Record companies, labels etc.
482 articles
Interview by June Harris, Disc, 22 September 1962
DO YOU LIKE a real, bluesy, earthy, down-south American sound? If you do, then your ears will flap when you listen to 'Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow', a new ...
Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, The Crystals, Darlene Love, Phil Spector: The Crystals Mystery
Report by uncredited writer, Record Mirror, 29 June 1963
Rumour Has It That The Crystals, Bob B. Soxx And The Blue Jeans, And Darlene Love Are In Fact One Group. Here Are The Facts... ...
The Crystals, The Ronettes, Phil Spector: The Ronettes hit and Phil's flips
Profile by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 7 December 1963
BACK IN 1958 Estella & Ronnie Bennett bought a disc between them called 'To Know Him Is To Love Him'. So did their cousin Nadra ...
The Beatles: Beatles Heat Flares in Court
Report by uncredited writer, Billboard, 25 January 1964
CHICAGO — The Beatles, the nation's hottest recording property today, are becoming the object of the nation's hottest lawsuits, at least as far as the ...
Report by uncredited writer, Billboard, 14 March 1964
CHICAGO — Marshall Sehorn, head of his own Seahorn label, last week joined Constellation Records here in a move that brings three strong pop artists ...
Millie, Prince Buster, Toots & The Maytals: Atlantic Label Releases Hot on Jamaica Ska Disks
Report by uncredited writer, Billboard, 23 May 1964
NEW YORK — Atlantic Records will soon release several dozen Jamaica Ska disks. ...
Overview by John Broven, Blues Unlimited, 12 June 1964
WITH THE emergence of interest in blues recordings after the war, with its resultant popularity, it was only natural that there should be a multitude ...
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Mary Wells: Motown: Will 'HITSVILLE U.S.A.' Hit Britain Now?
Report by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 13 June 1964
THEY SAY that there's not much chance for American hits here now. But nevertheless the multi-million dollar American label Tamla has scored its FIRST hit ...
Interview by Dave Godin, Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 4 September 1964
by DAVE GODIN as told to Norman Jopling ...
James Brown: Sue Hit with 'Night Train'!
Report by Guy Stevens, Record Mirror, 2 January 1965
FIRST STOP No. 1 IN THE CHARTS FOR JAMES BROWN CLASSIC! ...
Sue Records: Not So Much A Label
Profile by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 6 February 1965
STORY OF BRITAIN'S STRANGEST RECORD LABEL ...
Interview by Ian Dove, New Musical Express, 19 March 1965
BRITAIN'S Mr. Tamla-Motown — he's Dave Godin, organiser of the Tamla-Motown Appreciation Society — was walking around warning the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, the ...
Report by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 20 March 1965
IN RETALIATION to the British craze sweeping the States, America launches its biggest-ever campaign to bring back the Yanks into the British charts in the ...
Interview by David Griffiths, Record Mirror, 12 March 1966
WHEN A pop artiste has that certain Something to make him into a hitmaker then the most vital ingredient in his success or failure is ...
The Temptations: From The 'Perfect Society' Emerge The Temptations
Interview by Eden, KRLA Beat, 27 August 1966
THE TEMPTATIONS are another of the fine Motown groups... but they are not just another group! Five talented and witty individuals involved in the creation ...
The Supremes: Tamla Blueprints
Interview by Nick Jones, Melody Maker, 24 September 1966
WITH THE Supremes at No 6 in the Pop 50 after a rapid climb, all the signs are that we're in for a sustained attack from ...
Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett: Atlantic '67
Report and Interview by Bill Harry, Record Mirror, 24 December 1966
FRANK FENTER is a tall, tanned, talkative South African who has a way of expression with his hands that would do credit to an Italian. ...
Interview by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 28 January 1967
HOLLAND-DOZIER-Holland may sound like a firm of solicitors, but they must rank among the most prolific songwriting teams in history. ...
Booker T & The MGs, Eddie Floyd, The Mar-Keys, Carla Thomas: Stax Volt
Profile and Interview by Peter Jones, Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 25 March 1967
Sometimes, fame comes to a label as well as a star — like Tamla Motown. Now here's Stax Volt from America with hot soul discs, ...
The Four Tops, The Temptations: Tamla Keeps Hits Rolling
Report and Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 25 March 1967
Wives taught us to dance — FOUR TOPS ...
John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Otis Spann: Welcome, Bluesway Records
Interview by Jim Delehant, Hit Parader, May 1967
THERE AREN'T many new blues albums around, much less a label devoted to blues product. Why, you might ask, when the demand for blues is ...
Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 6 May 1967
The tender story of a love-hate relationship ...
The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes: The Supremes: Psychedelic Tamla!
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 18 November 1967
Brian Holland, one of Motown's famous composing team, speaks to Alan Smith, and tells about PSYCHEDELIC TAMLA! ...
Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall: Beyond the Blues Horizon
Profile and Interview by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 13 January 1968
THE EVER-growing acceptance of blues during the Sixties has decisively affected the direction in which the popular music business has travelled in country. On the ...
Review by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 13 January 1968
THE BIG R & B companies have a habit of LP release lists which make mouths watery with anticipation. Of course the omnipresent financial problem ...
The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Supremes: Tamla's Miracles Break Through At Last!
Report by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 20 January 1968
THE FIRST of the Tamla Motown groups, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, have finally made it big in the British charts with their runaway transatlantic ...
Herb Alpert: More Than Meets The Eye Or Ear
Interview by Derek Taylor, Hit Parader, February 1968
EVERY WEDNESDAY morning, at about ten o'clock, I make my way down the narrow lanes winding out of the Hollywood Hills, past the ivy-covered cottages ...
The Supremes: Supremes Heart Chat!
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 3 February 1968
YOU COULD see it: the Supremes were overwhelmed. They sat there in the room and hit back with answers as best they could. Reporters and ...
Edwin Starr, Brenton Wood: Edwin Starr and Brenton Wood in Britain
Interview by Derek Boltwood, Record Mirror, 10 February 1968
"AND NOW, ladies and gentlemen, back in Britain for the eighth time... Edwin Starr." ...
The Beach Boys, Taj Mahal: How Goes It Underground?
Report and Interview by Tom Nolan, Los Angeles Times, 18 February 1968
IT WAS A big day for me, for I had just met Andrew Oldham, the brains behind the Stones. He was very thin and he ...
Obituary by uncredited writer, Record World, 16 March 1968
Pioneered C&W Wax, Then R&B ...
Gladys Knight and the Pips: Gordy's Gladys Souled Out?
Report by Mike Gormley, Ottawa Journal, The, 26 April 1968
THEY RECORD for Soul Records in Detroit. And it's just possible the record label was named for the music the company's top group, Gladys Knight ...
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Smokey and His Associates Work Hit Parade Miracles
Profile by Mike Gormley, Ottawa Journal, The, 31 May 1968
MOTOWN'S MOST VERSATILE ACT ...
The Beatles: Revolution: That's What The Beatles Are Planning With This (picture of an apple)
Report and Interview by Alan Walsh, Melody Maker, 1 June 1968
APPLE, THE Beatles' artistic mindchild, is a feeling, an effort and a purpose. ...
Rosetta Hightower, Joe E. Young & the Toniks: Vicki Wickham: Leap to Toast
Interview by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 22 June 1968
VICKI WICKHAM, back in the days of Ready, Steady Go, had to keep at least one finger on the pulse of the pop-music scene. The programme ...
Johnny Shines, Sunnyland Slim: Chicago Blues are Dying
Interview by Alan Walsh, Melody Maker, 6 July 1968
and Britain's Mike Vernon tries resuscitation ...
The Four Tops, The Supremes: No Mo' Motown?
Comment by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 10 August 1968
CHRIS WELCH records the demise of a chart influence ...
Report by Ian Dove, Billboard, 17 August 1968
BRITAIN'S SOUL Surge continues. ...
The Beatles, Mary Hopkin, Jackie Lomax: Has Apple Gone Rotten?
Interview by Alan Walsh, Melody Maker, 7 December 1968
HAS APPLE GONE SOUR? That's a question people are starting to ask as directors quit, and the film division virtually closes down. There are also ...
Live Review by John Mendelssohn, UCLA Daily Bruin, 15 January 1969
Frank Zappa and other frightening occurrences ...
Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield: Jerry Wexler: 'Team Work Is Secret Of Atlantic's Soul Success'
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 1 February 1969
Label chief JERRY WEXLER talking to Alan Smith ...
Fleetwood Mac, Otis Spann: Top of the chart Fleetwood Mac act as a backing group!
Interview by Alan Walsh, Melody Maker, 8 February 1969
WHICH TOP British group acted as a backing group for another artist while their own record was number one? ...
Tamla Motown: Munch, Munch, Munch
Comment by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 15 February 1969
Chris Welch discovers what it's like to eat his own words… ...
The Beatles: Apple: 1988 — A Year For Nostalgia
Memoir by Derek Taylor, Hit Parader, March 1969
IT WAS GOOD then, good when we were young then, when we were new and The Apple was fresh and the other apples, wrinkling and ...
1910 Fruitgum Company, Ohio Express: Buddha's Artie Ripp: You Don't Chew It Play It!
Interview by Lon Goddard, Record Mirror, 1 March 1969
WHO WAS the man with the enormous ten-gallon hat? Why did he always chew gum? ...
Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley: Sun Records: Country Meets Rock
Retrospective by Guy Stevens, International Times, 23 May 1969
An occasional series which looks into pop music and its antecedents is the latest plot to swell our readership figures, thereby making the fuzz look ...
"I'm a Fairly Normal Person" — John Peel
Interview by Lon Goddard, Record Mirror, 19 July 1969
FEW PEOPLE in this day and age can understand or accept a man who does not wish to sell himself; who will try to employ ...
Live Review by John Mendelssohn, Los Angeles Times, 9 September 1969
Smokey Robinson Crew Performs in Inglewood ...
The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder: Motowners have Racial Problems
Report by Ann Moses, New Musical Express, 27 September 1969
SINCE SO many Motown artists are currently in the British charts, I thought I might pass on some things about them that have been circulating ...
Duke/Peacock: 20 Years of Don Robey's R&B Empire
Report by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 16 October 1969
1969 Is the Twentieth Anniversary of Duke/Peacock Records of Houston, Texas, one of the best R & B Soul companies. ...
The Four Tops, Diana Ross, The Supremes: Four Tops Hoping For British Tour, Diana Splits Next Year
Report by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 25 October 1969
ALAN SMITH reports the latest views from DETROIT, A CITY PACKED WITH NATURAL MOTOWN TALENT. ...
Report and Interview by Richard Green, New Musical Express, 1 November 1969
JUST HOW firm a hold reggae is taking on the charts is demonstrated this week by the arrival in the NME Top Thirty of three ...
Holland, Dozier, Holland: This Song Team Wrote 7 Million-Sellers On The Trot!
Interview by Ritchie Yorke, New Musical Express, 15 November 1969
No. 2 IN THE LP CHART THIS WEEK IS MOTOWN CHART BUSTERS, VOL 3. THREE HITS ON THIS ALBUM WERE BY HOLLAND DOZIER HOLLAND ...
Davey Graham, Quintessence: Island in Basing Street
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, Guardian, The, 26 November 1969
Update, 2019. In the piece below I mention that Basing Street, where Island Records was established in 1969 in what had been an abandoned chapel, ...
Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes: Motown: The Gold In Their Bodies
Report and Interview by Philip Norman, Sunday Times, The, 1970
CONSIDERED TOGETHER at a party in New York, Nina Simone, the highly political folk singer, and Diana Ross, principal exhibit of the Motown Record Corporation, ...
Hamilton Bohannon: Bohannon: "The Band Doesn't Get the Proper Respect"
Interview by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 2 January 1970
MOST MOTOWN groups don't perform on stage while playing their own instruments. It would be rather difficult for The Temptations to go through their dance ...
Interview by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 8 February 1970
Yes, Holland-Dozier-Holland DID Split with the Giant; Yes, Eddie Holland DID form Invictus Records; Yes, Invictus IS Climbing the Charts ...
Smokey Robinson: "The old ideas are dying just like Vaudeville did"
Interview by Lon Goddard, Record Mirror, 14 February 1970
Smokey Robinson on the current pop scene. ...
Jeff Beck: Strange Scene at Tamla
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 8 August 1970
...reports Mickie Most ...
Joe Cocker, Leon Russell: Leon Russell: King of the Delta Rockers
Interview by Mark Plummer, Melody Maker, 29 August 1970
Top US session man LEON RUSSELL talks to Mark Plummer. ...
Johnny Jenkins: Nothing But The Blues
Interview by Miller Francis Jr., Great Speckled Bird, The, 28 September 1970
TON TON Macoute! was recorded in Macon, Georgia at Capricorn Records, at an 8 track studio built "in memory of Otis Redding" by Phil Walden, ...
Book Review by Greg Shaw, Who Put The Bomp!, October 1970
WITH THIS book, the study of rock & roll reaches a level of sophistication matching that of blues and jazz research. The day is gone ...
Book Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1970
CHARLIE GILLETT is a very likeable Englishman who recently released the most exhaustive study yet of rock and roll and the music industry. He's 28, ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, Guardian, The, 30 October 1970
"'SINFUL MUSIC,' the townsfolk in Memphis said it was. Which never bothered me, I guess." Elvis Presley, interviewed in 1957. In the early 1950s, the ...
