Rock's Backpages: Search Results

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 ...

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 ...

Buddy Holly: Why Buddy Holly will never fade away

Retrospective by Philip Norman, Daily Telegraph, 30 January 2009

ON A BASIS OF simply counting heads, rock music surpasses even film as the 20th century's most influential art form. By that reckoning, there is ...

Morrissey: Unhappy Birthday, Morrissey

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 ...

Ian Dury: Hit Me With Your Rhythm Schtick: How Did Ian Dury Become One Of The Most Fascinating Rock Stars Of The 1970s?

Retrospective by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, 3 January 2010

As a new film reminds us, he was a polio survivor from the suburbs and not much of a musician. ...

Rain Parade: Unsung Heroes: The Rain Parade

Retrospective by Terry Staunton, Uncut, February 2010

Pioneers of LA's '80s "Paisley Underground" — it's warring psych revivalists the Roback brothers! ...

Simon & Garfunkel: Think Too Much: The Simon & Garfunkel Album That Wasn't

Retrospective by Robin Platts, Analog Planet, 1 January 2011

2013 NOTE: This is my only contribution to music journalism in the past few years. It was written because I went to see Simon and ...

Johnny Thunders: The Heartbreak Kid

Retrospective by Graeme Thomson, Uncut, May 2011

"Everything JOHNNY THUNDERS touched broke," says one of his old bandmates. On the 20th anniversary of Thunders' death, Uncut pieces together the story of a ...

Whitney Houston: The diva who had — and lost — it all

Retrospective by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 13 February 2012

From her rise as a fresh-faced teen to her sudden death in an LA hotel room at 48, Nick Hasted charts the highs and lows ...

Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Skip Spence: We need to talk about... Skip Spence: Oar in dark water

Retrospective by Graham Reid, elsewhere.co.nz, 5 March 2012

SYD BARRETT of Pink Floyd and Roky Erickson of Thirteenth Floor Elevators don't own the category of "mad '60s acid casualty" exclusively. ...

Kraftwerk: Why Kraftwerk Are Still The World's Most Influential Band

Retrospective by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 27 January 2013

Kraftwerk's fusion of art, beats and electronics has become a template copied by musicians everywhere. Now they plan to take London's Tate Modern by storm ...

Band of Susans, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth: Sonic Youth and the Blast First axis

Retrospective by David Stubbs, The Wire, February 2013

A previously unpublished essay by David Stubbs, on Paul Smith's Blast First label and Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon's Sonic Youth. ...

New Order: Lost Years in Original Modernity? On Listening to New Order's Lost Sirens

Retrospective by Steve Redhead, Rock's Backpages, March 2013

THIRTY SEVEN Year Party People! Since Ian Curtis, Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook began playing regularly as Joy Division in 1978, that's effectively ...

Spade Cooley: Eye Witness: Spade Cooley Murders His Wife

Retrospective by Johnny Black, Country, January 2014

IN THE EARLY 1960s, ageing country music star Spade Cooley and his significantly younger wife Ella Mae were living on his remote ranch, Rosamund, in ...

Top 10 Hits from the '60s: Who Played on 'Em

Retrospective by Harold Bronson, Rock's Backpages, 14 January 2014

THE WRECKING CREW, a much-needed documentary about the behind-the-scenes elite crop of studio musicians who provided the instrumentation for many of the hits of the ...

Aaliyah's Age Ain't Nothing but a Number Ages 20 Years

Retrospective by Michael A. Gonzales, Ebony, 27 May 2014

THE LATE SONGSTRESS'S DEBUT ALBUM DROPPED IN MAY 1994, LAUNCHING A TOO-BRIEF CAREER THAT'LL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN ...

Cyril Davies

Retrospective by Kris Needs, Record Collector, January 2015

"It is interesting to look back to the birth of the British blues scene when one man pioneered a sound that was to give incentive ...

Skip Spence: Dark Star: The Tragic Genius Of Skip Spence

Retrospective by Rob Hughes, Classic Rock, 23 January 2015

Moby Grape co-founder Skip Spence wrote his album Oar in a psychiatric ward after threatening his bandmates with an axe. Fifteen years after his death, artists ...

Prince's Around the World in a Day at 30

Retrospective by Michael A. Gonzales, soulhead, 22 April 2015

IN THE SPRING of 1985, there were two types of Prince fans – those who boarded the violet-hued bandwagon years before Purple Rain (both the ...

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. ...