Steven R Rosen
Steven R. Rosen contributes freelance arts stories from Los Angeles to several publications, including a Cinema column for Harp magazine. He was the Denver Post's movie critic from 1997-2002, and before that won a National Music Journalism Award for commentary. He also self-published the short-lived One Shot: The Magazine of One-Hit Wonders.
78 articles
List of articles in the library
Comment by Steven R Rosen, One Shot, Winter 1987
CATCHING PERFORMERS on the oldies circuit can be sad. ...
John Fred and his Playboy Band: John Fred: The Long Career of a One-Hit Wonder
Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, One Shot, Fall 1987
IT SEEMED A BOW to novelty and nostalgia. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which features roots-music artists of all sorts, was sponsoring a ...
Curtis Mayfield: No Sad Songs For Curtis Mayfield
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 6 March 1994
ANYONE CAN HAVE a paralyzing, life-diminishing accident at anytime - bad things happen to good people just as often as good things. You just accept ...
Dan Penn: Southern Soul Rises Again : Dan Penn's Do Right Man Out on Top Label
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 10 July 1994
IF THE RACIAL history of the American South was a book, it would be a tragedy - but not without inspirational chapters about black and ...
Frankie Valli headlines Kool Koncert
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 1995
THERE IS SUCH a thing in rock music as "the chill factor.'' Itrefers to songs that, because of some unusual element - a cryingguitar, perhaps, ...
Simon Bonney Proves He Belongs in Country: Songs Reflective, Stark and Sincere
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 11 May 1995
COUNTRY-AND-WESTERN music and European art songs aren't as strange a combination as you might think. ...
Lothar and the Hand People: Return Of The Weird: Lothar and the Hand People
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 29 October 1995
"YOU THINK THERE'LL be enough interest in this that I'll be able to make a fortune giving theremin lessons?" ...
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown: Denver Show Starts Celebration of 50th-anniversary Recording
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 15 January 1997
THIS YEAR is Clarence 'Gatemouth'' Brown's 50th as a recording artist, and virtually everyone is preparing to honor the blues musician. ...
Billy Bob Thornton Talks Movies and Music
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 16 February 1997
ALL ACROSS AMERICA last week, there was one big question after the Academy Award nominations were announced: "Billy Bob who?'' ...
Kate & Anna McGarrigle: The Stubborn McGarrigles' Folk Music Keeps On Shining
Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 23 February 1997
LIFE IS SHORT with few guarantees. But here's one – Kate and Anna McGarrigle will always make wonderful folk music. If only they weren't so ...
Bob Dylan: Dylan Album Revives Interest in 2 Old Films
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 17 October 1998
IT'S 1966 ALL over again in the world of pop music – and the Denver International Film Festival, which just concluded, was in the centre ...
Gene Pitney Gets His Limelight
Comment by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 11 April 2002
THE BIG NEWS at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies was that Gene Pitney finally got in. ...
Pere Ubu, David Thomas: David Thomas brings Disastodrome! to UCLA
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, February 2003
IT'S LATE NIGHT in a Los Angeles motel room and a dog-tired, barefoot David Thomas is dining on broccoli and cognac. "There's plenty more where ...
Chuck Barris: Confessions of a Populist Mind
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, March 2003
Steven Rosen talks to self-confessed CIA assassin Chuck Barris – inspiration to George Clooney – about the pop classic he penned back in 1962. ...
Bob Dylan, Shane MacGowan: Music at Sundance: Dylan, Atlantic and Shane MacGowan
Overview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, May 2003
Bob Dylan’s long awaited Masked and Anonymous debuts at Sundance ...
David Thomas: Man in the Mirror
Profile and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, June 2003
Pere Ubu’s David Thomas stages the latest incarnation of his rock opera/performing arts festival 'Disastodrome!' ...
Rocket from the Tombs: On Rock And Rocket From The Tombs: David Thomas
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, unpublished, Fall 2003
WHEN DAVID THOMAS brought his three-day "Disastodrome" musical carnival to UCLA earlier this year, there was a surprise element. ...
Hal Willner and the Creation of the Modern Tribute Album
Profile and Interview by Steven R Rosen, LA CityBeat, January 2004
"SORRY," Hal Willner says, sheepishly. He has just been complimented — or so this writer intended — for being the father of pop culture's rampant ...