Mike Curb Congregation, John Sebastian: Mike Curb: Record Boss Keeps Mum
Report and Interview by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 6 December 1970
The 'Curb 18' Still Unidentified ...
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1971
From his youth as an avid record collector and black music fan, up to signing Ray Charles, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegün tells the whole story.
File format: mp3; in 4 parts, total file sizes: 103.7mb; total interview length: 1h 53' 29" sound quality: ***
Interview by Charlie Gillett, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1971
It's 1971, and the Allmans are on the rise, Jimmy Carter is in the Governor's Mansion, and Otis is four-years-dead: Capricorn man Phil Walden and pals look back at Otis, the MGs, and discuss race and the South with remarkable frankness.
File format: mp3; file size: 100.9mb, interview length: 1h 45' 03" sound quality: **
Dave and Ansell Collins, Desmond Dekker, Alton Ellis: Reggae
Report and Interview by Mark Plummer, Melody Maker, 22 May 1971
"Send a reggae band for my wedding reception" said Mick Jagger. The unpredictable move by a Stone symbolised the final acceptance of the music as ...
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 9 July 1971
FREQUENTLY, we receive letters from readers' asking us to write about the people behind the scenes in our music. For example, the features we did ...
The Four Tops, The Supremes: Supremes and Tops aren't Puppets of Motown
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 17 July 1971
NME's Alan Smith on the phone to Supreme Jean Terrell in Los Angeles. ...
The Beach Boys, The Rip Chords: Beach Boys Hang Ten in Hotel Lobby
Interview by Toby Mamis, Creem, October 1971
IT'S BEEN nine and a half years since the Beach Boys started out, singing 'Surfin' Safari' in Southern California, on New Year's Eve, 1961. At ...
Nesuhi Ertegun: The World Is His Manor
Profile and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Guardian, The, 19 October 1971
GEOFFREY CANNON talks to "the most powerful man in the record business outside America" ...
Jefferson Airplane: Grunt Records: What A Lovely Sound
Report by Ben Edmonds, Phonograph Record, November 1971
IT WAS going to be, if you believed the hype and hung on to your hopes, the event on an otherwise lackluster social calendar for ...
Review by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, November 1971
SUN RECORDS and Phil Spector's Philles Records were the two most important independent record companies in the history of rock and roll. ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Ambassador's Son to Recording Biz Mogul
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 14 November 1971
...
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, 3 February 1972
IN 1967, ARETHA Franklin moved from Columbia to Atlantic – in what soon proved to be one of the most important moments in the history ...
David Geffen: David's Talented Asylum
Interview by Penny Valentine, Sounds, 5 February 1972
Penny Valentine talks to America's leading manager David Geffen ...
Interview by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 5 February 1972
LOU ADLER is a music giant behind the scenes. He started his career writing songs with Herb Alpert, but the partnership split up because Alpert ...
Overview by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, March 1972
The dog days of rock are upon us. ...
Joe Cocker, Leon Russell: Cordell, the Coaxer Behind Cocker
Interview by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 4 March 1972
DENNY CORDELL roamed around the music business in London during the early sixties before discovering the Moody Blues and consequently becoming their producer. He assisted ...
The Beatles, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, The Supremes: Motown Making Millions
Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, Guardian, The, 1 May 1972
Author's update, 2019. "The Manchester Guardian? That's the best fuckin' newspaper in the world!" So David Crosby told me in early 1969. He had answered ...
R. Dean Taylor: An Insider's View Of Motown
Interview by Larry LeBlanc, Hit Parader, July 1972
MOTOWN IN the Sixties. The image, if we can narrow it down to one, was slickly packaged blackness. It was Holland-Dozier-Holland producing bump-and-grind jukebox hits. ...
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 22 July 1972
Will CSN&Y ever re-unite and find true happiness? ...
Jackie Edwards, Harry J All Stars: Various Artists: Tighten Up Volume 6 (Trojan)
Review by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 2 September 1972
THIS CONSISTS mainly of the pop side of reggae. Tunes like Isaac Hayes's 'Do Your Thing', Dandy Livingstone's 'Suzanne, Beware Of The Devil' and the ...
Interview by Loraine Alterman, Melody Maker, 23 September 1972
The story of Elektra, one of rock's most influential labels. As told to Loraine Alterman by founder JAC HOLZMAN ...
Island Records: Reggae to Riches
Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 25 November 1972
IF YOU WORK for Island Records, nobody minds if you take your dog into the office every day – or even if it misbehaves on ...
Gladys Knight: Gladys v Motown
Report by Robin Katz, Record Mirror, 5 December 1972
Robin Katz on the likely outcome of a forthcoming battle over contracts ...
Artist & Repertoire: We Buy And Sell Talent
Report by David Rensin, Music World, January 1973
"So you want to be a rock and roll star Well listen now to what I say Just get an electric guitar Take some time and learn how ...
Retrospective by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 January 1973
Richard Williams reviews the Cameo recordings, recently reissued on two double albums, which made Philadelphia the 'Crap Capital of America' ...
Film/DVD/TV Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 10 February 1973
ISAAC HAYES, ROD STEWART and assorted FACES were at the preview of a new soul film. So was MM's RICHARD WILLIAMS... ...
Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, May 1973
If ever I've identified with a record company, the nearest thing in my mind to an ideal would be Elektra Records, for many reasons, not ...
Davis Case Stirs Wide Probe on Federal Level
Report by Ian Dove, Billboard, 16 June 1973
NEW YORK — Rumor, speculation, innuendo and fact — all rocked the music industry in the wake of Clive Davis' dismissal as president of CBS ...
CBS Records: U.S. Attorney Bows Probe — Leiberson Upholds Code
Report by Ian Dove, Billboard, 23 June 1973
NEW YORK — Support for the Billboard editorial (see last week's issue) calling for the RIAA to create a committee of industry lenders to structure a code ...
Report by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 21 July 1973
Scores of reggae records sell enough copies to qualify as pop hits. But you won't see them on the charts and you won't hear them ...
The Moments, Sylvia Robinson: All Platinum Records: Behind The Scenes With Joe Robinson
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, September 1973
JOE ROBINSON is President of All Platinum Records, a complex of record companies that embraces Stang, Vibration, Horoscope, Turbo and All Platinum labels. ...
Allman Brothers Band: Capricorn Bar BQ: Bill Graham Plays Ball In Macon
Report by Arthur Levy, Zoo World, 13 September 1973
WOULD YOU drive 600 miles through the midsummer heat of Florida and Georgia to scoff some free rubs and red hot chicken at the Allman ...
Interview by Jacoba Atlas, Melody Maker, 15 September 1973
Ex-Miracles leader, brilliant songwriter, Motown boss — Smokey Robinson is that rare thing in music: a legend in his own lifetime. He talks to MM's ...
Philadelphia Special: Gamble and Huff
Interview by Tony Cummings, Black Music, January 1974
ONCE, FOR A fleeting blink of times' eye, Philadelphia was the centre of it all. When the world danced the twist with Chubby Checker... everybody ...
Maggie Bell, Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin Erect A Kingdom
Report by Stephen Demorest, Circus, March 1974
For months they've laid low in the recording studios preparing their sixth album. But suddenly the whole world was watching as the Christmas season brought them a ...
Mike Harrison, Mott The Hoople: Guy's Out For Glory
Profile and Interview by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 30 March 1974
GUY STEVENS is the kind of guy who might be buttonholing your young lady in the boozer. ...
Andrew Loog Oldham: Mr. Sharpie
Interview by Jon Tiven, Sounds, 1 June 1974
MOST OF the top recording business entrepreneurs from the Sixties have their little niches all carved out for them. ...
Interview by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 8 June 1974
DENNY CORDELL is not at all like my image of him. Well in fact, I didn't know what to expect but he was not like ...
Led Zeppelin: Swan Song Is a Beginning
Report and Interview by Loraine Alterman, Rolling Stone, 20 June 1974
NEW YORK — "The name Led Zeppelin means a failure," explains lead singer Robert Plant, "and Swan Song means a last gasp — so why ...
Maggie Bell, Led Zeppelin: Peter Grant: The Man Who Led Zeppelin
Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 22 June 1974
With a background in wrestling, it's not surprising that Peter Grant is cast as a heavy. And as manager of Led Zep, the legend has ...
Stevie Wonder: Motown the Uptight
Essay by Richard Williams, Let It Rock, July 1974
We’ve got love a’ go-go nowLet’s not wonder whyLove-a, love a’ go-go nowTomorrow that love may die– Stevie Wonder, 1966 Sing it loud for your ...
Johnny Bristol: Hangin' Out with the Other JB
Profile by Roger St. Pierre, New Musical Express, 28 September 1974
PRODUCER/SONGWRITERS turned artists are an increasingly common feature of the soul scene. ...
Special Feature by Tony Cummings, Black Music, November 1974
George McCrae, KC And The Sunshine Band, Little Beaver, Latimore, Betty Wright, Clarence Reid... They're all hot and they're all from Miami, the city that's ...
Leon Russell: A Recording Studio And Offices For Shelter Records: An Interview With Leon Russell
Interview by David A. Williams, unpublished, 10 December 1974
"I ORGANIZED Shelter Records in Los Angeles in 1970. In 1972, I decided to move back to Tulsa to open one of the few recording ...
Nosmo King: Disco Demand: Smashes — by demand
Interview by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 14 December 1974
MM looks at a new label that's notching up an impressive track record ...
Johnnie Allan: The Promised Land …… And How To Get There: Oval Records
Report by Charlie Gillett, New Musical Express, 21 December 1974
Inside looking out; CHARLIE GILLETT, who has started his own record label, Oval Records, reports from the other side of the fence on the processes ...
Profile by Lenny Kaye, Hit Parader, January 1975
GIVEN THE commercial restrictions of the business we call music, it is the rare record company that is willing to lay itself on the line ...
Review by Bob Fisher, New Musical Express, 1 January 1975
Black is busting out all over ...
Hound Dog Taylor, Junior Wells: Chicago: Big City Blues
Report by Brian Case, New Musical Express, 4 January 1975
How ya gonna pull a black chick, honkie baby? The answer: Don't try. You could get wasted — BRIAN CASE prowls round the rough, tough blues joints ...
Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Ann Peebles: Willie Mitchell: Memphis Maestro
Interview by Tony Cummings, Black Music, February 1975
Tony Cummings talks to WILLIE MITCHELL, man behind Al Green and that Memphis sound... ...
The Age of Atlantic: Making Tracks, Charlie Gillett (W.H. Allen)
Book Review by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 15 February 1975
Robert Partridge reviews a major new book about one of America's most important record labels. ...
Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin: The Age of Atlantic: Jerry Wexler
Interview by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 15 February 1975
Max Jones talks to Jerry Wexler, famed producer of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Maggie Bell, among others — and a vice-chairman of Atlantic ...
Bill Justis, Roscoe Shelton, Joe Simon, Ella Washington: Echoes: John Richbourg — Southern Soul Man
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Millar, Let It Rock, April 1975
Producer and DJ John Richbourg has been involved with the careers of Bobby Hebb, Joe Simon and many more. ...
The Moments and All Platinum Records: Moments To Remember
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, April 1975
I'M SURE THE Moments will understand my meaning when I say that I am absolutely dumbfounded to be able to write a feature on them ...
Interview by Robin Katz, Sounds, 5 April 1975
If 'All Platinum' appears an ambitious name for a record label, consider the fact that their first two UK releases, Shirley and Company's 'Shame Shame ...
Larry Uttal: His Stock Is High
Profile and Interview by Robin Katz, Sounds, 26 April 1975
Without the likes of Larry Uttal, the trendy record industry would have little foundation ...
Overview by Tony Cummings, Black Music, May 1975
Moments, Whatnauts, Shirley And Company, Sylvia... the chartbusting music they're calling the "New Jersey Sound" comes from just one source: All Platinum Records. Tony Cummings ...
Book Review by Bill Millar, Let It Rock, June 1975
Martin Hawkins and Colin Escott: Catalyst (Aquarius, £2.90, 176pp) ...
Johnny Ace, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker: Obituary: Don D. Robey, R&B Pioneer, Dead at 71
Obituary by Joe Nick Patoski, Rolling Stone, 31 July 1975
HOUSTON — Don D. Robey, a leading figure in rhythm & blues and gospel recordings in the Fifties and Sixties, died early Monday, June 16th, ...
Various Artists: The Stax Story — Volumes 1&2 (Stax)
Review by Cliff White, Let It Rock, August 1975
COMPILATION ALBUMS are like Chinese meals. A wise choice of carefully balanced ingredients can be delicious: sometimes you just get heartburn. ...
Retrospective by Tony Cummings, Black Music, October 1975
THE LEGENDARY Supremes are back in Britain. Showbusiness cannot exist without legends. Be it a crackvoiced Sinatra, or a drawling Dylan, a cool crooner or ...
Shirley Goodman, Sylvia Robinson: All Platinum Records: My Wife, The President…
Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 4 October 1975
IT'S NICE AND cool and dark in the back room of the bar, and you can sit in your booth and nurse a beer and ...
Ann Peebles...and the Hi Records Story
Interview by Todd Everett, Phonograph Record, December 1975
THOUGH NASHVILLE, Tennessee, has proclaimed itself "Music City U.S.A.," the traditional center of musical activity in that area of the country, and the city from ...
