Wayne Robins
Wayne Robins (pictured with Billy Joel in Moscow in 1987) has been writing about rock since 1969; his first paying gig was reviewing the Rolling Stones, Ike and Tina Turner, B.B. King and Terry Reid at Oakland (Calif.) Coliseum for the Berkeley Barb during a hiatus from Bard College, where Fagen and Becker would occasionally play at impromptu Trips Festivals.
After graduating from the University of Colorado in 1972, an academic career highlighted by seeing Elvis Presley perform in Denver, he somehow landed a job in his native New York City as editor/writer for CBS Records’ Playback magazine. Writing for the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, but especially Creem, he moved to Birmingham, Mich. in March, 1975 to become editor of Creem magazine, where he spent six months. Returning home to New York, he followed Robert Christgau, Dave Marsh and Tony Kornheiser as pop writer for Newsday and New York Newsday, a gig which lasted from 1975-1993.
It was then he decided he’d rather write about meatloaf than Meat Loaf, and joined the newspaper’s food department. With the closing of New York Newsday in 1995, Robins wrote food columns for the Newark Star-Ledger and the N.Y. Daily News, became the "Raising Daddy" columnist for MSNBC.com in 1998, taught journalism and received his Master’s degree as the Chen Sam/Elizabeth Arden fellow at the New York University graduate school of journalism’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism section.
Wayne is the author of A Brief History of Rock… Off the Record and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Rock Music Studies. His essays can be found in anthologies about Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon and more. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at St. John’s University in Queens, New York.
Wayne's "Critical Conditions" Substack
149 articles
List of articles in the library
B.B. King, Terry Reid, The Rolling Stones, Ike & Tina Turner: The Rolling Stones...
Report by Wayne Robins, The Berkeley Barb, 14 November 1969
... at Oakland Coliseum, November 9, 1969. Featuring Ike & Tina Turner, B.B. King, Terry Reid, with a special appearance by Bill Graham. Written November ...
Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Winterland, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Berkeley Barb, 21 November 1969
CROSBY STILLS Nash and Young are good enough to make you glad that Buffalo Springfield couldn't hack it. The dynamic one-two punch of that group, ...
Review by Wayne Robins, The Berkeley Barb, 5 December 1969
FROM THIS week's flood of albums come a few disappointing second LP's by some promising performers, a pleasant surprise from a talented newcomer, an outstanding ...
The Osmonds: Phase Three (MGM)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, May 1972
IT CAME AS no surprise when FAVE Magazine recently handed out its best of the year awards. Left unresolved was the question of who really ...
Ashton, Gardner & Dyke: What A Bloody Long Day It's Been (Capitol)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, July 1972
ASHTON, GARDNER & DYKE'S first album might have been the best English punk-rock album of 1970. It was a sound forged from the beer belly ...
"I'm Down, I'm Really Down" — The Emerging Sopor Culture
Report by Wayne Robins, Creem, October 1972
SINCE HE got out of the army, my friend Tony has been getting by wheeling vats of boiling liquid from one tank to another in ...
The Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose: Cornelius Brothers And Sister Rose (United Artists)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, November 1972
BASICALLY, THERE ARE two Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose (CB&SR) sounds. One is the basic, upbeat piano sound layered with tight, spiraling harmony, as in ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, November 1972
LIKE VAN MORRISON, Arthur Lee has been gifted with enormous catalytic power in his writing, the often innocent enunciation of a phrase capable of transforming ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, March 1973
THE WACKERS are like the guys you used to know, hang out with, get wrecked with and share neighborhood jokes with, who also incidentally happened ...
Jerry Butler: Everything's Copa-setic
Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, Creem, April 1973
GOING TO see Jerry Butler at the Copa is in some ways like watching Valentino hump a corpse. Merely being at the Copa is a ...
Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come (Starring Jimmy Cliff, Dir. Perry Henzell, New World Pictures)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, May 1973
THE POSTERS that appeared in the New York subways a few weeks before the film premiered were natural killers. They showed Jimmy Cliff, dressed in ...
