It’s been said that rock and roll slumped in the late 1950s, when Elvis Presley entered the army and Buddy Holly died, and that it remained in weakened condition until the Beatles and other British Invasion acts emerged to revitalize it in 1963 and 1964. In fact, lots of great artists rode the charts […]
Continue Reading
The original Doors’ penultimate studio album, 1970’s Morrison Hotel, arrived at a time of uncertainty for the group. Their previous LP, The Soft Parade, had proved a commercial success but had garnered lukewarm reviews because of relatively weak material and a plethora of string and horn arrangements. Adding to the sense that the band might […]
Continue Reading
photo by Helena Christensen U2, Ireland’s own Fab Four, ignited a blaze in the mid-1980s with The Unforgettable Fire, then turned up the heat later in that decade with The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Things cooled off a bit in the 1990s, which witnessed the release of the uneven Zooropa and Pop, plus a […]
Continue Reading
The six-album Anthology of American Folk Music, which first appeared on the Folkways label in 1952, represents one of the most influential releases in the history of folk—and country, gospel, and blues as well. Culled from the personal collection of 78 rpm records of film maker Harry Smith, its 84 tracks all originally appeared between […]
Continue Reading
By Jeff Burger For a brief period in the mid-1960s, the London-based Ready Steady Go! was as important to the U.K. as American Bandstand was to the U.S. in the 1950s. Mick Jagger has called it “the best rock ‘n’ roll show of all time” and the Kinks’ Ray Davies has said that “there was […]
Continue Reading
“My Way” isn’t exactly Lou Reed’s kind of music, but its lyrics (by Paul Anka) do a pretty good job of limning the attitude that characterized his half-century career. In the early 1960s, Reed came up with a radically different idea for what rock music should sound like, and he continued to blaze new trails […]
Continue Reading
You don’t have to venture far into a new three-CD, 68-track retrospective of Barbara Lewis’s work to conclude that she deserves such a comprehensive anthology. The soul/pop singer, who recorded five albums for Atlantic from 1962 to 1968 and later spent a year (1972) on the Reprise label, is remembered today mainly just for her […]
Continue Reading
Steel Wheels Live, the latest in a series of CD/video concert releases from the Rolling Stones, is better and more wide-ranging than its title would suggest: the moniker evokes a recording that simply offers stage versions of the named album’s tracks. In fact, though, this set features only five of Steel Wheels’ 12 numbers (“Can’t […]
Continue Reading
Covering Bob Dylan means wading into crowded waters. Many covers of his songs—by artists ranging from the Byrds and Peter, Paul, and Mary to Manfred Mann and the Band—have become famous in their own right, and there are hundreds if not thousands of others, including a fair number of single- and multi-artist tribute CDs. And […]
Continue Reading
Compared with Roger Waters and David Gilmour, the other surviving members of the original Pink Floyd, drummer Nick Mason has been relatively quiet. Largely retired for two decades, the now 76-year-old musician has contributed to a handful of projects over the years, but he has issued no albums under his own name since 1981. That […]
Continue Reading