Report and Interview by Tony Cummings, Black Music, December 1975
In the States, and in Britain, the insidious sweet beat of the Philly Sound continues to conquer the best selling charts. The whooping passion of ...
Casablanca Records' Neil Bogart (1976)
Interview by Jim Esposito, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1976
The Casablanca Records mogul gives his record industry background, selling bubblegum, radio censorship, big-sellers Kiss and, extensively, about Donna Summer and her disco/sex smash 'Love To Love You Baby'.
File format: mp3; file size: 42.8mb, interview length: 46' 45" sound quality: ***
Charly Records: The Dark Side Of The Sun
Retrospective by Charlie Gillett, Street Life, 17 April 1976
SAM PHILLIPS must be shaking his head in bewilderment that somebody should be issuing his out-takes. ...
Stax: Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)...
Report by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 21 August 1976
CLIFF WHITE charts the fall of Stax Records ...
Earth Quake, Greg Kihn, Jonathan Richman, The Rubinoos: Beserkley Records: The Fabled Label
Overview by Ian Birch, Sounds, 16 October 1976
SOME PLACES become legendary. Mystical meccas for the besotted. That is usually until you sample them first hand. ...
Sun Records reissues: Rock’n’Roll – first dinosaur still extant
Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 6 November 1976
CLIFF WHITE examines a major re-packaging of Sam Philips' Sun catalogue. ...
Four on the Floor: The Motown Sound
Book Excerpt by Lenny Kaye, David Dalton, Rock 100, 1977
IT WAS EVER MORE THAN A RECORD LABEL. At its zenith, during a span that dominated most (if not all) of the sixties, the hit ...
Report by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 29 January 1977
GEOFF TRAVIS must feel like Dr. Frankenstein sometimes. Geoff is tall and lanky, with a fuzzy afro of light brown hair and a grin guaranteed ...
Lou Reed, The Sex Pistols: The Sex Pistols: Lou Reed Joins Pistols Furore
Report and Interview by uncredited writer, Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 26 March 1977
LOU REED claims he has been banned from the London Palladium because of the continuing controversy surrounding the Sex Pistols and punk rock. ...
Ronnie Spector: Cleveland International Records: Ronnie Spector Breaks Cleveland!
Report and Interview by Marty Cerf, Phonograph Record, April 1977
CLEVELAND — It's a freezing night in mid-February for this city that knows no excess in terms of its insatiable hunger for pop. Indisputably, this ...
The Doors, MC5, The Ramones, Jonathan Richman, The Stooges: Danny Fields: The Fields Connection
Interview by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 9 July 1977
The Doors, MC5, Iggy & The Stooges, John Cale, Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers and The Ramones — without them the last ten years of ...
Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe: England's Elvis — The New Sensation on the Rock Scene
Report by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 October 1977
OUT OF nowhere comes a musician with no apparent past who looks like a good bet to become the biggest new sensation on the rock ...
Interview by Cliff White, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 1977
Smokey goes disco! The great singer-songwriter on producing and recording the soundtrack to the Big Time movie; giving the public what they want; his changing role at Motown; why he left the Miracles; his renewed love of performing; the uniform results of Motown's artist development department... and his current live show.
File format: mp3; file size: 36.2mb, interview length: 37' 45" sound quality: ****
Judd Phillips: The Memphis Mercury Connection
Profile and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, March 1978
NO, IT ISN'T a devious underworld operation; rather, it is the efforts of the Chicago-based Mercury organisation to be the first major to capitalise on ...
Profile and Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, April 1978
Since its revival a couple of years back, Cotillion Records has underlined Atlantic Records' commitment to black music. With pioneer Henry Allen at the helm, ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 22 April 1978
NO MORE GOOD GUYS ...
Report by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 5 August 1978
Last September, in our extraordinarily collectable NME Collectors Issue, we looked at the seemingly unstoppable explosion of independent record labels. Times change, though. Rebels become ...
Rev. James Cleveland: Savoy Delivers the Gospel
Interview by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, 21 September 1978
ELIZABETH, N.J. — Fred Mendelsohn likes to tell a story. "I was at an Arista convention in New Orleans," he says, inching forward in his ...
Report by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 28 October 1978
W. C. FIELDS would have hated the "Be Stiff" tour. A sixteen year child star who toured with Mickey Rooney? A performing punk dwarf called ...
Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis: The Sun King: Sam Phillips
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Palmer, Memphis, December 1978
BACK IN THE MID-'50s, the Sun Records studio at 706 Union Avenue was the epicenter of a sudden, wrenching shift in world consciousness. Tremors had ...
Interview by Cliff White, Black Music, December 1978
Is rejuvenation just around the corner for the Temptations? Cliff White asked the questions during their brief British visit. ...
Ace Records: The Ace Story Vol. 1/Vol.2
Review by Pete Wingfield, Melody Maker, 13 January 1979
THESE TWO VOLUMES, together with the indispensable Huey 'Piano' Smith and the Clowns collection in the same series (Ace CH 9) represent the first time ...
Report and Interview by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, February 1979
ANY OVERVIEW OF THE current Stiff Records roster must sometimes feel like a long look into a funhouse mirror. There's Lene Lovitch, the ersatz Eurovision ...
Rough Trade Records: The Humane Sell
Report and Interview by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 10 February 1979
Rough Trade aim to break down the barrier between the consumers and the consumed. ...
James Chance & the Contortions, Cristina, D.N.A., Teenage Jesus & the Jerks: No New York
Report and Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 17 February 1979
PETE SILVERTON meets the second generation of New York new wave bands... TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS, THE CONTORTIONS, DNA and other assorted weirdos ...
Eddie Floyd, Isaac Hayes, David Porter, Sam & Dave, Johnnie Taylor: Stax: The Soul of a City
Interview by Richard Wootton, Melody Maker, 10 March 1979
RICHARD WOOTTON talks to David Porter about the life and tempos of Stax ...
Ivor Biggun, Duffo, The Lurkers, Tubeway Army: Beggars Banquet: Where Taste is a Dirty Word
Report and Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 31 March 1979
Nick Austin and Martin Mills are the perpetrators of Duffo, Ivor Biggun and the Lurkers. They may have traded in their Jags for Cortinas. but ...
Report and Interview by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, April 1979
Probing reporter Dave Schulps sees the show, talks to the Records' Will Birch, and delves into the acidic past of Wreckless Eric. ...
Bomp Records' Greg Shaw (1979)
Interview by Gary Sperrazza!, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 1979
The legendary publisher of Bomp talks about the struggles of his indie label of the same name: ungrateful musicians, dodgy business partners and thieving distributors, all of which led to the label's near collapse in 1978.
File format: mp3; file size: 43.7mb, interview length: 47' 42" sound quality: ****
Modern-ists: The Bihari Brothers
Retrospective by Pete Grendysa, Goldmine, May 1979
TWO FACTORS combined to make the years of the Second World War uniquely fertile for Rhythm and Blues. One, strangely enough, was the shortage of ...
EMI: Saturday Night Beneath The Corporate Umbrella
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 June 1979
MUSIC, FILMS TV, HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, MEDICINE, WEAPONS...HOW A GIANT RECORD COMPANY NOW EXTENDS INTO EVERY AREA OF LIFE – AND DEATH. ...
Eddy Grant: Living On The Ice Block
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 7 July 1979
How far can a black musician control his own destiny in white society? Surprise, surprise, not all the way, says the man in the front ...
Echo & The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes: The Teardrop Explodes, Echo & the Bunnymen: Zoo Games
Report and Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 25 August 1979
A small label at the warm end of the cold wave. The music of the Eighties! says Dave McCullough. ...
Faulty Towers: Miles Copeland’s New Wave
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 September 1979
MILES COPELAND is prone to saying things like "cracking America and the world is a big job and we're going to have to work really ...
Report by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, 29 September 1979
Lots of people thought that Operation Julie was a bit of an anachronism. Who, in the late Seventies, could be dropping all those tabs? It ...
Report and Interview by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 29 September 1979
THE MUSIC BIZ BLACK AMERICAN STYLE — DANNY BAKER NAMES THE FACES OF FACELESS DISCO ...
Madness, The Selecter, The Specials: 2-Tone: Ska Authentic And More.
Report by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 6 October 1979
GARRY BUSHELL CHECKS OUT 2-TONE ...
Aspects of Superpop: It Will Stand
Retrospective by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 3 November 1979
The Minit label of New Orleans flourished during the period 1960 to 1962 and consolidated one of the cornerstones of the Superpop era. Allen Toussaint ...
The Durutti Column: the Emaciated Line Between Art and Ambience
Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 2 February 1980
Max Bell spends a day at the Factory with The Durutti Column ...
Shalamar, The Whispers: Sex and the Solar People
Report and Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 1 March 1980
TIM LOTT goes to LA to watch the glitter and tinsel of the biggest thing happening in black music at the moment ...
Cristina, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Lydia Lunch, Suicide: ZE Night: Hurrah, New York City
Profile by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, June 1980
THE RICH ARE different from you and me, my friends. While we content ourselves with free promos and an occasional "plus-one" at a local bistro, ...
Report and Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 19 July 1980
Bassist with Arnie Prole's Blues Band! Founding member of John Cooper Clarke's Curious Yellows! Close friend of Eric the Ferret! Producer of Spiral Scratch, Jilted ...
The Residents, Snakefinger: Ralph Records: Surrealism a Go Go
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, September 1980
Waiting for art talent scouts? There are no art talent scouts. Face it, no one will seek you out. No one gives a shit. — ...
Orange Juice: The Sneer That Says Wish You Were Here
Profile and Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
THERE'S SOMEONE knocking on my door. A loud rap. I'm woken up with a start. I open the door. ...
Joy Division: Letter from Britain: The Exploding Psychedelic Inevitable
Column by Penny Valentine, Creem, November 1980
"YOU CRY OUT in your sleep/And all my failings exposed," mourns Ian Curtis on the extraordinary, emotional 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. This song, currently ...
Retrospective by Martin Hawkins, History of Rock, The, 1981
THE SUN RECORD COMPANY of Memphis, Tennessee, was one of the very few independent record labels to develop a unique and immediately identifiable 'sound'. ...
Disc Haven For Rockers: Rough Trade
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 2 January 1981
SMALL, INDEPENDENT labels have introduced many of rock music's most influential figures. Elvis Presley (on Sun Records), Chuck Berry (Chess) and Little Richard (Specialty). Even ...
Eddy Grant: Dread At The Controls
Interview by Deanne Pearson, Smash Hits, 8 January 1981
Deanne Pearson visits Ice Records and talks to The Boss (Eddy Grant), The Leading Artist (Eddy Grant), The Band (Eddy Grant), The Chief Engineer (Eddy ...
Interview by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 2 May 1981
Vivien Goldman meets Daniel Miller, the man who brought you The Silicon Teens, The Normal and Depeche Mode. Though only one of these exists – ...
The Bongos, The Bush Tetras, Our Daughter's Wedding, The Outsets, Pylon: The New Independents
Overview by Van Gosse, Musician, June 1981
A pot pourri of personal insights into the galaxy of artist-centered independent labels, including a sample (sampler?) of the latest bumper crop. ...
James Chance, Cristina, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Was (Not Was): ZE Records
Profile and Interview by Peter Silverton, New Sounds New Styles, July 1981
New York record label ZE is the product of a remarkable partnership between August Darnell and Michael Zilkha. Peter Silverton profiles the Z of ZE... ...
Profile and Interview by Mary Harron, Guardian, The, 4 July 1981
Mary Harron meets the rich kid behind Ze Records' success ...
Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, October 1981
"THE OTHER day I was discussing doing a new kind of record deal for the States. The record companies are going to hate it, but ...
Why is This Man Hip But a Complete Failure?: Michael Zilkha and ZE Records
Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 5 December 1981
Paul Rambali meets Mr. ZE, Michael Zilkha and learns how the music on his label has made him fashionable but broke. ...
‘Home Runs, No Bunts’ — Solar Power On The Rise
Interview by Gene Sculatti, Los Angeles Times, 6 December 1981
Does the Stones' latest album fail to start you up? Has your affair cooled with the New Romantics? You say you didn't grow up to ...
Profile by Bill Millar, History of Rock, The, 1982
Until recently little was known of Berry Gordy Jnr’s background. Such information as was available made no sense at all except on a romantic level, ...
Leonard Chess: Grand Master Of The Blues
Retrospective by Tony Russell, History of Rock, The, 1982
Chess is one the great labels. Along with Sun and Atlantic it has stamped its trademark indelibly on the history of rock. ...
Interview by Mary Harron, Guardian, The, 26 March 1982
Mickie Most tells Mary Harron why in the world of pop the producer reigns supreme ...
Overview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 3 April 1982
TIMELESS music...a rare and precious thing...hard to find ...even harder to create: that's Motown music when it was in its heyday. It was a music ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 15 May 1982
IS THE phonograph record on its deathbed? Neil Cooper, who runs a record company that doesn't sell records, thinks so. "Within five years, vinyl will ...
Joy Division, New Order: FAC~T or Fiction
Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 12 June 1982
Dave McCullough corresponds with Factory boss TONY WILSON. ...