Link Wray: Be What You Want To
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 24 May 1973
LINK WRAY, father of chicken-shack recording, is back with his second album since emerging from the dim glint of rock history. Be What You Want ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, June 1973
EVER READ German rock mags like Muziek Express or Dutch ones like Popfoto? If you do, you'll notice that besides the pictures of Alice Cooper, ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, July 1973
It is 1978, and for the first time in half a decade, three consecutive Alice Cooper singles fail to reach the top fifty. Burbank has ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, July 1973
SONG FOR SONG, this might be Marc Bolan's strongest album. Certainly, it's the most varied, and the most musical. One instinctively look for the lyric ...
Curtis Mayfield: Back To The World (Curtom)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 19 July 1973
WITH ALL courtesy to the self-proclaimed Black Caesar, Curtis Mayfield's Superfly was the musical equivalent to Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather. Both were nearly as ...
Manfred Mann's Earth Band: Get Your Rocks Off
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, August 1973
MANFRED MANN'S a survivor. What that means is that no matter where you got on the bus: be it with ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’ in ...
Film/DVD/TV Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, September 1973
SINCE THE black movie bonanza started, its two superheros have manfully avoided each other, respectfully allowing one another to prowl unmolested on their own turf. ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, October 1973
SOON AFTER the enormous success of Tapestry Carole King came to be considered something of a cultural reactionary to the ‘true keepers of the rock ...
Van Morrison: Hard Nose The Highway (Warner Bros.)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 11 October 1973
I KEEP HAVING this dream – wish fulfillment, for the Freudians out in Zoo World – where the mailman rings the bell, and tells me ...
New York Dolls: New York Dolls (Mercury)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 25 October 1973
THERE DOESN'T seem to be any argument about what the Dolls look like, since even for '73 they're a bit scary: glitter mutants escaped from ...
War: Deliver the Word (United Artists)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, December 1973
WAR IS A people's band, the black urban counterpart of Grand Funk's white midwest. Like Funk, or the Grateful Dead, they have their fingers on ...
Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, January 1974
REMEMBER WHEN the Stones and Beatles were English bands? If you do then it's just barely, because both ceased being foreign bands years ago, somewhere ...
Lou Reed: Berlin (RCA APL1-0207)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 3 January 1974
HEARD ANY good jokes lately? Here's one from Lou Reed. "She put her fist through the window pane/It was such a funny thing." That's from ...
The Good Rats Just Keep On Keeping On
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Good Times, 30 January 1974
YOU COULDN'T find a more classic showcase for the Good Rats than Ubie's O.T.J, in West Islip. Monday night means beer blast at Ubie's, Wednesdays ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 31 January 1974
IF THERE'S two movie theatres in your town, and one is showing some foreign art movie like Elvira Madigan or The Heartbreak Kid and the ...
Steely Dan: Walking Slow, Drinking Alone, And Moving Swiftly Through The Night…
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, New Musical Express, 23 February 1974
WERE SITTING drinking Campari in the Angry Squire in Seventh Avenue on a dull sweltry Sunday night, watching the sippers and swallowers drift through a ...
Black Sabbath: Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath (Warner Bros.)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, April 1974
THE QUESTION, Sabs, is where you been so long? So highly irresponsible was their disappearing act over a year ago that heavy metal almost vanished ...
The Good Rats: American Band Via Long Island
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Creem, April 1974
YOU COULDN'T find a more classic showcase for the Good Rats than Ubie's O.T.J. in West Islip. ...
Lou Reed: Rock N Roll Animal (RCA)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 25 April 1974
IT'S JUST like Lou Reed to follow the worst album by a major artist in 1973 (Berlin), with what might be his best album since ...
Interview by Wayne Robins, Creem, May 1974
In Which This Jack-Of-All-Jams Remembers The Stones, Beatles, Little Richard ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, May 1974
‘Raking Turquoise Ruts Across the Velveeta Sky’ ...