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, April 2004
David Byrne – whose funk-rock-art band Talking Heads brought New Wave into the mainstream a generation ago, and who has pursued his interests in rhythm-based ...
The Association, Curt Boettcher: Ray of Light: The World of Sunshine Pop
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, LA CityBeat, 27 May 2004
ONE DAY RECENTLY, after listening to the latest Dirtbombs CD in my car and then hearing the Music Machine’s 1966 proto-punk hit ‘Talk Talk’ for ...
The Beach Boys, James Brown, Lesley Gore, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones: The TAMI Show Remembered
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Los Angeles Times, 29 October 2004
THE ROLLING Stones were there, along with James Brown, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and more, filmed live before their screaming ...
Chronicle Of A Mythic Concert: The TAMI Show Remembered
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Los Angeles Times, 29 October 2004
THE ROLLING STONES were there, along with James Brown, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and more, filmed live before their screaming ...
Klaus Nomi Lives Again In The Nomi Song
Report by Steven R Rosen, Los Angeles Times, 3 February 2005
THE ARTIST KENNY SCHARF was listening to "Jonesy's Jukebox" on Indie 103.1 FM recently when he was startled to hear a Klaus Nomi song – ...
The White Stripes: Under Blackpool Lights DVD (Third Man/V2)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, March 2005
EXCUSE MY misperception. I’d always considered the White Stripes as a modernist garage-rock band-hip to the melody of catchy songs like 'You’re Pretty Good Looking ...
Bill Haley: Jim Dawson: Rock Around the Clock - The Record that Started the Rock Revolution
Book Review by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, June 2005
DID HOLLYWOOD create rock 'n' roll? That sounds like a strange, ridiculous and even offensive question to anyone who likes rock and all its musical ...
The Go-Betweens: The Yin and Yang of the Go-Betweens
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, LA CityBeat, 23 June 2005
LIVE, THE GO-BETWEENS may just be the most perfectly balanced rock band around. And it's nice to have a rare chance to witness it. Last ...
Terry Riley: Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, 1 October 2005
TO CELEBRATE the 70th birthday of California-born minimalist composer Terry Riley, the UCLA Live series put together a program even stranger than Riley's landmark In ...
Neil Young: Brush With Death Leaves Troubadour Grateful: Heart of Gold
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 14 February 2006
JONATHAN DEMME orders orange juice for himself, Neil Young and a reporter at downtown's Zoom Restaurant in Park City, Utah - a refreshing way to ...
Matthew Sweet: Revisiting Rainy Day: Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs get Under the Covers
Interview by Steven R Rosen, LA CityBeat, 20 April 2006
THERE ARE THOSE who say, with good reason, that 1984's Rainy Day is one of the great L.A. pop albums. And while not a sequel, ...
The Beastie Boys, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave: Utah Saints: Sundance Music Festival
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Harp, May 2006
...
Nick Cave: The Proposition, Pop Music and Leonard Cohen
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 7 June 2006
THE PROPOSITION, director John Hillcoat's solemn and violently unsentimental Australian western, has its fair share of stars in the cast. ...
Belle and Sebastian with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra: Hollywood Bowl, California
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, July 2006
SOMETIMES, WHAT sounds like a good concert idea on paper turns out even better – historic, even – on stage. ...
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, 30 November 2006
LUCINDA WILLIAMS must get her songwriting gift – her fantastic ability to reveal psyche through describing such seemingly peripheral objects as Car Wheels on a ...
Aimee Mann: Avalon Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, 9 December 2006
LIKE HER voice itself, Aimee Mann's Christmas concert – her first of what promises to be an annual event – in L.A. was winningly straightforward ...
Nick Lowe: World Trade Center Plaza, NYC
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, 19 September 2007
IN CONCERT, Nick Lowe sings with such a sweet-tempered, smooth-voiced, country-tinged nonchalance – a modern-day Eddy Arnold – that the clever wordplay of his lyrics ...
Peter Bjorn and John: Bogart's, Cincinnati
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, December 2007
MAYBE IT'S a Bjorn thing, but the audience at Bogarts in Cincinnati had trouble figuring Peter Bjorn And John out. ...
Hoyt Axton: My Griffin Is Gone
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 23 October 2008
HOYT AXTON'S 1969 LP My Griffin Is Gone, originally released to little notice on Columbia, belongs to that group of orchestrated baroque pop albums that ...