Depeche Mode, Yazoo: The Meaning Of Mute
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, Masterbag, September 1982
(1) Not emitting articulate sound:NOT THAT YOU could blame him if his utterances were totally inarticulate, because Daniel Miller has been having a hard and ...
Blondie: Animal House: Chris Stein, Blondie, and Animal Records
Interview by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 13 November 1982
MUSICIAN/PHOTOGRAPHER Chris Stein has spent the last four years becoming what some Americans consider "a compulsive over-achiever", and others call 'an enthusiast'. ...
Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget: Ace Cinema, Brixton
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 January 1983
SOME OF the many moods of Mute were on show tonight. Label mates Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget would appear to be polar opposites, but ...
The Equals, Eddy Grant: Eddy Grant: A Reggae Popster Makes His Own Breaks
Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, June 1983
REMEMBER D.I.Y.? Remember all those fierce and earnest punk rockers who vowed to bypass the corporate monopoly and conquer the rapidly devolving Western world? It ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 July 1983
25 years on the dancefloor, Tamla Motown is still the black music label. In the '60s, their motto was 'The Sound Of Young America' — then hard ...
Essay by Mick Brown, Guardian, The, 1984
Atlantic and other classic R&B issues are at last being reprinted — in Britain. Mick Brown reports ...
Berry Gordy: The Man in the Middle
Interview by Mick Brown, Sunday Times, The, 1984
Surrounded by the stars he created – Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross – stands Berry Gordy, the man who 25 years ago founded ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT... ...
Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, 10 February 1984
LOS ANGELES —"Music is a vehicle for ideas, and if the ideas suck and the music's good, it's still pretty bad music." The man at ...
Essay by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 18 February 1984
PAUL MORLEY, the man who took FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD to Number One, takes a long day's journey into night where he wonders whether he ...
Discotto Finds Way To Succeed In Italy
Report by Peter Jones, Billboard, 12 May 1984
MILAN — A new trend within the troubled Italian record business is for wholesalers to set up their own record production operations, mainly turning out ...
Art of Noise: State Of The Art: The Art of Noise
Report and Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 May 1984
Zang! Zang! Zang! go Lynden Barber's art-strings as he meets pop cryptographers ART OF NOISE. ...
Interview by Paul Rambali, Face, The, June 1984
NOTES SCRAWLED habitually on the back of Richard Branson’s hand attest to a hectic day. He had been invited to lunch by the financial editor ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1984
The mega producer talks about his record company ZTT: how the frustrations of producing Dollar and ABC led to his setting up the label; Paul Morley's role in it; working with Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Art of Noise; the company's ambitions; the advantages and pitfalls of high recording technology; and his role as a producer. Plus Horn answers his own question: Did video kill the radio star?
File format: mp3; file size: 51.7mb, interview length: 53' 50" sound quality: ***
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 13 October 1984
The first year of ZTT has been a spectacular success with Frankie Goes To Hollywood singles 'Relax' and 'Two Tribes' becoming respectively the fourth and ...
Richard Branson: Rock & Roll at 30,000 Feet
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 25 October 1984
From Tubular Bells to Boy George, Richard Branson has made millions from music. Now he's trying to run his own airline. Is he smart enough ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Pastels: Creation Records: Lions In Our Own Garden
Report and Interview by Bruce Dessau, New Musical Express, 3 November 1984
BRUCE DESSAU rustles the roster of London's pop-punk indie, CREATION RECORDS ...
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, New Musical Express, 9 March 1985
Run DMC are two New Yorkers who set their raps to a raw rock backdrop and talked their way up the charts. Paolo Hewitt meets the ...
Chris Strachwitz: Slices From Arhoolie
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 30 June 1985
EL CERRITO, Calif. – "Since I only record music I really love, it's like being a preacher or a junkie," mused Chris Strachwitz, founder of ...
Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 18 July 1985
They don't sound like the Ramones, and they don't look like the Sex Pistols, but bands like Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen and the Meat Puppets ...
Stax Records' Estelle Axton (1985)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1985
From Satellite Records to 'Disco Duck': Stax Records' Estelle Axton on the "recording bidness" - pre-Stax Memphis and Sun and Elvis, Rufus Thomas, the Mar-Keys, 'Last Night', Otis, Hayes and Porter, the record shop, and through to Al Bell and the downfall.
File format: mp3; file size: 86.3meg, interview length: 1h 29' 54" sound quality: ***
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1985
Doctor of Applied Song Medicine, Studio Psychology, R&B Analysis and Chart Metallurgy... ...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 16 November 1985
MORGAN KHAN is the financial wizard behind the phenomenally successful Street Sounds label, whose panache at marketing soul has helped to transform the Top 50. ...
K-Tel's Place in the Music Industry: Where Have All the One-Hit Wonders Gone?
Retrospective by Larry Jaffee, Popular Music and Society, 1986
COMEDIAN ROBERT KLEIN has a story about how you can call up K-tel and order every record ever made. A forty-foot trailer will drive up ...
Sleeve and programme notes by Gene Sculatti, Edsel Records, 1986
It was no Sun Records. It wasn't Philles or Dimension, or Cameo-Parkway or even Big Top. But Autumn Records surely qualifies as one of America's ...
The Beastie Boys, Slayer: Def Jam Records: Men Or Beasties?
Report and Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 11 January 1986
IN CRUMPLED, jeans, trainers and an AC/DC T-shirt Rick Rubin represents the current hippest record company in New York, Def Jam Records. ...
Interview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 25 January 1986
StreetSounds supremo and entrepreneur of the modern dance MORGAN KHAN thinks the Welfare State sucks, that charity begins at home and that the Union Jack ...
Interview by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 1 February 1986
Stiff supremo DAVE ROBINSON explains to HUGH FIELDER why he's back at first base and going for a home run. ...
The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Def Jam: Escape From New York
Interview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 8 February 1986
New York's superhip Def Jam label has burst upon the Great British Public via a distribution deal with CBS. Frank Owen, tireless beatbox gumshoe, endured ...
Grand Juries Investigate Mob Ties to Record Biz
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 8 May 1986
MCA linked to criminal activities ...
Label Mates? The Indie revival
Report by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 5 July 1986
Is there an indie revival in the air or just another battle of the bands? HUGH FIELDER tracks down the men at the top and ...
Atlantic Records: Label Of 1,000 Dances
Essay by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 16 August 1986
ATLANTIC RECORDS was the supreme R&B label among many which flourished during the music's pre-eminence from shortly after the Second World War up to the ...
Black Flag: SST Records: Working Muscles, Packaged Wallop
Report and Interview by Danny (Shredder) Weizmann, LA Weekly, 5 September 1986
YOU COULD SAY this is the darkest Dark Age the music world has seen yet, what with commercial radio more dead than death itself and ...
Just Ice: Sleeping Bag Records #1: Sleeping Around
Interview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 20 September 1986
In New York City, centre of sexual paranoia, Frank Owen tracks down JUST ICE, Sleeping Bag recording artist and hip hop's numero uno misogynist guy ...
Dinosaur L, Arthur Russell, T La Rock: Sleeping Bag Records #2: Sleeping Around
Interview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 27 September 1986
Last week Frank Owen unearthed the warped machismo of JUST ICE. Now, in the second part of his investigation into SLEEPING BAG RECORDS, he corners ...
Eddie Kendricks, The Temptations: Motown No Longer Lures Temptations Vet
Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 September 1986
Chill reheated career but Kendrick has bad memories ...
Report by Adam Sweeting, Q, October 1986
THE CONNAUGHT ROOMS in London, WC2, are used to Lord Mayors, masonic gatherings and businessmen full of brandy, but on a grey August Monday the ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 4 October 1986
THIS MORTAL COIL have been called everything from post-punk pioneers to precious studio purists. Simon Reynolds meets IVO, the man behind the whole thing, and ...
Seymour Stein: The Sultan Of Sire
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 9 October 1986
Seymour Stein may be the most eccentric record executive in America. But his taste, foresight and business smarts have taken his label to the top ...
Madness, The Selecter, The Specials: The End of 2-Tone: Madness/The Specials/The Selecter
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1986
Farewell, Madness – the last of the 2-Tone tribe. Phil Sutcliffe follows the fate of the three groups that pioneered the ska revival. ...
Sound Of Silence: The Rise Of The Compact Disc
Report by Jack Barron, Sounds, 13 December 1986
You don't have to be a classical fanatic or yuppie stadium rock lover to appreciate compact disc – the quiet revolution has hit the indie ...
The Beastie Boys, Oran "Juice" Jones, LL Cool J, Run DMC, Slayer: Def Jam: License to Thrill
Report and Interview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 20 December 1986
RICK RUBIN and RUSSELL SIMMONS are the creative mavericks behind the outrageous antics of THE BEASTIE BOYS and RUN DMC and a whole host of ...
John Richbourg: The Grandaddy Of Soul
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Soul Survivor, Summer 1986
OF THE MANY white disc jockeys who pioneered the airplay of black rhythm 'n' blues through the 1950s and 60s, perhaps the most influential in ...
Chess Studios: Notes for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Retrospective and Interview by Don Snowden, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1987
THE ROCK 'N ROLL scheme of things has offered up any number of delineated "Sounds", those confluences of particularly musical elements that came to be ...
Oran "Juice" Jones, Run DMC, Slayer: Def Jam #2: World Domination Enterprises
Report and Interview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 3 January 1987
In the second part of his investigation into DEF JAM records, the world's hottest label, Frank Owen charts the careers of RICK RUBIN, RUSSELL SIMMONS, ...
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 17 January 1987
Before disco there was Philadelphia International Records, the Soul label of the '70s. Now it's been documented in a boxed set of albums. BARNEY HOSKYNS ...
Cookie Crew, Schoolly D, The Three Wise Men: Rhythm King Records: Hit Me With Your Rhythm Kings
Profile and Interview by James Brown, Sounds, 24 January 1987
Somehow, somewhere James Brown became a fast-chat, no-flab funker. And he did it with the help of Rhythm King, Britain's leading dance indie label. Since ...
Interview by Gene Santoro, Pulse!, February 1987
Arhoolie Records' Chris Strachwitz is Still Finding Great Music in Out-of-the-Way Places ...
Tony Wilson: One Man and a Music Factory
Interview by James Brown, Sounds, 28 February 1987
In the first of a special series on the men and women behind the scenes of the music business JAMES BROWN talks to TONY WILSON, ...
Rough Trade Records: Rough At The Top
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Guardian, The, 30 February 1987
In the record industry big doesn’t always mean best, and the independent Rough Trade have beaten the big boys in fostering new talent and ideas. ...
Jonathan Richman: Hey There Little Insect! Whatever Happened To Beserkley Records?
Report and Interview by Julian Henry, Underground, 26 March 1987
Julian Henry braves the wilds of West London to find out what did happen to Beserkley ...
Interview by Gene Santoro, Pulse!, May 1987
SMALL RECORD labels usually concentrate on one particular musical style, or a related set of styles. Not Celluloid Records, which has sought from the beginning ...
The Beastie Boys, Oran "Juice" Jones, Run DMC, Slayer: Def Jam: Baaad Company
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, New Musical Express, 9 May 1987
With their label gone mega, and even greater triumphs planned, Def Jam mainmen RICK RUBIN and RUSSELL SIMMONS currently combine the Midas touch with the ...
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 9 May 1987
MALACO RECORDS isn't exactly a household name in the music industry but the Jackson, Mississippi-based label was behind one of the surprise grass-roots success stories ...
Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, June 1987
In the late '60s, Joe Boyd helped create a peculiarly English form of folk-psychedelia, producing albums for Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band and Nick ...
Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen: Obituary: John Hammond
Obituary by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 25 July 1987
WHO'S GOING to find the next rock legend now that John Hammond's gone? Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Bessie Smith, ...
Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, Bruce Springsteen: John Hammond 1910-1987
Obituary by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 27 August 1987
LEGENDARY RECORD producer and talent scout John Hammond — who played a key role in the careers of Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Aretha ...
Willie Mitchell: From Hi to Waylo: the Spirit of Memphis Soul
Report by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1988
LOVERS OF authentic southern American soul are in for a major treat this weekend when a "Memphis Soul Revue" holds court at London's Town & ...
Interview by Richard Cook, Wire, The, January 1988
In this rare interview, Europe's leading label boss explains exactly what ECM stands for. ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, March 1988
STING'S BRING On the Night was a big-budget home movie by a talented musician convinced that every breath he takes deserves to be documented. It ...
Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, John McCready, New Musical Express, 12 March 1988
Cold Chillin' Records was started in 1986 by Tyrone Williams. As manager of Marley Marl — a 23 year old producer, writer, arranger, and renowned New ...
Rick Rubin: The Devil's Disciple
Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 16 April 1988
Beelzebub or Midas? Def Jam supremo RICK RUBIN walks the fine line between brilliance and stupidity. JACK BARRON joins him on the tightrope and enters ...
MCA and the Mob: Risky Business
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 2 June 1988
How did a reputed mobster become a deal maker for MCA Records? ...
Report by Vernon Gibbs, Billboard, 18 June 1988
INDEPENDENT LABELS have always been critical to the exposure of new black music. In the '50s, labels like Specialty and Chess gave pioneers like Little ...
Eric B & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Mantronix: Taking the Rap
Report and Interview by Bruce Dessau, Guardian, The, 5 August 1988
Club violence and the whiff of gunsmoke are accompanying rap's rise to prominence in the United States. Bruce Dessau reports ...