Film/DVD/TV Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, August 1974
Ladies and Gentlemen the Rolling Stones is a film concert rather than a concert film, this distinction being that while most films of concerts cover ...
Frank Sinatra: Nassau Coliseum, Long Island NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, August 1974
FOR A MOMENT, it seemed that the entire white population of Carle Place, Uniondale and environs had migrated across the parkway green en masse to ...
New York Dolls: Too Much Too Soon (Mercury)
Review by Wayne Robins, Zoo World, 1 August 1974
TOO MUCH Too Soon is a great album by an increasingly more mature band whose only limitation seems to be their dubious association with a ...
Stevie Wonder: Fulfillingness' First Finale (Motown)
Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 12 September 1974
What's the storeee, Stevie? ...
John Denver: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 26 September 1974
John Denver? How about John Terre Haute? ...
Lou Reed: Felt Theater, New York
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 17 October 1974
LOU REED stepped out on the Felt Forum stage Friday night looking like something out of a Casey Donovan movie. ...
New York Dolls: Les Dolls' petit Altamont
Report by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 31 October 1974
EXPLAINING THE attraction of the New York Dolls, one tells an out-of-towner about their aggressive intelligence, nearly jingoistic hometown pride, and effortless projection of the ...
Stevie Wonder: Further Fulfillingness
Interview by Wayne Robins, Melody Maker, 9 November 1974
STEVIE WONDER had to know: should he, could he, release part two of Fulfillingness' First Finale at the end of November? ...
The Hollywood Stars: Hollywood Stars: Glue Sniffers From Hollywood High
Report by Wayne Robins, Creem, December 1974
HOLLYWOOOOOOD! — Anything can happen in this town; in fact, anything happens more often than some thing, which isn't to say there aren't times when ...
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 15 December 1974
BTO at NFE, OK for the USA ...
Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Toots & The Maytals: Why Reggae Won't Be the Next Big Thing
Essay by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 16 December 1974
FOR A WHILE it appeared that reggae was Pop Salvation. This was determined by a small number of white music taste makers who'd seen Jimmy ...
Jackson Browne: Late for the Sky (Asylum)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, January 1975
WHAT'S MADE Jackson Browne more acceptable than most other singer-songwriters is the likelihood that he's the Joni Mitchell for teenage boys. ...
John Lennon: Walls And Bridges (Apple)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, January 1975
WELCOME TO THE latest chapter in John Lennon's Identity Crisis. Fresh from troubles with the immigration authorites, the breakup with Yoko and public behavior reminiscent ...
Led Zeppelin: Led Zep Zaps Kidz
Report by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 3 February 1975
"For this high school generation, attendance at a Led Zeppelin concert is as mandatory as freshman English." ...
Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels Band: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 10 February 1975
Lynyrd Skynyrd's Closet Crackers ...
Joni Mitchell: Miles of Aisles (Asylum)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, March 1975
"JONI, YOU'VE GOT more class than Mick Jagger, Richard Nixon or Gomer Pyle combined," a male Joni junkie interjects after ‘Cold Blue Steel and Sweet ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, March 1975
WOMEN, ON Roxy Music covers, are like plants: lush vegetation, only more so. Unlike the reclining femme fatale on the cover of Stranded, who I've ...
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 27 March 1975
ONLY TWO weeks after Sly Stone scaled his decline by falling on his face at Radio City Music Hall, two of his most popular heirs ...
Blue Oyster Cult: On Your Feet Or On Your Knees (Columbia)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, May 1975
THE BLUE OYSTER CULT have been heavy metal's premier studio musicians. Initially, they were an image manipulated, a persona directed by their producers, Murray Krugman ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 8 May 1975
FROM THE LOOK of its album cover, Ace is a band of five frustrated English football players who, like Rod Stewart, turned to music to ...
Bad Company: Straight Shooter (Swan Song)
Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 26 May 1975
Bad Company Zaps Kidz ...
Ian Hunter: Ian Hunter (Columbia)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, July 1975
ON BRAIN CAPERS, the last great Mott album (containing songs like ‘Death May Be Your Santa Claus’ and ‘Sweet Angeline’), Ian Hunter was able to ...