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 ...
Anohni (Antony & the Johnsons): Antony and the Johnsons: Southern Theatre, Columbus, Ohio
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 4 February 2009
TRANSCENDENCE IS a goal in so much music - so much art - that it feels too easy, too common. Maybe that's because contemporary "transcendent ...
Van Morrison: Astral Weeks – Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 18 February 2009
FIRST OF ALL, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is rock's A Love Supreme. There's no way you could ever listen to its title song – a ...
Freddy Cannon: Boom Boom Rock 'n' Roll – The Best of Freddy Cannon (Shout Factory)
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 22 February 2009
HERE'S THE MOST amazing music-trivia factoid in a long time, courtesy of the liner notes to Boom Boom 24-song greatest-hits collection: Mick Jagger acknowledges he ...
Bob Dylan: Looking Back At Dont Look Back: Dylan and D.A. Pennebaker
Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 26 March 2009
FOR D.A. PENNEBAKER, the time has come to look back. For the new digitally-remastered "deluxe edition" DVD of his classic documentary Don't Look Back, which ...
Leonard Cohen: Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Denver Post, 4 June 2009
IF LEONARD COHEN, now 74, intends to retire from performing after his current tour, he couldn't have picked a better venue for his final North ...
Film/DVD/TV Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, September 2009
Gerry & the Pacemakers, Dusty Springfield, Herman's Hermits and Small Faces get the first-class treatment. ...
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 ...
The Feelies: Rick Moody Interviews the Feelies
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 10 December 2009
The celebrated novelist and Wingdale Community Singers rocker interviews his favorite band. Blurt takes notes. ...
Journey: How 'Don't Stop Believin'' Became Such a Monster Hit
Report by Steven R Rosen, American Songwriter, November 2010
POP STARS OF disparate ages and musical styles, when forced to share a stage, can be as awkward together as "strangers waiting up and down ...
Randy Newman: I Am Newman, Hear Me Score
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 16 February 2011
RANDY NEWMAN'S foray into southwest Ohio this week, performing at Miami University's Middletown campus Saturday, is a rare treat. ...
Buddy Holly, The Rolling Stones: Behind The Song: 'Not Fade Away'
Essay by Steven R Rosen, American Songwriter, 16 March 2011
AT THIS YEAR'S Grammys, 67-year-old Mick Jagger was out from the get-go to tell the audience how it was gonna be. He wasn't ceding anything ...
Bob Dylan: In Concert: Brandeis University 1963
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 8 April 2011
WHILE LIBRARIES are filled with books about what's been gained from Dylan going electric, it's worth taking a couple minutes – maybe while listening to ...
Review by Steven R Rosen, American Songwriter, May 2011
IT'S SURPRISING THE American Association of Anesthesiologists hasn't chosen Emmylou Harris as the best voice to hear when awakening from surgery. ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Loudon Wainwright: 40 Odd Years and Counting
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 20 May 2011
THE SINGER-SONGWRITERS who came of age in the 1960s and early 1970s are the Boomers' major contribution to the Great American Songbook, and Loudon Wainwright ...
Marianne Faithfull: Horses and High Heels
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 11 July 2011
MARIANNE FAITHFULL'S 1979 Broken English may be as influential an album to come out of Britain's punk revolution as any – and it isn't even ...
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Paste, 22 August 2011
WHEN DON MCLEAN'S "American Pie" was released in late 1971, everyone tried to analyze what he meant by "the day the music died." McLean was ...
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 20 September 2011
ODD THAT TWO icons of dance music, Pet Shop Boys and Grace Jones, both had to wait years to get strong British albums released this ...
Bettye LaVette: One Difference Between Bettye LaVette and Susan Boyle
Profile and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 19 October 2011
BETTYE LAVETTE'S late-career success story is one of the music business' most remarkable. The powerful 65-year-old R&B singer/stylist first recorded in 1962 — 'My Man ...
Senior Moments: 2011's Best Albums by Artists Over 50
Special Feature by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, December 2011
IN AN EFFORT TO SHOW the world – or at least its readers – that rock music continues, and often even improves, when its practitioners ...
Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels: Mitch Ryder: Motor City Titan
Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 14 February 2012
With a new Don Was-produced album finally in stores, the Detroit-rock icon sets sights anew on his American audience. ...