Savage Republic: Republican Party Reptiles
Profile and Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 22 October 1988
IN THEIR SEVEN-YEAR CAREER, SEMINAL L.A. MUTINEERS SAVAGE REPUBLIC CLAIM TO HAVE INFLUENCED BOTH SONIC YOUTH AND SWANS. NOW THEIR ALBUMS ARE FINALLY AVAILABLE IN ...
Report and Interview by Paul Mathur, Blitz, February 1989
Over the last ten years, New Order have achieved an astonishing commercial success despite maintaining a personal profile so low as to be almost invisible. Anyone familiar ...
The Beastie Boys, Slayer: Def Jam: Def On The Rocks?
Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 11 March 1989
Formerly the most formidable crossover label in existence, DEF JAM has been out of the limelight since a split in the ranks saw Rick Rubin ...
The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slayer: Rick Rubin: Mental Metal Master
Interview by Paul Elliott, Sounds, 11 March 1989
From rap to metal, LL Cool J to Slayer, producer Rick Rubin has shaped the definitive street beats of the decade. Paul Elliott hears the ...
The Beastie Boys, Wolfsbane: Rick Rubin: Fang of Def
Interview by James Brown, New Musical Express, 8 July 1989
Five years ago RICK RUBIN was the 21-year-old student behind Def Jam — the label that brought you the twin rock-rap assault of Licensed To Ill and ...
Bobby Bland: Malaco: Soul’s Retirement Home
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Times, The, 10 July 1989
"BLUES SINGERS don't retire", said the late Howlin' Wolf, and Bobby "Blue" Bland might well agree with him. After thirty seven years virtually nonstop on ...
Black Box, Loleatta Holloway: Black Box: This Means War!
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1989
There's insurrection in the ranks. Stock Aitken & Waterman's supremacy has been overthrown by a troupe of battle-scarred no-holds-barred dance producers from Bologna. Phil Sutcliffe ...
Overview by Push, Melody Maker, 23 June 1990
To mark their 10th anniversary, the famous cassette label ROIR has released a compilation album featuring artists like Television, MC5 and The Buzzcocks. PUSH reports. ...
Book Review by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, August 1990
BIG NICKEL PUBLICATIONS continue their unsurpassed service of providing a mine of information to R&B record collectors with another addition to its catalogue of books, ...
Depeche Mode, Erasure, Inspiral Carpets: Staying Mute
Profile and Interview by John McCready, Face, The, August 1990
ELECTRONIC. TEUTONIC. Independent. European. Regardless of the reality of its catalogue, Mute Records has a certain image. Like any record label with a desire to ...
Interview by Michael Goldberg, New Musical Express, 18 August 1990
BERRY GORDY, the man who invented the "Sound of Young America", has seen the story of his monumentally influential Motown label told in a succession ...
Various Artists: Rubaiyat: Elektra's 40th Anniversary
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
IN 1950 NEW YORKER Jac Holzman started Elektra with $600 of his bar mitzvah money, recording artists in their own homes with a tape machine ...
Metallica: Elektra: a Label Celebrates its Heritage
Report and Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 1 November 1990
Forty years of Elektra music, from Josh White and Tom Paxton to Metallica and the Cure ...
Report by Simon Frith, Observer, The, 30 December 1990
THE BRITISH Phonographic Industry, the record trade organisation, never did manage to endear itself to Margaret Thatcher. Its connection with sex and drugs and rock ...
Marc Almond, Soft Cell, The The: The Bizzare Adventures of Stevo
Interview by Paul Sexton, Select, February 1991
Bank managers chase after him, record company chiefs live in fear of him trashing their offices, but STEVO somehow manages to survive, along with one of the most ...
Various Artists: The Sun Story Vols 1 & 2
Review by Johnny Black, Q, February 1991
Sun compiled. Historic and musically satisfying – even without Elvis. ...
Report by Sean O'Hagan, Face, The, March 1991
Where have all the pop stars gone? Artists like Elvis Presley or The Beatles are the record company ideal, showing steady sales year after year. ...
Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson: The Jacksons Score Big
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 2 May 1991
Michael and Janet set new standards for artist deals ...
Janet Jackson, Sting, Suzanne Vega: Changing Times at A&M
Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 16 May 1991
The classy, formerly independent label tries for a comeback ...
Al Green, Willie Mitchell: Hi Records: That Memphis Beat
Overview by Colin Escott, Record Hunter, July 1991
Long in the shadow of Sun and Stax, Memphis based Hi Records finally hit the big time with Al Green and set the '70s soul ...
Rough Trade Records: Life After Debt?
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1991
On May 31, Rough Trade was pronounced dead. Thus ended a 15-year indie dynasty run by "brown ricers" — with a £40 million turnover. But ...
Ahmet Ertegun And The History Of Atlantic Records
Profile and Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Schwann Spectrum, Winter 1991
"WHEN I FIRST started Atlantic Records," reflects the label founder, Ahmet Ertegun, "I intended to make good blues and jazz music, as well as some ...
Who The Hell Does Anthony H. Wilson Think He Is?
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, February 1992
IN THE headquarters of Factory Records, Manchester, I found myself privy to a sight and sound seldom witnessed, I dare say, by any human being ...
Ronald Shannon Jackson, Bill Laswell, Sonny Sharrock: Bill Laswell: Mad Maxim
Interview by Edwin Pouncey, New Musical Express, 16 May 1992
Laughing in the face of musical categories, Manhattan's AXIOM label smashes through Techno stomp, space bass boogie, classical gas, Islamic rap'n'thrash, ferocious free-form jazz and ...
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 16 June 1992
Jam & Lewis have been voted the best songwriters in the B&S poll of the second year in succession. However, in a chaotic year, the ...
Report and Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 18 July 1992
Smells like (oh yes) caffeine spirit! Brash, thrashy, bursting with attitude, irony and a shameless desire to make a mint out of countless 'intellectual redneck' ...
Boyz II Men, Toni Braxton, Bobby Brown, TLC: L.A. & Babyface: Reid All About It
Interview by Jeff Lorez, Blues & Soul, 9 September 1992
As if to ridicule the cynics who suggested that they'd passed their sell-by date, L.A. & Babyface are back with a bang and leading a two man assault on the music biz. L.A. Reid talks ...
Report and Interview by Chas de Whalley, Vox, October 1992
Since their birth in the mid-'70s, independent labels have progressed from the bedroom to the boardroom. Now the majors are muscling in on the act ...
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Q, October 1992
SEATTLE, IN the top left-hand corner of America, is famous for its once-thriving post-war aerospace industry, for its breweries and coffee, pine forests and clean ...
Report by Stephen Dalton, Vox, December 1992
Everyone from Prince to Frank Sinatra has done it, but what compels pop stars to become music biz moguls with their own record labels? Untameable ...
A Certain Ratio, Happy Mondays, Joy Division, New Order: Factory R.I.P.
Report by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 5 December 1992
FACTORY RECORDS, arguably the most influential record label of the Eighties, fell into the hands of the Receiver last week — after months of speculation ...
The Sultan’s Story: Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records
Retrospective and Interview by Hank Bordowitz, Schwann Spectrum, Fall 1992
FIFTY YEARS AGO, the son of the Turkish ambassador to the United States, then in college, sought to supplement his allowance. He and his partner ...
Factory Records: Hacienda that?
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1993
THE LATEST Manchester T-shirt says "Hacienda that". But is it? After the great indie label's collapse under debts of more than £2 million in late ...
Mudhoney, Pavement: 45rpm Singles: Seven Inches of Pleasure
Report by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, 4 February 1993
For bands and fans, the single is the new format of choice ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, 30 March 1993
Smokin' weed in the MOMA courtyard: growing up in NYC and the people he grew up with; meeting the Erteguns; writing for Billboard; the early days at Atlantic and working with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and more...
File format: mp3; file size: 46.7mb, interview length: 48' 38" sound quality: ***
Meat Puppets, Negativland: SST Records: Lawyers, Punks and Money
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 15 April 1993
SST Records' battle of writs and wills against former acts ...
Interview by RJ Smith, Details, July 1993
Rick Rubin built a recording empire from a dorm room at NYU. With Def American Recordings, he's taken the sound of the streets to the ...
Bill Laswell: Super Barrier Brother
Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, New Musical Express, 4 September 1993
Respect and admiration this week go out to AXIOM label boss BILL LASWELL, breaking down multi-cultural barriers and making perfect musical marriages. ...
Nirvana: Sub Pop: See Label For Details — An Interview with Bruce Pavitt
Interview by Cynthia Rose, Dazed & Confused, 1994
In 1979, when he was a college student, Bruce Pavitt started a fanzine called Subterranean Pop. Although the hipsters around him were pushing UK imports, ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain, Oasis, Primal Scream: Creation Records: Creative Accounting
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, April 1994
Primal Scream, Jesus And Mary Chain, Boo Radleys... Creation has nurtured a family of provocative rock rebels. Alan McGee looks back on the first ten ...
John Fogerty, Randy Newman, Prince: Lenny Waronker: All In The Family
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1994
Warner Brothers President Lenny Waronker is not your Average Corporate Cheese ...
Russell Simmons: Hip Hop's Top Dog
Profile and Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, September 1994
With faith in the power of undiluted black culture, Russell Simmons harnessed the sound of the underground and turned hip hop into a billion dollar ...
Jewell, The Lady of Rage, Nate Dogg, Tha Dogg Pound: Murder Dre Wrote
Interview by Simon Price, Melody Maker, 26 November 1994
DR DRE's G-normously successful DEATH ROW label is being hailed as a Motown for the Nineties. SIMON PRICE meets eargasm addict THE LADY OF RAGE, ...
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, MOJO, 1995
Home Taping Is Saving Music From The Shaggs to... Bruce Forsyth? Joe Foster’s Rev-Ola label, born of "frenzied tape-swapping," is home to all manner ...
The Commodores: The Past Of Young America
Review by Carol Cooper, Newsday, 1995
The Commodores: Best Of The CommodoresVarious Artists: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown: A Tribute to Berry Gordy JUST WHEN we were sure ...
Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd: The South Rises Again: The Improbable Return of Redneck Rock
Overview by Robert Gordon, Creem, 1995
Robert Gordon on Capricorn Records and the Southern Rock Revival ...
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1995
SAR was Sam Cooke's dream of an R&B empire. It nearly came true. ...
Cholly Atkins: The Man Who Taught Motown How to Dance
Retrospective and Interview by Kirk Silsbee, Los Angeles Reader, 20 January 1995
CHARLES "CHOLLY" ATKINS has had two careers, and he has flourished in both. In the golden age of tap, he was half of one ...
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, February 1995
Berry Gordy has finally told his own story. Harvey Kubernik met him in LA. ...
Berry Gordy: To Be Loved – The Music, The Magic, The Memories Of Motown (Headline)
Book Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, March 1995
AT THE get-go, Berry Gordy states that "the misconceptions about me and Motown have become so great I finally had to deal with them." Four ...
Sleeping With The Enemy: When Musicians Become Record Executives
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, March 1995
YOU WOULD think Gary Lemel is one of the luckiest guys around. As President of Music for Warner Bros, films, he gets to pal around ...
Berry Gordy: A Conversation With Mr Motown
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Goldmine, 3 March 1995
DIANA ROSS and the Supremes. Stevie Wonder. Marvin Gaye. The Temptations. The Four Tops. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. The Marvelettes. Michael Jackson and the ...
Various: The Complete Sun Singles Vol 1 (Bear Family)
Review by Tony Russell, MOJO, April 1995
SUN RECORDS HAS A SPECIAL PLACE IN the history – or, if you never took to Presley, the demonology – of popular music, and the ...
Profile and Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 June 1995
Warner Bros. re-releases Lenny Waronker's early masterpieces ...
Russell Simmons: The Emperor Of Rap
Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, July 1995
SO WHY DO THEY CALL RUSSELL Simmons 'Rush'? The Def Jam emperor loses little time in answering this question. ...
The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Slayer: Russell Simmons: Def Shepherd
Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 9 December 1995
Yeah Boyee! DEF JAM, the record label that put the ROCK in hip-hop and brought you the likes of Public Enemy and Beastie Boys, is ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Request, 1996
"It was a good scene even when it was shitty, wasn’t it?"– Derek Taylor, Beatles publicist, 1970. ...
Sleeve and programme notes by Don Snowden, MCA Records, 1996
THE COMPETITION amongst independent R&B labels after the post-World War II era was understandably fierce. Labels often lived from single to single – moving fast ...
DJ Krush, DJ Shadow, La Funk Mob, Money Mark, UNKLE: Mojo Rising: James Lavelle
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, February 1996
Being head of exploding hip-prog record label Mo'Wax is nothing to sneeze at. ...
Al Green, Ann Peebles, Willie Mitchell: Various Artists: Royal Memphis Soul – Hi Records
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1996
When Muscle Shoals went flabby and Stax couldn't pay their taxes, Hi Records took up the soul baton. Barney Hoskyns says hello to a collection ...
Report and Interview by William Shaw, Observer, The, 7 July 1996
New York can lay claim to having invented rap, but LA has violently rewritten the rules. William Shaw charts an increasingly bitter rivalry ...