Elton John: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (MCA)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, August 1975
IT WASN'T UNTIL I watched a black restaurant worker make it through his shift singing ‘Bennie and the Jets’ to himself that I began to ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, September 1975
THOUGH BOTH James Taylor and Carly Simon have been frequently castigated for being sensitive rich kids, I'm surprised we've never congratulated James for transcending his ...
Neil Young: Tonight's the Night (Reprise)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, September 1975
IF YOU THOUGHT Berlin was depressing, wait till you hear Tonight's the Night. Even the label is black. It is an album of resolute drugginess ...
Aerosmith: No Fear Of Flying Aero Smith
Interview by Wayne Robins, Creem, September 1975
A SIGN OF SUCCESS: Steven Tyler is eating escargot and oysters rockefeller at a downtown Detroit seafood restaurant. ...
The Bay City Rollers: Bay City Rollers: Top of the Pops?
Profile by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 8 September 1975
IF YOU believe, as I do, that 'Sugar Sugar' was a brilliant record, you may like the Bay City Rollers. On the other hand, it ...
The Tubes: The Tubes (A&M SP-4534)
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 25 September 1975
THE TUBES seem to be a theater group that parodies rock & roll and its associated social conventions of the last five years. There are ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, November 1975
I HAVE NEVER knelt at the altar of Eric Clapton's guitar prowess. That is, the endless arguments about who possesses the most virtuoso fingers in ...
Doobie Brothers: The Reward Of Facelessness
Interview by Wayne Robins, Creem, December 1975
WHO WERE THEY? Just a bunch of street people who "looked like bikers and said they wanted to be rock 'n' roll stars" – with ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, December 1975
SOME KEY ITEMS – a barrier breaking (‘first blacks’) performance at the Metropolitan Opera; the anthemization of ‘Lady Marmalade’; Nona Hendryx's proud lesbianism – have ...
Simon & Garfunkel Reunite: It's Paul, But Is It Art?
Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 18 December 1975
NEW YORK – Comedian Richard Belzer was warming up the studio audience for NBC's Saturday Night program, October 18th. This, he was saying, was an ...
Manfred Mann's Earth Band: Nightingales and Bombers
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, January 1976
HERE'S PROOF that Bruce Springsteen is 'the new Dylan': Manfred Mann has covered one of his songs Now Manfred's constructed a subplot to a career ...
The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television: Punk Rock: Its Day Will Come
Report by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 25 January 1976
IF YOU thought Jefferson Airplane was a weird name, let some of these drop off your tongue. Talking Heads. Tuff Darts. Ramones. Planets. Heartbreakers. Shirts. ...
Brian Eno, Roxy Music: Roxy Music: Country Life/Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, March 1976
WOMEN, ON ROXY MUSIC covers, are like plants: lush vegetation, only more so. Unlike the reclining femme fatale on the cover of Stranded, who I've ...
David Bowie: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 March 1976
Reincarnation ...
Aerosmith Flies, After a Long Takeoff
Profile by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 2 May 1976
IN JANUARY, 1973, Columbia Records released the first album by Aerosmith, a Boston-based hard rock band. Six months later, that album, Aerosmith, had sold a ...
Tom Waits: Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 10 May 1976
True believer, but not Kerouac the second ...
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 20 June 1976
SOME BANDS get you with their charismatic stagecraft. Others, with musicianship that drives and dazzles. But it is the songs that make Steely Dan the ...
Elton John, Bernie Taupin: He Puts Words Into Elton John's Mouth
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 8 August 1976
WHEN ELTON John takes the stage of Madison Square Garden Tuesday night in the first of an unprecedented seven shows there (long ago sold out), ...
Burning Spear: Schaefer Music Festival, Wollman Skating Rink, Central Park, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 23 August 1976
Burning Spear Overkills Message ...
