of which have been put to work for him very profitably. ...

Midlake get set to take Glastonbury

Interview by Pete Paphides, The Times, 18 June 2010

MIDLAKE'S TIM SMITH is hunched over the small sink beside his Bristol dressing room. Possibly because an overnight trip from Belgium has left him bereft ...

Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia)

Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Stage Life, February 1978

LIKE IT OR NOT, you’d better watch out 'cause talent will out, which is exactly why you’re hearing so much about Elvis Costello these days. ...

Laura Nyro: Union Chapel, Islington, London

Live Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, February 1995

WHEN LAURA PLAYED MONTEREY, nerves and rushed rehearsals saw her flounder as the hairies waited for Hendrix. Tonight there are enough baldies in the pews ...