Puff Daddy, The Notorious B.I.G., TLC, Whitney Houston: Clive Davis: Big Poppa
Interview by Michael A. Gonzales, Vibe, September 1996
The VIBE Q: CLIVE DAVIS, ARISTA RECORDS' LEGENDARY PRESIDENT AND CEO, IS TRULY RUNNING THINGS. THINK NOT? ASK WHITNEY HOUSTON, PUFFY COMBS, TLC, THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G., OR L.A. AND ...
Jermaine Dupri: Song Of The South
Interview by Michael A. Gonzales, Vibe, September 1996
Whether shooting pool or making hit records, hotshot producer Jermaine Dupri has one goal: to be the best. By Michael A. Gonzales ...
Puff Daddy: Sean 'Puffy' Combs: Multi-Million Dollar Man
Profile and Interview by Sonia Poulton, Muzik, January 1997
At 26, SEAN 'PUFFY' COMBS is reputed to be worth some $170 million. But that's not all the East Coast hip hop mogul has a ...
Retrospective and Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Wire, The, July 1997
Now into his fifth decade at the doors of perception, label boss ALAN DOUGLAS hasworked with many of the century's underground greats, from Lenny Bruce, ...
Chess Records: The Original Blues Brothers
Interview by James Maycock, Independent, The, November 1997
"WOW, YOU guys are really getting it on!" exclaimed Chuck Berry, observing the Rolling Stones cut 'Down The Road Apiece', a track he'd recorded himself ...
King Tubby, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Yabby You: Blood And Fire Records: Simply Dread
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, Guardian, The, 7 November 1997
Mick Hucknall's devotion to the pioneers of dub and lovers' rock led him to form Blood And Fire records. Sean O'Hagan salutes them ...
CTI Records: Coffee Table Jazz For The 1970's
Retrospective by James Maycock, Independent, The, December 1997
CREED TAYLOR was extremely shrewd at marketing jazz to those who were nervous of the genre, particularly after the discordant shreaks & squeaks made by ...
Chess Set Still Sings The Blues: Marshall Chess and Chess Records
Interview by James Maycock, Daily Telegraph, 1998
JUST OVER 50 YEARS AGO, brothers Phil and Leonard Chess, two industrious Polish immigrants in Chicago, tentatively established what would become the most famous blues ...
How To Start A Record Company: Decca Records
Retrospective by Colin Escott, 'Tattoed on their Tongues' (Schirmer Books), 1998
DECCA RECORDS was launched in the United States in August 1934 when business confidence was mired below zero. If Decca had collapsed, as it ...
Sleeve and programme notes by Jim Irvin, Sequel Records, 1998
"AY-YI-YI, THE BEAT IS CRAZY!" ‘Sucu Sucu’, an insanely catchy samba novelty, was a chart sensation in the autumn of 1961. The forgotten theme to ...
Atari Teenage Riot: What's the Frequency, Alec?
Interview by RJ Smith, Spin, March 1998
The revolution is nigh, heralds radical German dude/Atari Teenage Rioter Alec Empire. RJ Smith learns it will all be in the mid-range. ...
John Fahey: Resurrection Shuffle
Report by Byron Coley, Spin, April 1998
John Fahey's Revenant label bestows the breath of life. ...
Producer in Paradise: Joel Dorn Revisits a Golden Age of Jazz
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, The, 13 April 1998
JOEL DORN describes himself as "a stand-up guy. I grew up on the street corners and in the playgrounds, and I was raised to believe ...
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Eazy-E: Ruthless Records: It Ain't Eazy
Report and Interview by RJ Smith, Vibe, June 1998
What would you do if you inherited an infamous rap label with a catalogue of old hits and a fading reputation? Sell it for a ...
Down-home delights: The soulful blues of Malaco Records
Report by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, The, 29 June 1998
THIRTY OR 40 YEARS AGO, the Jackson-based Malaco Records would have been called a "race" label. That was the tag for outfits like Specialty, King, ...
Young Turk Who Got The Blues: Ahmet Ertegun & The 50th Anniversary Of Atlantic
Profile and Interview by James Maycock, Independent, The, July 1998
IN HUNDREDS of photographs, Ahmet Ertegun appears anonymously beside the famous. The celebrity might be a gaunt Phil Spector, Mick Jagger grinning widely or a ...
Absolute Kristal: CBGB's new punk rock label
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, The, 6 July 1998
HILLY KRISTAL'S MAD AS HELL and he's not gonna take it anymore. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But the 66-year-old hipster who owns the New ...
Report by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 26 July 1998
Rap hasn't merely survived the shocking deaths of hip-hop leaders Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. It's thriving now, thanks to a fresh infusion from today's ...
Motown: Stop! In The Name Of Love
Overview by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 1998
SECOND ONLY to The Beatles' catalogue as the finest single coherent body of pop music ever recorded are the records made in Detroit for Motown ...
Manhattan Rides The Range – Atlantic's Rarest Country Records
Discography by Pete Grendysa, DISCoveries, September 1998
NOW CELEBRATING 50 years in business, the Atlantic Record Company is submerged in the corporate swamp of an entertainment megalith. It didn't start out that ...
Interview by Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages Audio, 2 October 1998
The Winley Records man talks about writing for the Clovers, Ruth Brown and more for Atlantic Records in the '50s; starting his label (and being cursed out by Billie Holiday); hearing rap via his daughters; cutting Afrika Bambaataa's first sides, and putting together the Super Disco Brake's series of breakbeat albums.
File format: mp3; file size: 34mb, interview length: 37' 10" sound quality: ***
Report and Interview by Dave Simpson, Guardian, The, 6 November 1998
They're narcissistic coke fiends with no interest in music, or so the legend goes — yet A&R men shape the future of pop. Surely, asks ...
Deep River: The Bounty of Alan Lomax
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, The, 14 June 1999
THE CD STARTS with a banjo picker burning on a hoedown called 'Cripple Creek,' progresses along a chain of mountain songs to 'Arkansas Traveler,' and ...
The Beastie Boys: Illin' Communication: The Beastie Boys and the Net
Interview by Jason Gross, Yahoo! Internet Life, August 1999
SEEMS LIKE A long strange trip for a band that started as a hardcore unit in 1980 to become a bestselling rap trio for a ...
Obituary by Tony Russell, Guardian, The, 3 December 1999
HERB ABRAMSON, who has died aged 82, was one of the architects of Atlantic Records, which in the 1950s and 60s was the most creative ...
Report by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 11 December 1999
SO THE party's over. Alan McGee has picked up his ball and moved on, to pastures new — multimedia and, no doubt, highly lucrative. Although ...
The Supremes: Berry Gordy on the Supremes (2000)
Interview by David Nathan, Rock's Backpages Audio, 2000
The Motown boss looks back at signing the then-Primettes; Diana's "sparkle"; the difficulty in getting the first hits; breaking through with 'Where Did Our Love Go'; going on the road and stealing Smokey's act; hitting internationally with 'Baby Love'; the Motown assembly line and backroom team; playing the Copa and the need to broaden their audience, and their legacy.
File format: mp3; file size: 52.9mb, interview length: 55' 06" sound quality: ***
Coldcut: Ninja Tune: Way Of The Ninja
Profile and Interview by Dan Gennoe, 7, 2000
TEN YEARS AGO COLDCUT DECIDED THEY'D HAD ENOUGH OF TOP OF THE POPS AND SET-UP UP NINJA TUNE. XENCUTS, THE ORGY OF FREE-THINKING DECKS, BEATS ...
DMX, Eve: Family Values in the Rap Business: Ruff Ryders, Cash Money and co.
Report by Simon Reynolds, New York Times, The, 12 March 2000
WHEN THE RAPPER DMX accepted a trophy for best R&B album at the Billboard Music Awards last year, he took the stage flanked by a ...
Report and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Guardian, The, 4 April 2000
First Britpop, then drum'n'bass, now UK garage: behind every popular band are the A&R scouts, hunting for acts who might repeat that success. ...
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, CDNOW.com, 12 May 2000
NAMED AFTER a legendary 1976 EP by Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, the German label City Slang has been home to some of the best and most ...
Various Artists: The Immediate Single Collection
Essay by Rob Chapman, MOJO, June 2000
A 6-CD, 161-track box set of Oldham and Calder's '60s love-child. Billed as Happy To Be Part Of The Industry Of Human Happiness. ...
Tupac Shakur: Jailhouse Rap: An Exclusive Conversation With Suge Knight
Interview by Roy Trakin, Hits, 19 July 2000
MULE CREEK State Prison is the fourth jail rap entrepreneur Marion "Suge" Knight has been locked up in since he was given a nine-year sentence ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2000
Sudden impact: Best of the label that brought us the Small Faces…and Jimmy Tarbuck. ...
Alan McGee: The Creation of Poptones
Report and Interview by David Hemingway, Record Collector, October 2000
Twelve months ago, as head of Creation Records, Alan McGee was working with the biggest band in the world. Now the star of his new ...
Everclear, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit: Big Shots: Fred Durst, Kid Rock and Art Alexakis
Report and Interview by J.D. Considine, Revolver, Spring 2000
NO ONE EVER mistook Fred Durst for a suit. in fact, he looks more like a bicycle messenger than a corporate personage. "I wear shitty ...
Ahmet Ertegun and Various Authors: What’d I Say: The Atlantic Records Story
Review by Bill Millar, unpublished, 2001
THIS IS ONE muthahumping doorstep of a book as big as the Times Atlas and just as heavy. There are 900 photos and 160,000 words ...
Chairmen Of The Board: Chairmen of the Board
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001
"General" Norman Johnson, b. 23 May 1943, Norfolk, Virginia, USA; Eddie Curtis; Harrison Kennedy, b. Ontario, Canada; Danny Woods, b. 10 April 1944, Atlanta, Georgia. ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001
b. 1923, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 27 December 1997, Los Angeles ...
Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Leadbelly: Moe Asch
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, 'Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music', 2001
b. Moses Asch, 1905, Warsaw, Poland, d. 19 October 1986, New York, USA ...
Billy Butler, Jerry Butler, Major Lance, Curtis Mayfield: OKeh Records
Retrospective by Bill Brewster, bbc.co.uk, 2001
CHICAGO SOUL MUSIC, that weird conflation of gospel, rhythm and blues, latin rhythms and bass-heavy horn riffing, was somewhat overshadowed by its more well-known brothers ...
The Soul in the Machine: Whatever Happened to Atlantic Records?
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, What'd I Say, 2001
"UNFORTUNATELY, we’re running a big business here now," Ahmet Ertegun confessed to author Gerri Hirshey in 1982. "And it sort of ... well, it drives ...
"The Agora of the Wayward": A Quarter Century of Rough Trade
Sleeve and programme notes by Jon Savage, Mute Records, March 2001
"I USED TO buy my records in a shop in Trafalgar Road, and the man there was quite avant-garde for his day. Whenever I bought ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, March 2001
ROUGH TRADE is 25 years old. In its early days, you wouldn’t have got odds on the firm lasting another 25 weeks. And like so ...
From the Dawn of Creation to the Birth of Poptones: A Walk Thru’ Joe Foster’s Vaults
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 10 March 2001
Barney Hoskyns meets Alan McGee’s right-hand man and hears about his ongoing mission to bring lost classics back to life ...
Aphex Twin: Rephlex Records at 10
Report and Interview by Chris Campion, URB, June 2001
PART MALL, part Moroccan Souk, Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre is a dilapidated mish-mash of late '60s brutalist architecture that contains a bustling marketplace. It's ...
A Champion Of Punk Rides Off Into The Sunset: Saluting Howie Klein
Profile by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, 7 July 2001
HE WAS THE CHAMPION OF PUNK ROCK, BACK IN '76 when no one quite knew what to make of it. ...
Mike Oldfield: The Making of Tubular Bells
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, August 2001
One of the most influential pieces of music in rock history – much imitated, used in movies, TV commercials and documentaries, sampled by Janet Jackson, ...
Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams, Wilco: Lost Highway Blues
Report by Jason Cohen, Slate, 14 August 2001
The dirty little secret about Ryan Adams and his record label. ...
Blade, Roots Manuva: The home boys: Roots Manuva and the UK posse
Report and Interview by Dave Simpson, Guardian, The, 13 September 2001
Who needs Eminem and P Diddy when we've got perfectly good British rappers? Dave Simpson talks to Roots Manuva and the UK posse ...
Heavenly: Escaping Into Le Jardin de Heavenly
Retrospective by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, 22 September 2001
Finding comfort in obscure pop sounds from the past ...
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 5 November 2001
EVEN THOUGH he won the UK's prestigious Mercury Music Prize, Damon Gough, a.k.a Badly Drawn Boy, isn't much for hubris. In fact, he seems to ...
Roots-Music Renegades: Fat Possum Records
Report and Interview by Andria Lisle, Memphis Flyer, December 2001
With artists Robert Belfour, T-Model Ford, and Hasil Adkins, Fat Possum Records captures the last gasps of a dying art. ...
Sylvia Robinson, The Sugarhill Gang: Sugar Hill Records: Here's To You, Mrs Robinson
Retrospective by Angus Batey, Mojo Collections, Winter 2001
She took Motown as her blueprint and signed the first all-female rap group. But, as Angus Batey discovers, Sylvia Robinson and the Sugarhill mob spent ...