Patti Smith's Crowd Appeal Shows She's Going Places
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 19 September 1976
A FEW weeks ago, the Patti Smith Band, which visits Hofstra University for two shows Thursday, played an unannounced and unadvertised midnight show at the ...
Peter Frampton: Frampton hits the middle
Report by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 3 October 1976
After 10 years on the fringes of popularity, Peter Frampton is suddenly on top. ...
Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together
Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 18 November 1976
LET'S STICK TOGETHER is the least campy of Bryan Ferry's three solo albums. Rather than do suave interpretations of oldies as diverse as ‘It's My ...
Funkadelic, Parliament: Parliament/Funkadelic: Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Rolling Stone, 30 December 1976
A GOLD PYRAMID glitters onstage. Light beams, like giant mutant insect eyes, stare down at the audience. Musicians dressed for a Halloween party in some ...
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 13 February 1977
PEOPLE WITH careers in the record world refer to their industry as the music business for one elementary reason. It is a business, with a ...
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 April 1977
WHAT KIND of record company would use as its motto the phrase "reversing into tomorrow"? Which record company would define its purpose, on its first ...
Olivia Newton-John: She's as serene as her repertoire
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 8 May 1977
OLIVIA NEWTON-John is gorgeous — so attractive with her fluffy blonde hair, ice-blue eyes and sleek figure that she could pass for Farrah Fawcett-Major's sister. ...
Average White Band, Marvin Gaye: Marvin Gaye, Average White Band: Radio City Music Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 17 September 1977
Body and soul singer ...
Talking Heads: Making heady music out of school
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 9 October 1977
IT IS only three years since three friends from the Rhode Island School of Design moved to New York, bent on developing their careers as ...
David Bowie: Bowie locks away an old life-style
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 27 November 1977
FIVE YEARS ago, David Bowie created "Ziggy Stardust." Ziggy was the prototypical glitter rock star: Rich, beautiful, stylishly pansexual. The 1972 album The Rise and ...
Sex Pistols: The Sex Pistols: Great SouthEast Music Hall, Atlanta GA
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 7 January 1978
More heat than raunch in Sex Pistols debut ...
Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings: Outlaws offer new kind of country
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 22 January 1978
IF YOU think the Super Bowl was rough on the Denver Broncos, you should have seen Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson the next afternoon. The ...
Joni Mitchell: Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (Asylum)
Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 26 January 1978
Mitchell evolves ...
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 22 February 1978
Earth, Wind and Fire puts on a flashy show ...
Pere Ubu, Hedy West, Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon: Rained out of his home
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 3 March 1978
THIS WINTER has done more than dump masses of snow on the East. It's also made a lie out of Albert Hammond's song 'It Never ...
David Cassidy, Shaun Cassidy: Shaun Cassidy, Rock Star
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 5 March 1978
An overnight sensation No time for an explanation Sensation, yeah, yeah, yeah — Shaun Cassidy, 'Teen Dream' ...
Pat Benatar: Overcoming the classics
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 March 1978
PAT BENATAR is a singer who has put herself in the unusual position of trying to unlearn almost everything she knows about her vocation. On ...
The Band: A big-time goodbye for The Band
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 30 April 1978
THERE WAS nothing small-time about The Last Waltz. It was a concert held in San Francisco a year ago last Thanksgiving to mark the final ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley and The Wailers: Kaya (Island)
Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, July 1978
THE FIRE HASN'T gone out, but it is on low flame and being used more for warmth than for arson. ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Rossington Collins Band, The Who: Lynyrd Skynyrd: "Still healing"
Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 17 September 1978
THE EFFECTS of last October's plane crash that ended the career of Lynyrd Skynyrd, America's most talented Southern-grown hard rock band, are still being felt ...
Donna Summer: Felt Forum, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 4 November 1978
Safe at the Forum ...
Steely Dan's Greatest-Hits & Quips
Interview by Wayne Robins, Los Angeles Times, 10 December 1978
NEW YORK — Maybe it's the air quality. Or fear of earthquakes. Or brushfires. Or terminal boredom. Whatever the reasons, a number of musicians long ...
