Michael Lydon
I've loved music ever since I wore out Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington records in high school. 'Hit the Road Jack' introduced me to Ray Charles. A girlfriend turned me on to Chuck Berry, and we dug James Brown at the Apollo. In '64 I panned the Beatles in the college paper and praised Martha and the Vandellas instead--my first rock writing. After covering civil rights in Mississippi, I reported on "Swinging London" for Newsweek. An interview with John--abrasive - and Paul - charming - converted me to the Beatles. Then I transferred to San Francisco as Haight-Ashbury hippies made headliness. The Fillmore was my beat; Janis and Jerry my inside sources. At Montery Pop I sat mindblown in the press section.
Exciting days. My hair grew, I quit Newsweek, helped start Rolling Stone, hitch-hiked to LA to join the Rolling Stones on the wild ride to Altamont. My first book, Rock Folk, reflects the tumult of the times, writing now collected in FLASHBACKS (Routledge US/GB).
In the 70s I met pianist Ellen Mandel and got a Gibson flat-top, a harmonica, a Bob Dylan songbook, and started writing songs and climbing on stages. We worked unpaid with the equally unknown Robin Williams. I wrote my second book, Boogie Lightning. We moved to New York, opened for Muddy Waters in Boston. In the '90s I wrote Ray Charles: Man and Music. Today I'm writing books and playing East Village clubs with a jazz combo. When I get back grins from couples singing the chorus, I thank the greats who inspired me, but I'm also thinking, "Look out world, here comes Michael Lydon!"
Books: Rock Folk (1971)
Boogie Lightning (1975)
How to Succeed in Show Business by Really Trying (1985)
Writing and Life (1995)
Ray Charles: Man and Music (1999)
Flashbacks (2003)
CDs: Love at First Sight (1999) (Brite Records)
Mike on Mike (2002) (Brite Records)
58 articles
List of articles in the library
The Beatles, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas: In a Mellotone
Essay by Michael Lydon, Yale Daily News, 20 February 1964
NOTE: When the Beatles hit America in the winter of 1964, the event created a tidal wave in pop music that swept all before it. ...
Chuck Jackson, Major Lance, Nancy Wilson: In A Mellotone: The Apollo
Report by Michael Lydon, Yale Daily News, 16 April 1964
THE APOLLO Theater has the biggest sign on the biggest street in Harlem. The broad red letters can be seen for blocks on west 125th ...
In A Mellotone: Hoods and Rocks
Essay by Michael Lydon, Yale Daily News, 10 December 1964
THERE IS A phrase current in Long Island high schools, that fertile spawn of teen age norms, which describes someone as a "'54", meaning a ...
The Beatles: Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters — A Portrait from 1966
Interview by Michael Lydon, unpublished, March 1966
Just after the release of Rubber Soul, I had the chance to meet John Lennon and Paul McCartney in London, and I conducted in-depth interviews ...
Monterey Pops! An International Pop Festival
Report by Michael Lydon, unpublished, for Newsweek, 20 June 1967
Reporting for Newsweek took me to Monterey. I'd gone to work for Newsweek right out of college in 1965 – I was a reporter in ...
Monterey Pops! An International Pop Festival (2)
Report by Michael Lydon, unpublished, for Newsweek, 20 June 1967
Part TwoDAY TWO was over and Sunday came grey and cold, but the excitement was still there and growing. Could anyone believe what had happened, ...
Where’s the Money from Monterey Pop?
Report by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 9 November 1967
For the first issue of Rolling Stone in November, 1967, editor Jann Wenner asked me to do an investigative piece on what had happened to ...
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 9 November 1967
THERE HE WAS, Wild Bill Haley, fifteen years older but not showing a day of it, his spit curl firmly in place on the forehead ...
Jefferson Airplane: After Bathing At Baxter’s
Review and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 23 November 1967
Jefferson Airplane finally finished their third LP Halloween week after two months of off-and-on recording in Los Angeles. It’s called After Bathing at Baxter’s, has ...
Curtis Knight, Jimi Hendrix: Jimi Hendrix: A Shoddy Hendrix Record?
Report by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 20 January 1968
THE NEW Capitol LP, Got that Feeling: Jimi Hendrix Plays, Curtis Knight Sings, is not what it appears: Hendrix's latest release. The cover, with no ...
Grateful Dead: The First European International Pop Festival: Pigpen To Meet Pope?
Report by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 10 February 1968
THE FIRST EUROPEAN International Pop Festival, a resounding name for a still rather mysterious event, is being planned for Rome's huge Palazzo dello Sport February ...
Jimi Hendrix: The Black Elvis?
Interview by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 25 February 1968
"WILL HE BURN it tonight?" asked a neat blonde of her boyfriend, squashed in beside her on the packed floor of the Fillmore auditorium. "He ...
Charlatans, The (US): The Charlatans: Pioneer San Francisco Rock Group
Profile and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 9 March 1968
While record companies and poster dealers are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into San Francisco to capture some of that real old authentic hip ...