Report and Interview by Mike Atherton, Echoes, 2002
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, has been a music town for over half a century. In the early 1950s, Lillian McMurry's Trumpet label made Sonny Boy Williamson into ...
Various Artists: Good Rockin' Tonight - The Legacy of Sun Records (Sire)
Review by Martin Colyer, Rock's Backpages, February 2002
ANOTHER WEEK, another tribute album, but this one is pretty successful. Beautifully packaged, with only one obvious clunker (Johnny Halliday's 'Blue Suede Shoes'? He don't ...
At Indie Music Shop, A Guide via MP3s
Report by Marc Weingarten, New York Times, The, 16 May 2002
...
Stan Cornyn with Paul Scanlon: Exploding (Harper Entertainment)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 2002
"THE REALLY important factor was that we were a younger company than Columbia," Warners insider Stan Cornyn said in 1993. "We weren't structured so tightly ...
Rhythm Kings: The Musicians of Motown
Essay by Richard Williams, Guardian, The, 14 November 2002
So many things made the Motown sound special – the singers, the songs, even the food. But what about the musicians? ...
Sweet Soul Music: Gerald Posner's Motown – Music, Money, Sex, and Power
Essay by Gene Santoro, Nation, The, 23 December 2002
As Trent Lott struggled to "repudiate" segregation fifty years after it was outlawed, about the only point he left out of his incoherent counterattack is ...
Way Of The Ninja: Ninja Tune Records
Retrospective and Interview by Dan Gennoe, New Routes, 2003
Dan Gennoe visits the HQ of boundary pushing independent record label Ninja Tune and views their break beat blueprint for world domination. ...
Double Figures: Ten Years Of The Domino Effect
Press Release by Ben Thompson, Domino Records, July 2003
CAPTAIN'S LOG, stardate 1993: John Major's village-cricket-and-warm-beer based moral crusade inspires a parallel "back-to-basics" drift in UK rock 'n' roll (with Justine Frischmann as its ...
Report and Interview by Mike Atherton, Record Collector, July 2003
Mike Atherton delves into the revitalised world of the renowned reggae label Trojan. ...
Elvis Presley: Sam Phillips: Rock'n'Roll Evangelist
Obituary by Andria Lisle, MOJO, September 2003
For Sam Phillips rock'n'roll was a religion And, boy, did he spread the gospel. ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, 2 October 2003
The Warner Bros., Elektra/Asylum and Capitol Records boss remembers the great days of the West Coast music industry: the Laurel Canyon scene and the Troubadour; the Eagles, James Taylor, Little Feat and others; his relationships with Steve Ross, David Geffen and Irving Azoff; Joni Mitchell and the power of the artists; and the difference in his later period at Capitol...
File format: mp3; file size: 28mb, interview length: 29' 12" sound quality: ***
Isaac Hayes: Various Artists: Music From The Wattstax Festival & Film
Review by James Maycock, MOJO, November 2003
ON 20TH AUGUST, 1972, Isaac Hayes was celebrating his 30th birthday. But Ike wasn't chilling at his gilded Memphis mansion ripping into a skyscraper pile ...
Charley Patton: Paramount Records and the Blues Twilight Zone
Report by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, December 2003
DISCOVERIES MAGAZINE in the USA has called it "the single most significant blues music related discovery – ever. It is so deep and vast there ...
Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Village Voice, The, 20 January 2004
DAPPER, CHARISMATIC, and 68 years young, Johnny Pacheco is one of New York's cultural lions, a Juilliard alumnus who revolutionized the way Afro-Latin swing, a/k/a ...
Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz: Howling at the Moon (Little, Brown)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, The, 22 February 2004
DURING WALTER Yetnikoff's reign as president of CBS Records (later Sony Music), the music industry generated unprecedented profits, and commensurately large corporate egos. ...
So Sue Him!: Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz: Howling At The Moon (Abacus) ***
Book Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 2004
Subtitled "Confessions of a music mogul in an age of excess", the fearsome former figurehead of CBS's enjoyable schmuck-into-mensch saga. ...
The Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy: Sean Combs: Diddy-cized
Overview by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, 18 May 2004
Hip-hop has always been — and always be — about fabulousness and myth. — Scott Poulson-Bryant, "This is Not a Puff Piece" The hip-hop ...
Julian Cope, XTC: The Old Boy Network
Report by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, June 2004
GETTING DITCHED by a major label is not always the end of the line for the big stars of yesteryear, as Terry Staunton reports ...
Putumayo: The Little Label That Could
Report by Carol Cooper, Village Voice, The, 2 July 2004
WHILE THE REST of the music industry downsizes like mad, an 11-year-old independent label the majors used to snicker at has scored a 15 percent ...
U2: Another Time: The inside story of U2's very first record
Retrospective and Interview by Chas de Whalley, Record Collector, 1 September 2004
I FIRST MET U2's manager Paul McGuiness sometime in February 1979. He was on a trip to London doing the rounds of the record companies ...
Brinsley Schwarz: Andrew Lauder: Paradise Recalled
Retrospective and Interview by Max Bell, Independent, The, 19 September 2004
Once, rock inhabited Eden. Man, Can and Beefheart were its fruit. Then the snakes in suits took over and music biz creatives like Andrew Lauder ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, 5 December 2004
The mogul of Laurel Canyon on Asylum Records, managing artists and his close relationships with the likes of JD Souther, Laura Nyro, David Crosby and Joni Mitchell.
File format: mp3; file size: 25.1mb, interview length: 26' 07" sound quality: * (phoner)
Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz: Howling at the Moon (Abacus Books)
Review by Mark Pringle, Rock's Backpages, 4 March 2005
THERE IS AN immutable law of Recovery that states that the man with the loudest voice (and it usually is a man) will consume great ...
Nirvana: The Betrayal Of Olympia
Retrospective and Interview by Everett True, Plan B, May 2005
How the home of K Records, Sub Pop, Riot Grrrl and the punk rock librarians gave rise to Nirvana, and became subsumed into the myth ...
The Sugarhill Gang: Hip-Hop Happens: The Sugarhill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight'
Retrospective and Interview by Steven Daly, Vanity Fair, November 2005
Released in 1979, the single 'Rapper's Delight' launched hip-hop as a multi-billion-dollar phenomenon. The opportunistic 15-minute track also revived the career of its producer, a ...
Profile by David Stubbs, Guardian, The, 12 November 2005
YOU'D IMAGINE THE minimal and portentous name 4AD, with its arcane, spiritual overtones (4AD is the year many historians believe Christ was actually born), to ...
Herb Alpert: The Backpages Interview: Jerry Moss and A&M Records
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, December 2005
RBP: Is it true you and Herb Alpert first met in New York? Was he still working with Lou Adler at the time? ...
Rough Trade: The Second Coming
Profile and Interview by Dan Gennoe, British Council New Routes, 2006
IN THE WORLD of independent record labels, Rough Trade is a bona fide living legend. Born in the late '70s from the West London record ...
Herb Alpert: The House that Herb and Jerry Built: A&M Records
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, March 2006
THE HISTORY of American pop music is filled with great partnerships. Most of them, from Rodgers & Hart to Jam & Lewis, are songwriting teams ...
Tom Silverman: No Expense Spared
Interview by Larry Jaffee, MediaPack, May 2006
Tom Silverman, the pioneer rap music label owner of New York-based Tommy Boy Records, is unusual among his label head peers. He's willing to spend ...
Book Review by Robert Sandall, Sunday Times, The, 14 May 2006
THIS PROTEIN-PACKED memoir entwines a number of stories that reach well beyond the subtitle's modest brief. At one level it's a boy's own adventure. Joe ...
Obituaries: Mercury Records' Irving Green, co-founder, and Art Talmadge, first vice president
Obituary by John Broven, Now Dig This, August 2006
BY PURE COINCIDENCE, two founding members of the first management team of Mercury Records have died within weeks of each other: Irving Green, co-founder and ...
ECM, World Circuit, Topic: Groove Is In Their Hearts
Report by Mark Hudson, Observer, The, 13 August 2006
In the corporate world of modern music, some niche labels still thrive through their passion and commitment. As jazz pioneer ECM reaches its 1,000th release ...
Big Star, Alex Chilton, Jim Dickinson: 40 Years of Ardent
Retrospective and Interview by Andria Lisle, Memphis Flyer, 26 October 2006
The little recording studio on Madison has played a big part in Memphis music history. ...
Joe Tex: Buddy Killen, 1932-2006: Nashville record man and music publisher
Obituary by John Broven, Now Dig This, December 2006
BUDDY KILLEN, the highly successful Nashville music publisher, songwriter and record man, died of liver and pancreatic cancer on November 1, 2006 at age 73. ...
Obituary by Adam Sweeting, Richard Williams, Guardian, The, 16 December 2006
A mogul who nurtured the careers of stars such as Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield ...
The Second Coming of Rough Trade
Report and Interview by Dan Gennoe, New Routes, Spring 2006
IN THE WORLD of independent record labels, Rough Trade is a bona fide living legend. Born in the late '70s from the West London record ...
Ray Charles: Ahmet Ertegun, 1923-2006
Obituary by Andy Gill, Word, The, February 2007
AS MUSIC BUSINESS people go, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun was a giant amongst pygmies, a mover and shaker whose colossal impact on the course ...
Retrospective by Andria Lisle, MOJO, April 2007
He founded Atlantic, the greatest "indie" record company ever, signed everyone from Ray Charles to The Rolling Stones, and did it all with a rare ...
Report by Larry Jaffee, Mediaware, June 2007
YES, THE PRE-RECORDED music industry is mired in the throes of a tailspin from which it most likely will never recover. This, of course, is ...
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. ...
Obituary by Paul Morley, Guardian, The, 13 August 2007
Record label boss and broadcaster with twin passions: music and Manchester. ...
Various Artists: Vee-Jay – The Definitive Collection
Review by John Morthland, No Depression, 31 August 2007
VEE-JAY RECORDS of Chicago was not the first successful black-owned label – Duke-Peacock of Houston stakes a better claim to that title – but until ...
The Police: Miles Copeland: Where's the Police chief?
Report and Interview by Chris Campion, Observer, The, 2 September 2007
AS THE POLICE prepare to finally hit home turf on their reunion tour, one figure conspicuously absent from all the reappraisals of their career is ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Word, The, December 2007
THE '70S BEGAN and ended in turmoil, with strikes, crises, terrorism, class war and new political orthodoxies on the march. ...
EMI: A Giant at War with itself
Report by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 17 January 2008
As EMI faces painful restructuring, Robert Sandall, a former employee, recalls the confusion and rivalries that once bedevilled the company. ...
The Beatles: Two Encounters With Neil Aspinall
Memoir by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, March 2008
RBP REGULARS will doubtless have read last week's obituaries for Neil Aspinall, who worked for the Beatles from 1961 until shortly before he died. He ...
Interview by Angus Batey, Guardian, The, 18 September 2008
Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons helped Run DMC, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys make it big. But is his greatest talent self-promotion? Angus Batey meets ...
Independent Thinker: An Interview with Charlie Gillett
Interview by Alex Ogg, unpublished, Fall 2008
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following is the full transcript from an interview with Charlie that took place towards the end of 2008 as research for my ...
Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard: The Early Days of the "Rock 'n' Roll Comeback" Album
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, SonicBoomers.com, 2009
WHEN THE album-rock revolution hit full force in 1967, blues veterans were immediately in a great place to benefit. Revered by the new, young rock ...
Rocking Cincinnati's R&B Cradle
Retrospective and Interview by RJ Smith, New York Times, The, 23 January 2009
A CROWD GATHERS around crumbling walls that are a small evolutionary step up from a miserable pile of bricks. The facade leaks water, and masonry ...
Single Vision: Fierce Panda Records
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, 20 February 2009
THE NEW WAVE OF NEW WAVE was never really much cop. It was an early 1990s music press-concocted punk revival scene based around a handful ...
Mel Tormé, Nina Simone: Gus Wildi's Bebopping Jazz Baby: Bethlehem Records
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, Rock's Backpages, March 2009
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1953. American TV companies were gearing up for the first programmes in colour, Playboy was cock-a-hoop about featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover and ...
Suicide: The Marty Thau Interview
Interview by Jeremy Gluck, Bucketfull of Brains, March 2009
"I've always believed there is a fine line between abstract and pure accessibility and that is what I've always looked for ... an artist who ...
Island Records: The Secret Of Its Success
Comment by Simon Reynolds, Guardian, The, 23 March 2009
The legendary label, which celebrates its 50th birthday in May, managed in its heyday to achieve that rare feat: combining commercial success with artistic integrity ...
Liner Notes: Recollections of a Dying Art
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, Rock's Backpages, 17 April 2009
DURING THE LATE '60s I received a fee of seven pounds for supplying my first sleeve note – one that adorned Dizzy Gillespie's Jambo Caribe. ...
The Chills, The Clean: Nuns at the Altar of Rock: Flying Nun Records
Retrospective and Interview by Martin Aston, Guardian, The, May 2009
"THERE'S SOMETHING about the antipodes that irritates Britain," reckons Martin Phillipps, on the phone from Dunedin on New Zealand's South Island. Almost 25 years ago, ...
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, June 2009
The grand scheme of a gambler with a taste for chicken blood, Jamaican label Island Records introduced Bob Marley and U2 to the world. On ...