Charles Mingus, Joni Mitchell: Charles Mingus, Jazz Pioneer, Dead
Obituary by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 9 January 1979
CHARLES MINGUS, the innovative jazz composer, band leader and bassist, died Friday night in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He was 56. ...
Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid Vicious Dies of Overdose
Report by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 3 February 1979
NEW YORK — Sid Vicious joined his girlfriend Nancy in death yesterday. ...
Boney M: A hit almost everywhere but here
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 18 March 1979
THEY'VE BEEN No. 1 in Germany and Japan, Israel and Kuwait, France, Peru, Portugal, Kenya and dozens of other countries. One of their singles recently ...
Cheap Trick's conquest of Japan
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 20 May 1979
THE TRADITION of American musicians and artists going to Britain or the European continent in search of more responsive audiences is a venerable one. Spirits ...
The Who is undated in a new age
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 June 1979
THE WHO may have won and maintained its devoted and massive following thanks to the flamboyant intensity of its peerless live performances and the surging ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Carnegie Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 July 1979
DESPITE THE immediate success of her debut album, there has been some question as to whether Rickie Lee Jones was a one-shot hot-shot or an ...
Jefferson Starship: The Starship, rebuilt
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 9 November 1979
LAST YEAR, it must have seemed as if the curse of Tutankhamen had fallen on the Jefferson Starship. In June, 1978, the band lost more ...
Public Image Ltd.: Is there any rust in the metal box?
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 9 March 1980
The king is gone but he's not forgotten This is the story of a Johnny Rotten It's better to burn out Than it is to ...
Grateful Dead is very much alive
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 16 March 1980
HAIGHT-ASHBURY. The diggers. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Owsley's acid. Family Dog, Acid Tests. The summer of love, San Francisco, wear flowers in your ...
Blue Angel: My Father's Place, Roslyn NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 15 November 1980
Forgotten Era Of Rock ...
The Beatles, Murray the K: Murray the K Dies; "Fifth Beatle" Was 60
Obituary by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 23 February 1982
SUBMARINE RACE watchers walked hand-in-hand listening to golden gassers on the Swingin' Soiree. Teens jabbered in a peculiar language, taunting parents and teachers by inserting ...
Joni Mitchell: Jones Beach Theater, New York
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 26 July 1983
DURING THE COURSE of her unpredictable but resilient career, Joni Mitchell has been the dewy-eyed sophomore, the slit-eyed hipster, the clear-eyed visionary. Her songs of ...
John Travolta: Practice Makes Perfect
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 2 June 1985
John Travolta has gone from the disco hunk of Saturday Night Fever to the Rolling Stone reporter of his new movie. In between, he says, ...
Bruce Springsteen: Into the Future
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 4 April 1988
THE "TUNNEL OF LOVE" tour is not rock-and-roll business as usual, or even Springsteen business as usual. This, after all, is a show that for ...
Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 23 October 1988
FOR HOURS, the same shot repeats over and over on a massive screen in a high-ceilinged editing room in Studio City, just a traffic jam ...
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 29 January 1989
FIVE-YEAR-OLDS take guns to school, 10-year-olds sell crack. Homelessness, Howard Beach, Joel and Hedda, Tompkins Square, Tawana, AIDS. Lou Reed didn't make this world, but ...
Barry Manilow: A Barry Manilow for The '90s
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 16 April 1989
He's been up, he's been down, now he's trying to get the feeling again. A humbled but hopeful Barry Manilow opens on Broadway. ...
Aretha Franklin: Westbury Music Fair, Westbury NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 June 1991
ARETHA FRANKLIN is so far beyond having anything to prove that it would be easy to excuse her if she just wanted to go through ...
Little Richard: AWOP-BOP-ALOO-MOP-ALOP-BAM-BOOM!
Profile by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 18 June 1992
THERE'S NO QUESTION that some rock icons learned how to do what they do by watching and hearing Little Richard, from the cascading "whooo's!" on ...
