Sam Sutherland
Sam began his career as a music journalist in the early '70s, joining Billboard's New York offices where he covered record companies, recording studios, and college media by day and reviewed live music by night. He would undertake a subsequent tour of duty at Record World magazine in the late '70s as its west coast editor, rejoining Billboard in 1981 as its west coast bureau chief.
As a freelance writer, Sutherland contributed to High Fidelity, Phonograph Record Magazine, Musician, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, and The NARAS Journal.
A New York native, he moved to Los Angeles in 1974 as inhouse writer and publicist for Elektra/Asylum/Nonesuch Records and embarked on a second label adventure a dozen years later as an executive for Windham Hill Productions, based at its Los Angeles sales, marketing, and promotion offices. In addition to overseeing the Bay Area company's media relations team, he assumed a welcome second role overseeing A&R and artist relations for Windham Hill's jazz and fusion subsidiary, working with such artists as Tuck and Patti, the Turtle Island String Quartet, Andy Narell, Billy Childs, Henry Butler, and Denny Zeitlin.
He also shepherded the Grammy-nominated 1990 studio summit for Art Blakey, Dr. John, and David "Fathead" Newman released as Bluesiana Triangle, as well as a sequel recorded following Blakey's death from cancer later that year. In 1991, he recruited Steely Dan's Walter Becker to produce a series of albums showcasing emerging jazz artists Bob Sheppard, John Beasley, and the Lost Tribe.
During the early 1990s, he served as an independent A&R consultant to clients including Discovery Records, newly resurrected by Elektra founder Jac Holzman, and began exploring how new media technologies could enable music discovery, pouring 'old wines into new bottles.' A research project undertaken for Microsoft led to an invitation for Sutherland to join the development team for Microsoft Music Central, an interactive consumer music project combining CD-ROM and online publishing, prompting his move to the Seattle area.
In 1998, Sutherland was recruited by Amazon.com to join the online bookseller's launch teams for music and video, overseeing the editorial reviews databases for its separate music, classical and opera, and DVD and video stores launched over that summer and fall. During his four-year tenure at Amazon, he served as managing editor for its burgeoning DVD business, then pivoted to a senior editorial role with its central marketing group.
Sutherland returned to Microsoft in 2002 as managing editor for the Windows Media Guide, the online platform showcasing streaming media encoded in Microsoft's proprietary codecs. He subsequently moved to MSN Entertainment in a series of assignments culminating in his 2007 move to oversee MSN Music, guiding the channel until 2016.
39 articles
List of articles in the library
Interview by Sam Sutherland, Musician, January 1981
Songwriter, keyboardist, arranger, member of the Doobies and owner of The Voice reveals himself as a somewhat reluctant superstar. Thrust into pop music's center stage ...
The Band: Northern Lights — Southern Cross (Capitol ST-11440)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, December 1975
THE BAND'S NORTHERN LIGHTS: AN UNEVEN EXPERIMENT IN EVOLUTION ...
Jackson Browne: The Pretender (Asylum 7E-1079)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, November 1976
JACKSON BROWNE'S fourth and best album draws its power from a stunning tension of opposites: he continues to revise and refine many of the same ...
John Cale: Slow Dazzle (Island ILPS 9317)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, September 1975
EACH NEW instalment in John Cale's quixotic solo career has invited the sort of critical involvement and public indifference that have earmarked him as a ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Almost Blue (Columbia FC 37562)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1982
PITY THE POOR marketing people at CBS faced with explaining Elvis Costello's maverick path through modern rock. Between the eclectic classicism of his Taking Liberties ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia JC35037)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, December 1977
Elvis Costello: New Wave Rock Classicist ...
Bob Dylan: Infidels (Columbia 38819)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1984
DESPITE ITS arch title and a few lyric barbs that beg interpretation as renunciations of his Born-Again episode, Bob Dylan's new album is far from ...
Earth, Wind & Fire, Maurice White: Maurice White: From Sessionman To Producer
Interview by Sam Sutherland, Record World, 7 January 1978
EVEN IF Maurice had chosen to retire as a musician in the early '70s, his mid-decade emergence as a producer would guarantee him prominence: White's ...
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1983
From the dark, jaded regions of Steely Dan emerges an intellectual with an album about innocence, by Sam Sutherland ...
Donald Fagen: The Nightfly (Warner Bros. 23696-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, December 1982
STEELY DAN fans, rejoice: You can remove your mourning bands, undrape the black crepe from your speakers, and bask in the savvy pop splendors of ...
Fleetwood Mac: Mirage (Warner Bros. 23607-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, October 1982
AFTER THE bold experimentation of Tusk, the seamless pop flow of the new Fleetwood Mac album sounds initially like a studied attempt to recycle the ...
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, October 1982
The current quintet's long-awaited fifth album may be its last with Ms. Nicks ...
Foreigner: Unruffled by Platinum Pressure
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, July 1978
SPEAKING QUIETLY over the hum of a transoceanic phone connection. Foreigner's Mick Jones doesn't seem the least bit threatened by the musical and mercantile similarities ...
