Luke Torn
Maybe it was my parents handing me a birthday LP at age five, Johnny Horton's Honky-Tonk Man, that started me up. But from then on, I needed to know everything I could find out about music, about lyrics, about comradery. By the time I landed at the University of Texas at Austin as journalism major, I was seeing every punk rock/new wave/singer-songwriter and soul band imaginable in Austin, Texas – the Live Music Capital of the World.
Since the early 1980s, I've been covering music, endlessly interviewing musicians (my heroes Warren Zevon and Doug Sahm, among many), reviewing new and retro albums, and editing and publishing a music mag. I started out writing for the Daily Texan and the Austin Chronicle.
The next decades found me landing live Bob Dylan cassettes by the dozens, and covering rock, folk, country, punk, and Texas music galore for the Wall Street Journal, No Depression, Bucketfull of Brains, Sonicnet.com, and my own starter zine, Jamboree. Becoming publisher, editor, and writer for the great worldwide mag Pop Culture Press in 2001 meant covering endless new bands and historic reissues and curating CD compilations for each issue. PCP hosted some amazing live performances by exceptional artists during SXSW under the big striped tent at Austin's beloved local Dog & Duck Pub (RIP).
Since the early 2000s, I've written multiple sets of liner notes, and become a regular contributor to Uncut, covering both the brand new and the old-as-the-hill's music.
Meanwhile, we've raised a son (an accomplished percussionist!) and cared for my parents through their last years. Flipping records in dollar bins has been my escape hatch during multiple joys and traumas. The dusty bins have fed the flame of my endless curiosity about the history of singer-songwriters. Listening to dozens of no-hit wonders from the 1960s to the 1980s and beyond – the post-Dylan era, more or less – I'm still fascinated to dig through obscure songs, hunting for gems in the muck, always asking whether or not these lesser-known folks have anything to say?
16 articles
List of articles in the library
Doug Sahm: He's About A Rocker
Interview by Luke Torn, Austin Chronicle, 9 June 1989
DEFINING DOUG Sahm is no easy task. The original Texas Tornado. Doug Saldana. Sir Douglas. Talk to a dozen different people and you'll get a ...
Gillian Welch: Dustbowl Darling
Profile and Interview by Luke Torn, The Wall Street Journal, 26 October 2001
STRANDED IN Los Angeles for a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on the day of the terrorist attacks, singer Gillian Welch, her ...
Review and Interview by Luke Torn, Uncut, May 2005
Astral Peaks: thirty years of incandescent psychedelia from rock's mercurial "madman". ...
The Ramones: Gimme Shock Treatment: The Ramones Are Now Mainstream
Retrospective by Luke Torn, The Wall Street Journal, 8 September 2005
THE RAMONES, the godfathers of punk rock, inarguably a cultural institution, split up in 1996 to a collective yawn. ...
The Bee Gees: The Studio Albums 1967–1968
Review and Interview by Luke Torn, Uncut, January 2007
First Night Fever: The phenomenal early work of the Gibb brothers, across six CDs ...
Retrospective by Luke Torn, Uncut, May 2008
IT'S ANOTHER DAY in the busy life of one of the biggest bands in America. The Byrds have just recorded 'Eight Miles High', and are ...
Woody Guthrie: It's His Land Once Again
Retrospective by Luke Torn, The Wall Street Journal, 26 August 2009
"THOSE ARE THE LEFTOVERS of my husband's business," Irene Harris explained to her neighbor Luria Sutera in 1999, describing the heavy cardboard storage barrels, cordoned ...
The Plimsouls: Beach Town Confidential
Review by Luke Torn, Uncut, August 2012
Electrifying set from L.A. powerpoppers in their prime ...
Review by Luke Torn, Uncut, January 2013
Drunk and sometimes disorderly: country's greatest songwriter survives the '70s ...
Uncle Tupelo: No Depression – The Legacy Edition
Review and Interview by Luke Torn, Uncut, February 2014
Not for now — just for forever. Insurgent country's big bang ...
Review and Interview by Luke Torn, Uncut, 12 May 2014
Swamp-pop goes Woodstock: Louisiana legend's rarely heard '72 masterpiece with The Band... ...
Willie Nelson: Band Of Brothers
Review by Luke Torn, Uncut, August 2014
"It's good to be writing again..." A rare letter home by the Red Headed Stranger ...
The Primitives: Galore: Deluxe Edition
Review by Luke Torn, Uncut, April 2015
CHART-TOPPING COVENTRY quartet's secret last stand, vastly expandedFizzy, irrepressibly melodic, good-natured, with a fistful of mega-catchy songs, the Primitives were everything one might want out ...
The Sonics: This Is the Sonics
Review by Luke Torn, Uncut, June 2015
Set to stun: Seattle rockers du jour pick up where they left off — in 1966 ...
Review by Luke Torn, Uncut, July 2015
Riff city: powerpop Vets put pedal to metal in late-'90s comeback; first in a trio of expected late-career reissues ...
Deep Purple: The Vinyl Collection '72 to '87
Review by Luke Torn, Uncut, March 2016
Hard rock pioneers' studio prime, remastered and recaptured on vinyl across seven LPs. ...
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