Bob Dylan: 30th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Gardens
Live Review by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 17 October 1992
BOB DYLAN'S SONG catalogue is so varied and vital that Friday's four-hour concert at Madison Square Gardens barely got the key in the door of ...
Leonard Cohen: The Loneliness of the Long-Suffering Folkie: Leonard Cohen
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 22 November 1992
ON HIS NEW ALBUM The Future (Columbia), Leonard Cohen views history's changing currents with more than a little bit of wariness. "Give me back the ...
Donald Fagen, Candid and Vulnerable
Interview by Wayne Robins, unpublished, May 1993
Author's note: This interview took place in Manhattan, May 19, 1993. Without his partner in crime Walter Becker to deflect questions, Fagen was more candid ...
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 23 May 1993
THE PENINSULA Hotel's presidential suite is not your standard overnight business accommodation, even for Fifth Avenue. There are three bedrooms, a library, two living rooms, ...
B.B. King: Talk to the Boss: His Majesty Mr. King
Interview by Wayne Robins, Blues Access, Spring 1999
THE BLUE Note may be the most upscale of expensive jazz and blues clubs in New York and a major stop on the itinerary of ...
Steely Dan: Hey 19: It's About Time
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Los Angeles Times, 27 February 2000
"WHAT RECORD COMPANY are we on, by the way?" Donald Fagen wants to know. "I'm not kidding." ...
Review by Wayne Robins, MSNBC.com, 10 September 2001
HOW DO YOU tell the difference between a great new Bob Dylan album and one that's more ordinary? You can't stop playing the great ones ...
Sonic Youth: Seeking Sonic Truth On Murray Street: Sonic Youth
Comment by Wayne Robins, waynerobins.blogspot.com, 18 September 2002
I'M AMUSED EACH day when I cross Murray Street, a miles-long, largely residential street that wends its way from downtown Flushing north through various small ...
Eminem At The Top Of His Underclass: 8 Mile
Review by Wayne Robins, waynerobins.blogspot.com, 26 November 2002
8 MILE, Eminem's big screen debut, is middling as far as boxing movies go: Not as searing as Budd Schulberg's The Harder They Fall, and ...
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, The Bergen Record, March 2004
FREE ASSOCIATION test for the musically informed: I say "Keb' Mo'", you say "blues". And that's the right answer, to a certain degree. ...
Bernie Leadon: Still Flying, Without Eagles
Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, The Bergen Record, April 2004
BERNIE LEADON has played in quite a few bands during the last 35 years. ...
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Review by Wayne Robins, The Boston Phoenix, 21 May 2004
I’M THUMBING through the March issue of Uncut, the comprehensive and entertaining British music monthly, when I hit the front of the review section and ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis: 50 Years Of Rock'n'Roll
Retrospective by Wayne Robins, Billboard, 18 September 2004
IN THE HEAT of the Memphis summer, every year, they come. Legions of Elvis Presley fans arrive in this city for Elvis Week every August ...
Paul Wasserman, Press Agent and Friend
Obituary by Wayne Robins, waynerobins.blogspot.com, 24 November 2007
PAUL WASSERMAN, the erudite press representative to a long roster of rock and movie stars, died in Los Angeles at age 73, according to an ...
Miley Cyrus: Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert
Film/DVD/TV Review by Wayne Robins, Rock's Backpages, 20 February 2008
LAST WEEKEND J and I went to see Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert in the local multiplex. It was ...
Retrospective and Interview by Wayne Robins, eMusic.com, 21 April 2008
BILLED AS THE posthumous music of a wilfully obscure musician named Marvin Pontiac, The Legendary Marvin Pontiac: Greatest Hits package came with a photo purported ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Promise: Bruce Before The Beatles
Review by Wayne Robins, Wayne's Words blog, 5 January 2011
IT WAS EARLY New Year's Eve, and I played Bruce Springsteen's The Promise for the friends with whom we spend that night – and sometimes ...
