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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

By date | By artist | Most recently added

Steve Winwood: A Higher Love

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 ...

David Byrne

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. ...

Lucinda Williams: Lucinda & Miller Williams: UCLA Live Performing Arts Series, Royce Hall, Los Angeles, CA

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 ...

Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits, The Small Faces, Dusty Springfield: Various Artists: British Invasion (Reelin' in the Years)

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 ...

Emmylou Harris: Hard Bargain

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 ...

The Brill Building Sound

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 ...

Grace Jones: Hurricane

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 ...

Rodriguez in Columbus, OH

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. ...

Ned Doheny: Separate Oceans

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 ...

Genesis P-Orridge: The cut-up literary technique has deeply informed avant-garde artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge's art and life

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. ...

Wayne Kramer, MC5: Legendary Rock Guitarist Wayne Kramer Talks "MC50" Tour, Free Jazz Influences and His Jail Guitar Doors Non-Profit Org

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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