Amos Garrett: Go Cat Go (Flying Fish FF226)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, March 1981
LIKE RY Cooder, guitarist Amos Garrett has carved a solid niche for himself without resorting to the usual ploys associated with rock's guitar cult: Although ...
George Harrison: A&M Sues George Harrison for $10 Million
Report by Sam Sutherland, Record World, 9 October 1976
LOS ANGELES — A&M Records has filed a suit against George Harrison, seeking $10 million in damages and the dissolution of Harrison's Dark Horse label, ...
Etta James, Allen Toussaint: Jerry Wexler: Producer with a Fan's Passion
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, August 1978
ON A BLEAK, sunless afternoon, Jerry Wexler sits comfortably in the shadows of a recording studio control room, listening to the playback of a vocal ...
The Knack: Round Trip (Capitol ST 12168)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1982
THE KNACK'S last album not only drew critical catcalls for its attempt to plagiarize mid-'60s British pop but it failed to repeat the popular success ...
Profile and Interview by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, December 1975
LOWELL GEORGE is ravaged, eyes wired with fatigue beneath the peak of a floppy leather poorboy cap, face pallid against the dark beard. He smiles ...
Little Feat: The Last Record Album (Warner Bros. BS2882)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, November 1975
DESPITE ITS grim title, Little Feat's fifth album is the work of a band very much alive, its best songs charged with strong ideas, exciting ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Rastaman Vibration (Island ILPS 9383)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, May 1976
Top 40 Rasta: Marley at his most Mischievous ...
Material: One Down (Elektra 60206)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, March 1983
CHARACTERIZING MATERIAL'S work as "new music" could be somewhat misleading, since synthetic pop proponents have recently begun to use the term in lieu of "new ...
Randy Newman: Backbeat: Randy Newman's Coming-Out Party
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, April 1983
Called a recluse and a bigot by some, Newman has more to say than most "confessional" singer/songwriters. ...
Robert Palmer: Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley (Island ILPS 9294)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, July 1975
ENGLISH REVERENCE for rhythm & blues hasn't stopped with urban and country models of past decades, and as increasing numbers of Britons emulate contemporary R&B ...
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band: The Distance (Capitol)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Musician, March 1983
IT WOULD be both easy and unfair to write off Bob Seger's followup to Against The Wind as a bid for the widest possible audience. ...
Bruce Springsteen: The River (Columbia PC2 36854)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1981
Bruce Springsteen Is Worth Waiting For ...
Steely Dan: Recording Gaucho: Doctors, Lawyers, and Gremlins
Report and Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, February 1981
BEFORE THE multiple-platinum sales of Aja carried their music to a broad pop constituency, Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had earned enviable, even ...
Profile and Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, November 1977
STEELY DAN has been insinuating their mordant, pop-noir sensibility into the American musical mainstream for over five years now, and from the outset they've smartly ...
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, December 1977
AJA IS easily the best album released thus far this year. I hesitate to qualify that statement with words like "pop" or "rock," because these ...
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, February 1981
Gaucho: Listen Again ...
Steely Dan: Katy Lied (ABC ABCD-846)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, April 1975
STEELY DAN is a feisty little outfit. Their songs insinuate themselves onto Top 40 playlists, to blare from car radios and transmute vinylite into gold, ...
Steely Dan: Royal Scam (ABC ABCD-931)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, May 1976
SO YOU wanna dance? Steely Dan will oblige you, punching up their fast songs with hot guitars and bubbling rhythms. You say you like spectacle, ...
Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues (Sire 23883-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, September 1983
TALKING HEADS' first studio album since 1980's Remain in Light is quietly brilliant, reclaiming the more skeletal character of their earlier work without suggesting a ...
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, March 1975
SINCE DEPARTING Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson has risked increasing obscurity to pursue a personal style in direct variance with his most obvious commercial skills. Sinewy, ...
Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones (Island ILPS90095-1)
Review by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, January 1984
BETWEEN HIS fall from grace at his old record company (due as much to executive shifts as poor sales) and his time-consuming involvement in the ...
Was (Not Was): Caught in an Elevator
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, April 1984
The assortment of artists on a Was (Not Was) album appears accidental. But it's not. Really. ...
Jerry Wexler: Muscle Shoals Sound Studios: Jerry Wexler on Years in 'Boogaloo Country'
Interview by Sam Sutherland, Record World, 19 May 1979
WALK THROUGH the lobby of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and, hanging near all those gilded singles and albums, you'll see the face of veteran producer ...
Warren Zevon: Backbeat: Warren Zevon
Interview by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, July 1980
Don't the sun look angry through the trees Don't the trees look like crucified thieves Don't you feel like desperados under the eaves ...
List of genre pieces
Urban Cowboy: Country Music Stretches Its Legs
Report by Sam Sutherland, High Fidelity, August 1980
WHILE THE rock-crit establishment continues to ponder the future of new wave and the death of disco, U.S. music fans are quietly gravitating toward some ...
Muscle Shoals: A Look at Who Makes It Cook
Profile by Sam Sutherland, Record World, 19 May 1979
THE MUSICAL traits that have earned the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section the respect and admiration of artists and producers around the world aren't obvious ...
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