Caitlin Rose: On Caitlin's Rose's Own Side Now
Comment by Wayne Robins, Wayne's Words blog, 15 May 2011
I'VE BEEN LISTENING to Caitlin Rose for nearly two months now, and have not been quite ready to let go. ...
Band Names? Welcome to the Jungle
Comment by Wayne Robins, Rock's Backpages, 28 June 2011
TALKING ABOUT rock bands these days sometimes resembles a walk through a mammoth petting zoo. ...
Amy Winehouse: A Rock Star Dead Again at 27
Comment by Wayne Robins, Rock's Backpages, 23 July 2011
THE OTHER DAY I was listening to Amy Winehouse sing "You Know I'm No Good" on WFUV, and thought about how authentic she sounded. Not ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Wondering Sound, 24 October 2011
LIKE ANY prosperous band with a global audience entering its second decade, Coldplay seems to want to venture away from its enchanted cottage, albeit not ...
Neil Young's Visible Republic: Americana
Review by Wayne Robins, Rock's Backpages, 29 June 2012
THERE'S ALWAYS a method to Neil Young's madness, even on his most prosaic projects. Who would have thought that the eardrum-puncturing solo guitar project Le ...
Vampire Weekend's Latest Album Is Ezra Koenig's Guide for the Perplexed
Comment by Wayne Robins, Tablet, 2 September 2013
Remembrances of holy days in Tarrytown and Rye I don't wanna live like this, I don't wanna die — 'Finger Back' ...
The Four Seasons: Frankie Valli: Looking Back at 50 Years of the Four Seasons
Interview by Wayne Robins, Billboard, 3 September 2013
THERE IS A SCENE in the hit Broadway musical Jersey Boys that represents the sustained success of Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio and their group, the ...
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Billboard, 14 September 2013
NOTE: This is an unedited version of the Billboard article that appeared on 14 September, 2013. ...
Hot Tuna, Jefferson Airplane, Jorma Kaukonen: Jorma Kaukonen Finds Somebody To Love
Retrospective and Interview by Wayne Robins, Tablet, 12 August 2015
The former Jefferson Airplane guitarist and Hot Tuna lead man comes home to his mother's faith at his Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio. ...
Review by Wayne Robins, Rock's Backpages, September 2018
THE FLUSHING Meadow Park concert area is a stout walk from both the Citi Field parking lots and subway stations. ...
Dave Alvin: From An Old Guitar – Rare and Unreleased Recordings
Review by Wayne Robins, Copper, 14 January 2020
YOU'RE DRIVING through the New Mexico desert in the dark. Your teeth are grinding, though the buzz of the blue meth or whatever you were ...
Bob Dylan: Dylan Dials Up JFK, the Wolfman, and Whitman
Essay by Wayne Robins, Copper, March 2020
'MURDER MOST Foul', Bob Dylan's newly released song, is long. It is 17 minutes and change, about as long as 'Desolation Row' and 'Like a ...
Column by Wayne Robins, Copper, 15 June 2020
IT MIGHT BE hard to imagine, but there was a time when there was not a Japanese restaurant in every city neighborhood and suburban strip ...
Bananagun, Khruangbin: Bananagun: The True Story of Bananagun/Khruangbin: Mordechai
Review by Wayne Robins, Copper, 27 July 2020
BANANAGUN HAD ME won over with their name, a readymade punch line for a mild risqué joke often attributed to the actress Mae West. "Is ...
Oasis' Remastered Masterpiece: What's the Story?
Retrospective by Wayne Robins, Copper, 30 November 2020
THERE IS A Saturday Night Live sketch from 1996 in which then Prime Minister John Major (Mike Myers) partakes in the traditional 15 minutes of ...
Review and Interview by Wayne Robins, Copper, Summer 2020
THE FIRST ALBUM I ever bought with my own money was Presenting Dion and the Belmonts (Laurie LLP 1002). In faded red ink from a ...
Keith Richards: Playing Air Guitar With Keith Richards
Memoir by Wayne Robins, Critical Conditions, 4 January 2022
It was a pretty good afternoon, bourbon included. ...
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