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 22 September 1968
THE WHO PLAY rock "n’ roll music ("it’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it," says Chuck Berry). Not art-rock, acid-rock, or any type ...
Smokey Robinson, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Smokey Robinson
Profile and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 28 September 1968
SMOKEY ROBINSON is the reigning genius of Top-40. Since the Beatles and the Beach Boys dropped out of the single-then-follow-up-album pattern aimed at the AM ...
B.B. King Sings the Blues Evra Day, Evra Day
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 27 October 1968
A COOL breeze blew in the night outside, across the Mississippi and the cane fields that press against the town of Port Allen, La. Inside ...
Report by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 24 November 1968
SAN FRANCISCO — In the heady first days of the "San Francisco Sound," someone dubbed the city the "Liverpool of the USA." The title, though ...
Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 7 December 1968
"IF IT WEREN'T FOR the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no song," said Carl Perkins with a comic dolefulness. He had just ...
Bill Graham: The Producer of the New Rock
Interview by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 15 December 1968
"I dream about doing the Beatles," Bill Graham said, hunched over his desk in the crowded office of the Fillmore West. Outside the office, the ...
Report by Michael Lydon, Ramparts, 1969
IN 1956, WHEN rock & roll was just about a year old, Frankie Lymon, lead singer of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, wrote and recorded ...
Jefferson Airplane: Bill Graham: Scrooge McDuck?
Letter by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 19 January 1969
To the Editor: ...
The Doors: Can They Still 'Light My Fire'?
Profile and Interview by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 19 January 1969
"PLAY 'LIGHT MY FIRE’!" "Yeah, ‘Light My Fire.’" Out of the vastness of the Los Angeles Forum, its 18,000 seats filled on a December Saturday ...
Janis Joplin: The Janis Joplin philosophy: Every Moment She Is What She Feels
Special Feature by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 23 February 1969
SAN FRANCISCO — In a miserably rainy San Francisco winter, Janis Joplin was, by all the rules of show-biz myth, At a Truly Crucial Point ...
The Carter Family, Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash: "Ain't Nothin' Too Weird For Me"
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 16 March 1969
BACKSTAGE AT the Amarillo, Texas, Civic Auditorium, a fresh kid with glasses held out a plastic cup of coffee. ...
Foreword to Outlaw Blues by Paul Williams
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, April 1969
[For the 21st-century edition of this book, Michael Lydon, a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine and the author of Rock Folk, Boogie Lightning and ...
Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia (1969)
Interview by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages audio, May 1969
Recorded during the Dead's 1969 peak, Garcia looks back to the early days of the Warlocks, the Acid Tests, goes through the albums to date (including the soon-to-be-released Live/Dead) and expounds on the music.
File format: mp3; file size: 57.6mb, interview length: 1h 02' 57" sound quality: ****
Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia (1969) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages transcripts, May 1969
This is a transcript of Michael's interview with the Grateful Dead mainman. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Burnout Sets In
Special Feature by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 23 August 1969
But I reckon l got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilise ...
The Rolling Stones — A Play in the Apocalypse
Special Feature by Michael Lydon, Ramparts, March 1970
There's no business like show business, Like no business I know; Everything about it is appealing, Everything the traffic will allow. — ...
Electric Kool-Aid: On & Off the Bus
Essay by Michael Lydon, Fusion, 6 March 1970
The last words of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test are "WE BLEW IT". In caps, naturally. ...
Live Review by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 19 April 1970
'Sing Your Own Blues' ...
Interview by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages audio, September 1970
When Bo's not being a boxer, truck driver, gunslinger, lumberjack etc. he's being A Man - a husband and father, dealing with life in the USA. The Gunslinger tells Michael Lydon of record company rip-offs, dealin' with the po-lice and the very meaning of life itself.
File format: mp3; total file size: 76.9meg, total interview length: 1h 20' 04" sound quality: **
Grateful Dead: An Evening with the Grateful Dead
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 17 September 1970
WE CHANGE and our changings change, a friend said once. It sounded true, but it seems too that through it all we stay the same. ...
Obituary by Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 27 September 1970
"I could sit up here all night and say thank you, thank you. thank you, you know... I just want to grab you, man, and ...
Eric Clapton: Rock — A Dilemma
Essay by Michael Lydon, Fusion, 19 March 1971
Michael Lydon views rock and roll as a space/time continuum, in which problems and, sometimes, solutions often arise. ...
Bo Diddley: The Second Coming Of Bo Diddley
Special Feature by Michael Lydon, Ramparts, May 1971
"A person is an individual, and being an individual person is a gas. I have my own way of expressing my soulful feelings. I never ...
Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, King Curtis: Soul Kaleidoscope: Aretha at the Fillmore
Special Feature by Michael Lydon, Ramparts, October 1971
IT WAS A night of nights. Even Tower of Power was okay, and then King Curtis and his Kingpins and the Memphis Horns and Billy ...