Karen Dalton: From the Golden Age of Colorado to the Golden Age of Reissues
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, March 2012
DAN HANKIN, now a retired school social worker living in Denver, fondly remembers back to 1966, when he would visit Karen Dalton's Colorado mountain cabin ...
Timi Yuro: That Time Of Yuro: Timi Yuro
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 23 April 2012
ANY LIST OF proto-feminist Top 40 hits of the 1960s would have to include Timi Yuro's 1962 'What's A Matter Baby' along with Lesley Gore's ...
Nick Lowe: The 'Peace' Maker: Nick Lowe
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 19 October 2012
WHEN CONSUMMATE singer/songwriter Nick Lowe played his most famous composition — '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding' — near the World Trade Centre ...
Report by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 9 November 2012
Currently riding a crest of newfound attention thanks to the recently released documentary film about his unlikely career, the Sugar Man himself arrived at Columbus' ...
The Rascals: Capitol Theatre, Port Chester
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, December 2012
AS I WALKED into the crowded lobby of the just-restored Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, a suave, dapperly dressed older man smiled and ...
Old Ideas and Wrecking Balls: Rock's Top Senior Moments of 2012
Essay by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, 10 December 2012
THE 84 ROCK'S BACKPAGES contributors – and other invited music aficionados – who participated in our second Senior Moments poll had a heap of fun ...
Senior Moments: The Best 30 Albums of 2012 by Artists 50 and Over
Special Feature by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, 10 December 2012
As voted by over 80 of RBP's leading lights, here are the year's 30 best long-players made by artists of a certain vintage – those ...
The Electric Prunes: The Complete Reprise Singles
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 15 February 2013
IT SAYS SOMETHING about how wacked-out the psychedelic 1960s were that not only could there be a rock band with the ridiculous name of the ...
Petula Clark: Lost In You (The End Records/Sony)
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 15 May 2013
AS MUCH A surprise as finding a new album by 80-year-old Petula Clark (singer of the 1964 pop-rock classic 'Downtown') on a label that also ...
Hackamore Brick: The Return of One of Rock's "Missing Links"
Retrospective and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, 11 October 2013
NOTE: This is an edited/excerpted version of a story that first appeared on http://www.blurtonline.com ...
Sparks Are Getting Their Revenge on North America
Profile and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, 6 November 2013
NOTE: A different version of this story appeared at http://www.blurtonline.com. ...
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, June 2014
Smooth '70s soul-pop, as revisited by the estimable archivists at Numero Group, never sounded silkier. ...
Delines, The : The Delines: Colfax
Review by Steven R Rosen, American Songwriter, 17 June 2014
DENVER'S COLFAX AVENUE is one of America's great urban streets, as important to understanding the Modern West as the Monument Valley of John Ford's westerns ...
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 7 June 2017
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has had a long career on the cutting edge of creative thought and confrontational art. ...
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 23 October 2018
Kramer and members of Soundgarden, Faith No More and Fugazi perform MC5 classics at Bogart's on Oct. 25. ...
Wayne Kramer, MC5, MC50: Legendary Rock Guitarist Wayne Kramer Talks MC5 Tour, Free Jazz Influences
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 23 October 2018
AMONG THE IMMORTAL rallying cries of Rock & Roll — a list that includes "You gotta fight for your right to party", "Sex and drugs ...
Sparks: Ron Mael discusses new Sparks album A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip…
Profile and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock's Backpages, 15 May 2020
… and reveals details of two upcoming movies involving the duo – an unusual musical and a long-awaited documentary. ...
New Model Army: Justin Sullivan's Army Of One
Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock & Roll Globe, 6 August 2021
The West Yorkshire folk-punk great and New Model Army frontman emerges from the pandemic with a brilliant new solo album. ...
Delines, The : The Delines: Two If By Sea
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock & Roll Globe, 12 March 2022
Willy Vlautin and Amy Boone overcome the odds to create their best album with The Sea Drift. ...
Bob Dylan: How Bob Dylan Gave His Blessing to Girl From the North Country
Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinatti Magazine, 6 October 2023
Playwright Conor McPherson is still amazed at the creative freedom Dylan gave him with the musical, playing this month at the Aronoff Center. ...
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