The Jones Girls, Johnny Otis: Various Artists: Good To The Last Drop – Ember Soul
Sleeve and programme notes by Mike Atherton, Fantastic Voyage Records, June 2009
EMBER RECORDS was founded in London in 1960 by Jeffrey S. Kruger. A longtime jazz fan – he played piano in his own band Sonny ...
ZE Records: 'It Was Like A Fairytale'
Retrospective and Interview by Paul Lester, Guardian, The, 30 July 2009
The extraordinary story of the trail-blazing New York label that launched Was (Not Was), Kid Creole and Suicide ...
Will the Indie Chart rise again?
Report and Interview by Bob Stanley, Guardian, The, 31 July 2009
In its 1980s heyday, the indie chart was a beacon of top alternative music. Then the majors took over. Now it may get a new ...
Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Grizzly Bear: 20 years of the Warp factor
Retrospective by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, 28 August 2009
Sheffield's Warp Records celebrates its 20th anniversary in September. Nick Hasted looks back on the cutting-edge electronica/indie label that has produced acts as diverse as ...
Fit for a King: Syd Nathan and King Records
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 21 October 2009
AS JON HARTLEY FOX made his scheduled appearance at a Books by the Banks event at the Duke Energy Center Oct. 17, the many years ...
Def Jam at 25: The Yankees of Hip-Hop Labels, Reconsidered
Comment by Amy Linden, Village Voice, The, 27 October 2009
WHAT IS IT about hip-hop that, inevitably, almost any conversation revolves around dates – around how far back in the day you can claim to ...
Obituary: Consummate Nashville record man Shelby Singleton, of Mercury and Sun
Obituary by John Broven, Now Dig This, November 2009
SHELBY SINGLETON, the consummate record man who was the most capable latter-day custodian of Sun Records, died of brain cancer in a Nashville, Tennessee hospice ...
Al Green, Willie Mitchell: Sunset Serenade: Saying Goodbye to Memphis Music Legend Willie Mitchell
Obituary by Andria Lisle, Memphis Flyer, 14 January 2010
AT 7:25 A.M. ON Tuesday, January 5th, 81-year-old producer "Poppa" Willie Mitchell died at Methodist University Hospital. An entire chunk of local music history died with ...
Bill Frisell, Jan Garbarek, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny: Manfred Eicher: The Sound Man
Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, Guardian, The, 17 July 2010
Admired by Radiohead, friend of Godard, Manfred Eicher is the founder of ECM, one of the most successful jazz labels in the world. He tells ...
Bobby Bland: For Members Only: Bobby Bland on Malaco
Sleeve and programme notes by Barney Hoskyns, Malaco Records, October 2010
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, searching for the extant spirit of southern soul, I made my way to a former Pepsi-Cola warehouse in a decidedly unlovely industrial ...
Tony Wilson: A Fitting Headstone For Tony Wilson's Grave
Comment by Dorian Lynskey, Guardian, The, 26 October 2010
A memorial headstone for Factory Records founder Tony Wilson has been unveiled in a Manchester cemetery this week. ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 2010
In conversation at Rough Trade East – the legendary record man on all things Elektra: folk to folk-rock; signing Love and the Doors, Paul Rothchild, the lunacy of Paxton Lodge, the MC5 and the Stooges, and through to leaving the business...
File format: mp3; file size: 61.8mb, interview length: 1h 04' 20" sound quality: ****
Ahmet Ertegun: A Day of Tribute in New York
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'The Last Sultan' (Simon & Schuster), 2011
APRIL 17, 2007. In the tiny village New York can sometimes become when it honors one of its own who has fulfilled the dream of ...
Review by Kate Mossman, Word, The, January 2011
Now in new hands, Rounder Records looks back after four decades of progressive signings in country, blues and folk. ...
Obituary: Bobby Robinson, Harlem record man
Obituary by John Broven, Now Dig This, February 2011
MORGAN CLYDE "Bobby" Robinson, the longtime Harlem record man and record shop owner, died on January 7, 2011, at the grand age of 93 while ...
Kenny Gamble: "Philadelphia was the party with a tormented soul"
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Guardian, The, 3 March 2011
Philly Soul's sweet sound hid masked warnings about growing chasms in 1970s American society ...
Belated Props: Arhoolie Records at 50
Comment by Don Snowden, Rock's Backpages, 20 March 2011
DON'T IT FIGURE that Arhoolie's 50th anniversary just happened to overlap with the publication of John Szwed's biography of Alan Lomax? An unfortunate but appropriate ...
Harlem Knight: Bobby Robinson's Last Rites
Obituary by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, 23 March 2011
BOBBY ROBINSON, who died January 7, 2011, was one of the unsung pioneers of the 20th century American record industry. ...
Mowest, Mo' Problems: The Glorious Failure Of Motown's Californian Outpost
Profile by Graeme Thomson, Guardian, The, 30 June 2011
In 1971 Motown set up a Californian arm, Mowest. As a new compilation shows, it put out some terrific music, but it was a commercial ...
Report by Bob Stanley, Guardian, The, 15 September 2011
The extension in copyright law is hailed as a victory for musicians. But while it will surely benefit Cliff, the Beatles et al, it will ...
The Coasters, The Drifters, Ben E. King, Big Mama Thornton: Jerry Leiber, 1933-2011
Obituary by David Hepworth, Word, The, October 2011
The man who made "15-minute radio plays" into hits. ...
Cabaret Voltaire, Richard H. Kirk: Warp Records: Richard H Kirk looks back on a futuristic life
Report and Interview by David Stubbs, Guardian, The, 5 November 2011
RICHARD H KIRK spent much of his career waiting for the future. He remains a resident of Sheffield, a city with a rich tradition in ...
Obituary by John Broven, Now Dig This, Summer 2011
AFTER A PERIOD of failing health, Southern record man Huey Purvis Meaux died at home in Winnie, Texas, on April 23 at age 82. He ...
The Original Trustafarian: Chris Blackwell
Profile and Interview by Edward Helmore, Sunday Telegraph, 8 May 2012
IT'S CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT, a sickle moon hangs low over the Caribbean Sea in the direction of Cuba, and Grace Jones is making her way ...
Obituary by Amy Linden, XXL, September 2012
THE DEATH OF a young person evokes its own peculiar grief. And when that death is a suicide – grief mushrooms into something more painful ...
Band of Susans, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth: Sonic Youth and the Blast First axis
Retrospective by David Stubbs, Wire, The, 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. ...
Frank Zappa: Gail Zappa: Mother of Re-Invention
Comment by Mark Leviton, Rock's Backpages, 8 February 2013
I'M A HUGE admirer of Frank Zappa, and have been since the mid-'60s. As a music critic I've written about him extensively, and during my ...
Eddy Grant: Eddy Come Back: Eddy Grant and the Equals
Book Excerpt by Lloyd Bradley, Serpent's Tail Books, August 2013
AS THE 1970S progressed, the keys to the buoyant Afro- funk recording industry were two of black London's biggest music-business movers-and-shakers, Eddy Grant and Aki ...
Retrospective and Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, October 2013
IN JANUARY 1967, a young singer named Aretha Franklin arrived in the small Alabama town of Muscle Shoals, her career hanging in the balance. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Martin Aston, Guardian, The, 10 October 2013
Little was known about Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent, the enigmatic founders of celebrated indie label 4AD, until they were tracked down in the US. ...
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, O'Jays: The Sound of Philadelphia
Retrospective by Michael A. Gonzales, Ebony, 18 October 2013
Sweet Philly soul has influenced the likes of Erykah Badu, the Roots, David Bowie and more. Michael A. Gonzales delves into the1970s sound. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, Classic Pop, November 2013
A new book, Martin Aston's Facing The Other Way, tells the story of a label that scored just a single number one hit during the ...
Retrospective by Dorian Lynskey, Guardian, The, 28 November 2013
Best known for reviving Nancy Sinatra's career with 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'', Lee Hazlewood was a highly unorthodox record producer. An epic box ...
Miriam Bienstock: The First Lady of Atlantic
Memoir by Loraine Alterman, Rock's Backpages, April 2014
FOR MONTHS I had noticed an immaculately coiffed and beautifully dressed older woman at my manicure place on Manhattan's Upper East Side. ...
The Whispers: The Complete Solar Hit Singles Collection
Sleeve and programme notes by Bob Fisher, PIAS Records, June 2014
DESPITE ITS TITLE, this collection of all the charted singles released by the Whispers actually includes material recorded for labels they were signed to before ...
Shalamar: The Complete Solar Hit Singles Collection
Sleeve and programme notes by Bob Fisher, Sanctuary Records, July 2014
Dick Griffey and Solar Records ...
Blue Note Records, "jazz's Motown, on celebrating 75 years in the limelight
Retrospective and Interview by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, 15 August 2014
Blue Note remains more than the shell of a name that other formerly legendary labels – Virgin, Island, Motown and EMI – have been reduced ...
Charlie Parker: Various Artists: The Complete Dial Modern Jazz Sessions (Mosaic Records)
Review by Geoffrey Himes, JazzTimes, 29 March 2015
TO UNDERSTAND the significance of Dial Records, a good place to start is the tune 'Relaxin' at Camarillo'. ...
Various Artists: The Complete Stax Soul Singles
Review by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 25 May 2015
These two collections are a delight, full of familiar pleasures and obscure nuggets from Stax's large catalogue of soul singles, says Mick Brown. ...
The Sugarhill Gang: Jump On It ! – Complete Sugarhill Recordings
Sleeve and programme notes by Bob Fisher, unpublished, July 2015
"All the other rappers didn't consider the Sugar Hill Gang to be real rappers. They just got lucky. They hadn't lived the life they hadn't ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 2015
The veteran rocker talks about his long relationship with Capitol Records: the wonderful building and studios; the many people who have been so supportive of him over the four decades he was on the label, and what Los Angeles came to mean to him.
File format: mp3; file size: 24.4mb, interview length: 25' 24" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Elvis Presley: Next Train to Memphis: Peter Guralnick's Sam Phillips
Profile and Interview by Chris Campion, Rock's Backpages, 17 November 2015
AS THE PRE-EMINENT and passionate chronicler of music history, Peter Guralnick is in a league of his own, with a bibliography that not only — ...
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Capitol 75' (Taschen), 2016
NOTE: Herewith the full "director's cut" version of the historical essay I contributed to the spectacularly lavish Taschen book marking the 75th anniversary of West ...
Book Review by Peter Stone Brown, CounterPunch, 26 February 2016
SAM PHILLIPS, the man behind Sun Records was easily one of the most important figures in the history of American popular music. ...
Book Excerpt by Richard Carlin, 'Godfather of the Music Business' (U. Miss Press), March 2016
'WHY DO FOOLS Fall in Love' is one of the classic hits of the '50s. Along with its importance to the history of rock 'n' ...
Richard Carlin: Godfather of the Music Business – Morris Levy (University of Mississippi Press)
Book Review by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, October 2016
MORRIS LEVY WAS born in 1927 and rose through the ranks of the U.S. music business starting by running a hatcheck concession in New York ...
The Fall: Totally Wired: The Fall in NZ, 1982
Book Excerpt by Roger Shepherd, 'In Love with These Times' (Harper Collins), October 2016
WE ALL LOVED The Fall. They were one of the original English punk bands inspired by the Sex Pistols' visit to Manchester and quickly grew ...
Rudy Van Gelder: Quality Guaranteed
Obituary by Fred Dellar, MOJO, November 2016
MAESTRO OF engineering Rudy Van Gelder – the man who shaped the sound of modern jazz – left us on August 25. ...
Elton John: Madmen Across the Water: How Elton John (and Bernie Taupin) stormed the USA
Retrospective by Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, April 2017
IN NOVEMBER 1970, Elton John performed an intimate concert at A&R Studios in New York, recorded for WABC FM. In front of 125 people, Elton ...
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Variety, 21 July 2017
IF THE HISTORIES of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre warrant four hours of prime HBO real estate in The Defiant Ones, then certainly Michael Alago, ...
Book Review by Pete Paphides, Medium, 4 September 2017
THIRTY-THREE YEARS have elapsed since the wildly prodigious Roddy Frame volunteered Aztec Camera's most impressive song to date for release on Alan Horne's Postcard label. ...
Lazy Lester, Lightnin' Slim, Slim Harpo: Randy Fox: Shake Your Hips – The Excello Records Story
Book Review by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, March 2019
FOR MANY UK blues fans, Mike Vernon's Blue Horizon Records opened the door to Excello Records. ...
J.J. Cale, Leon Russell: Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Legacy of Leon Russell and J.J. Cale
Retrospective and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Paste, 16 April 2019
THREE OF THE most prominent shapers of the Tulsa Sound have died over the past six years: J.J. Cale in 2013, Leon Russell in 2016 and the ...
Roy Orbison, Roscoe Shelton, Joe Simon: Fred Foster, 1931-2019
Obituary by Tony Burke, Record Collector, May 2019
FRED FOSTER, the founder of Monument and Sound Stage 7 Records, died on 20th February in Nashville, aged 87. Born in North Carolina in 1931 ...
Little Richard, Billy Vera: Billy Vera: Rip It Up – The Specialty Records Story
Book Review by Tony Burke, Record Collector, January 2020
ONE OF THE most important independent post-war record labels, Specialty is up there with Chess, Modern/RPM, King, and Atlantic. ...
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