Obituary by Michael Lydon, Fusion, 29 October 1971
MAYBE THIS should be a collection of unrelated notes. I’m not sure how the things I’m thinking about fit together. King Curtis is dead. That ...
The Rolling Stones: Rocking Chair: Working Out
Column by Michael Lydon, Fusion, 10 December 1971
I HAVE been writing about music for years, and am now trying to play myself. This changes matters. ...
John Lennon: Rocking Chair: Popular & Vital
Column by Michael Lydon, Fusion, 24 December 1971
JAMES TAYLOR came on the jukebox in the bar last night, singing that pretty Carole King song about "Call me and I'll come running and ...
Yoko Ono: Rocking Chair: Oh! Yoko
Column by Michael Lydon, Fusion, April 1972
YOKO ONO smiles from her recent album cover (fly) with great compassion. Her face is heavy, peasant-like. She is looking out through a sheet of ...
Aretha Franklin: Young, Gifted, and Black (Atlantic)
Review by Michael Lydon, Fusion, May 1972
FROM THE shimmering, expectant notes which mark its opening to the brutally final chord of its close, Aretha Franklin's new album, Young, Gifted, and Black,is magnificent. ...
The Beatles & Me: An Era Dribbles On...
Memoir by Michael Lydon, The Boston Globe, 9 July 1972
ELK, CALIF. — Letter in the mail: Globe editor hopes I'll fill his "bathtub of an idea," What Impact Did The Beatles Have On Your ...
Wilf Carter (Montana Slim), Lightnin' Hopkins, Hank Snow, Lester Young: Rocking Chair
Column by Michael Lydon, Fusion, September 1972
JUNE TODAY, not busting out in Boston where the sky is as grey as the pigeons, but here. My trip has continued from Bloomington across ...
The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder: Boston Garden, Boston MA
Live Review by Michael Lydon, Fusion, November 1972
THE ROLLING Stones were magnificent in Boston. We arrived at a packed Boston Garden high and hopeful for an evening of visual thrills and musical ...
Memoir by Michael Lydon, Fusion, December 1972
BATTERY FAILING, headlights down to a dull yellow gleam, the gas guage below empty, we roller-coasted over the last range of hills into Berkeley — ...
Aretha Franklin: A Spirit in the Dark: Aretha at the Fillmore
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Boogie Lightning, 1974
IT WAS A NIGHT of nights. Tower of Power set the mood: 'You Got To Funkify', and then King Curtis and his Kingpins and the ...
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Boogie Lightning (Da Capo), 1974
Everything I know I taught myself.– Bo Diddley ...
Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, 'Boogie Lightning' , 1974
IN THE FALL OF 1966 the Action were at their zenith, one short step above complete obscurity. For one all too brief moment they had ...
Bob Dylan: The Flood: Dylan and The Band on Tour ’74
Report by Michael Lydon, unpublished, 1974
"The air was filled with music." – Raymond Chandler ...
Louis Jordan: "Still Feeling Good"
Retrospective and Interview by Michael Lydon, Ramparts, January 1974
"DRINK SOME beer and be of good cheer!" Louis Jordan stood on the dimly lit stage of Ruthie's Inn. Before him was a crowded floor ...
Retrospective and Interview by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, 1975
"DRINK SOME BEER and be of good cheer!" ...
Wilson Pickett: Return of the Wicked Pickett
Report and Interview by Michael Lydon, unpublished, 1977
"I’VE ALWAYS WANTED to be a star," said Wilson Pickett. He clapped his hands and fell back into a deck chair behind his house in ...
Interview by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages audio, May 1977
Michael Lydon meets wicked Wilson Pickett at home in Englewood, New Jersey, and asks him about his gospel roots, the Falcons, Atlantic Records, and recording in Memphis and Muscle Shoals.
File format: mp3; file size: 44.3mb, interview length: 46' 08" sound quality: ***
Harlem’s Finest: The Apollo Theatre
Retrospective by Michael Lydon, unpublished, 1986
THROUGH A GAUZY silver curtain, multi-colored lights outline a band playing a mellow blues with a dancing beat. As the audience begins to cheer, the ...
Interview by Michael Lydon, unpublished, 1995
AT 94, JESSE STONE, arranger, bandleader, and song writer extraordinaire, has spanned the entire 20th century of African-American music. ...
The Rolling Stones: Rolling Away the Stones: Stanley and I
Essay by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages, January 2002
Michael Lydon was the other reporter on the infamous Rolling Stones' 1969 tour of America. This is his recollection of meeting Stanley Booth, and the ...
Ray Charles: Thanks for Bringing Love Around Again (Crossover)
Review by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages, September 2002
RAY CHARLES' NEW CD, Thanks for Bringing Love Around Again – his first since Strong Love Affair in 1995 – opens with 'What'd I Say', ...
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