Rock's Backpages: Search Results

Retrospective by Len Brown, Rock's Backpages, 22 May 2009

N.B. This is the full, unedited version of a piece published in The Guardian on 22 May 2009 ...

Buddy Holly: The Angel with the Devil's Music: Buddy Holly

Retrospective by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 30 January 2009

Fifty years ago, Buddy Holly's life was sadly cut short. Richard Williams salutes the clean-cut 22-year-old who came to Britain and showed a whole generation ...

Booker T & The MGs: Memphis Sunset: The Mysterious Death of Stax Heartbeat Al Jackson, Jr.

Retrospective by Andria Lisle, Grand Royal, Fall 1997

JULY 31, 1975 – Booker T & the MGs drummer and Stax session musician Al Jackson, Jr. is shot in the chest with a .22-caliber ...

GTOs, The: Miss Christine: The Fast Life of a Rock Legend

Retrospective by Erik Himmelsbach, Alta Journal, 11 December 2018

Christine Frka was a muse to Alice Cooper, a secretary to Frank Zappa, and a member of a pioneering all-girl band. The glamour goddess-icon of ...

Randy California, Spirit: Randy California

Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, February 2004

Just turned 22, Spirit guitarist and figurehead Randy California stands on Chelsea Bridge, staring down into the grey waters of the River Thames. It's April 1973, ...

Richard Buckner: Bloomed (Slow River/Rykodisc)

Retrospective by Matt Hanks, No Depression, Summer 1999

RICHARD BUCKNER'S 1994 debut album, Bloomed, heralded the arrival of a uniquely expressive and honest songwriter and reaped Buckner tomes of critical praise, a deal ...

Jack Nitzsche: Jack of Hearts

Retrospective by Ian Penman, The Wire, October 2000

Ian Penman celebrates the late Jack Nitzsche, the rogue composer whose soundtrack legacy reads like a rollcall of the Hollywood damned. ...

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The book that declared pop music dead

Retrospective by Bob Stanley, The Observer, 6 February 2016

Nik Cohn thought John Lennon "self-pitying", Led Zeppelin "embarrassing" and rated Del Shannon's 'Runaway' above Van Morrison's entire career. Bob Stanley revisits his 1969 book. ...

Eyewitness: The Twist

Retrospective by Johnny Black, Q, February 1997

THE TWIST WAS the most remarkable dance phenomenon in the history of the rock era. Here's the story of how it happened in the words ...

Buddy Holly: Down the Line: Buddy Holly

Retrospective by Mark Kemp, Texas Music, January 2009

WHEN THE FIRST gentle notes ring from Buddy Holly's acoustic guitar on his cover of Mickey & Sylvia's 'Dearest', you could swear it was recorded ...

Rush: Neil Peart

Retrospective by Chris Welch, The History of Rock, 1984

NEIL PEART is one of rock’s show drummers, whose uncompromising personality matches his single-minded dedication to music. As one-third of Canada’s Rush, Neil made a ...

The Supremes: Mary Wilson on The Supremes

Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, April 1997

"ONE DAY IN mid-April we were all summoned to berry’s home on Outer Drive," remembers Mary Wilson of The Supremes. "As I drove there, I ...

Dennis Linde

Retrospective by Mick Houghton, MOJO, April 2007

The sound of the wildly original country cat who penned Elvis' 'Burning Love'. ...

Electric Prunes, The: The Electric Prunes: Too Much To Dream

Retrospective by Don Waller, LA Weekly, 15 June 2001

FROM THE "mind-expanding" flight of the 2,000-pound bumblebee opening to the liquid, screaming, droning guitars to the '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'-derived drums, the Electric ...

Robert Johnson: Unravelling the Legend of Robert Johnson

Retrospective by Jerry Gilbert, Sounds, 19 June 1971

JERRY GILBERT looks at Robert Johnson, greatest of the Delta bluesmen ...

The Pogues, Shane MacGowan: Shane MacGowan: It's A Long Way From Tipperary

Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Vox, January 1998

AS PUNK PASSION dissipated and died, choking on its own irrelevance, a generation of serial venters were suddenly deprived of its primal, therapeutic effect. The ...

Ritchie Valens: The Young Singer Who Pioneered Chicano Rock

Retrospective by Martin Hawkins, The History of Rock, March 1982

WHEN ROCK'N'ROLL first stopped calling itself rhythm and blues in the mid Fifties, it became a young man's game. Teenage performers like Ritchie Valens began ...

Waylon Jennings: Honky Tonk Heroes

Retrospective by Gavin Martin, Uncut, September 1998

FOR WAYLON Jennings – born into a dirt poor cotton-picking West Texas family – the wanderlust began as far back as he could remember. ...

The Bay City Rollers

Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Uncut, May 1998

Ahh, those much-mimicked hedgehogian coxcombs; those calf-chafing, tartan-trimmed trews with half a yard of surplus flapping flare to spare; those cheery, cheeky chipmunk grins and ...

Dazed and Infused: The Summer of Love

Retrospective by Miles, Vox, August 1992

"You had to be there" Barry Miles travels back in time. IT'S 25 years since the Summer of Love freaked its way into the ...