Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy! was the first U.S. magazine of rock and roll music criticism. Created in New York in 1966 by college student Paul Williams in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music, Crawdaddy! was self-described as "the first magazine to take rock and roll seriously." Williams left the magazine in 1968. In 1979 the magazine changed its title to Feature but closed after only 3 issues.
In 1993, the Crawdaddy! title was relaunched by Paul Williams as a self-published magazine. After 28 issues, this closed in 2003.
In 2006 the title was was sold to the Wolfgang's Vault website and was later resurrected as a daily webzine, but in 2011 it became part of the Paste website
150 articles
List of articles in the library
Crawdaddy: Get Off Of My Cloud!
Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, 7 February 1966
YOU ARE looking at the first issue of amagazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this ...
The Animals, Petula Clark, The Drifters, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel: Citysongs
Essay by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1966
ROCK 'N' ROLL songs, according to a joke now about ten years old, have three types of lyrics: a) I love my baby, b) my ...
Folk, Rock & Other Four-Letter Words
Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, 28 March 1966
THERE HAS BEEN a great increase recently in the number of popular artists whose songs are influenced by or taken from American folk music–both traditional ...
Bob Dylan: Understanding Dylan
Essay by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, August 1966
PERHAPS THE FAVOURITE indoor sport in America today is discussing, worshiping, disparaging, and above all interpreting Bob Dylan. According to legend, young Zimmerman came out ...
Howlin' Wolf: Blues '66: Howlin' Wolf
Interview by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, September 1966
(Howling Wolf is a well-known Chicago blues singer, who performs and records with an amplified band in the Chicago style. This interview was taped in ...
Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane: San Francisco Bay Rock
Guide by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, October 1966
THE SAN FRANCISCO rock scene is a complex one. It is a plentiful jumble of hard rock, folk-rock, blues-rock, bubble-gum, and adult bands that have ...
Buffalo Springfield: Everybody Look What's Going Down...
Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1967
LET ME tell you about popsicle sticks. ...
Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1967
IF YOU ARE not a Kinks fan, you are either a) uninformed, or b) not a Kinks fan. If it's the latter, there's nothing you ...
Little Richard: The Explosive Little Richard (OKeh 14117)
Review by Jim Payne, Crawdaddy!, May 1967
Little Richard: Ripping it up, Past and Present ...
The Doors: A Discussion of a Doors Song
Essay by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, May 1967
VERY FEW PEOPLE have the balls to talk about "rock and roll" anymore. Revolver made it difficult. Between the Buttons, Smile, and the Doors lp ...
Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane: The Golden Road: A Report on San Francisco
Overview by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, June 1967
SITTING IN THE window. Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Village, flirting with the girls going by, the Grateful Dead very loud on 4X speakers somewhere in the ...
Aretha Franklin: I Never Loved a Man (Atlantic)
Review by Jim Payne, Crawdaddy!, August 1967
ARETHA FRANKLIN'S come back home. Back home to Boogaloo, Alabama, and Pigeon Pea, Tennessee, back home to Hog Maw, Mississippi, and Chitlins, South Carolina. Back ...
Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, 12 September 1967
THE Procol Harum album just keeps getting better and better. So far anyway. Maybe one day it gets worse, but long after I've gotten as ...
The Byrds: The Byrds Greatest Hits (Columbia)
Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, October 1967
SADNESS IS perhaps a word for it, walking down the street with familiar sounds of 'Light My Fire' barely audible from an apartment somewhere high ...
Hank Ballard and the Midnighters: Hank Ballard Revisited
Report and Interview by Jim Payne, Crawdaddy!, January 1968
IN DAYTONA Beach it rains every afternoon for half an hour or so. When Hank Ballard arrived, it was raining. It's hard to make a ...
Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1968
THERE IS confusion afoot in the rock music world, a familiar confusion that arises from lack of understanding, lack of communication, and lack of common ...
The Who: From the Marquee to the Met: Watching The Who
Interview by Miles, Crawdaddy!, September 1970
SAY THE WORD. "Who". Who did you think of? Pete Townshend, great underrated rock guitarist adrift in a Sargasso sea of eulogies to Clapton and ...
Cat Stevens: It Must Be Destiny
Live Review by Bud Scoppa, Crawdaddy!, 20 June 1971
CAT STEVENS couldn't come along at a better time. Time magazine has informed us that we're entering a period of gentle, reflective, and introspective music, ...
Emerson Lake And Palmer: Emerson, Lake & Palmer Ascending
Profile and Interview by Michael Gray, Crawdaddy!, August 1971
Their first album rides high in the bestseller lists. Their first tour, from the Fillmore East to Carnegie Hall, has been a real and resounding ...
Comment by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, 5 December 1971
WHO NIGHT. The crowd waits reverently, attention vaguely focused on the massive half-ton fortress of amplifiers looming in the shadows of the dimly lit stage. ...
Review by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, August 1972
THE NEW Tull package is clever, very, and complicated enough to sustain interest over an extended series of listenings. Most albums can be assimilated in ...
J. Geils Band: "All The Kids Get Turned Into Peanut Butter"
Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, December 1972
It wasn't Flash Gordon and Doctor Zharkov descending from the spaced ship, but rather the leering members of The J. Geils Band setting foot on Bronx soil, ...
Chicago: What Do You Think They'll Call Their Seventh Album?
Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, February 1973
It all began when, after my particularly scathing review of Chicago V appeared in the October Crawdaddy, I received the following telegram from Bobby Lamm, ...
Pharoah Sanders: Live At The East (Impulse AS 9227)
Review by Dan Nooger, Crawdaddy!, February 1973
PHAROAH SANDERS' Live At The East is a mellow contrast to the furious power of his previous album, Black Unity, which used a large horn ...
Comment by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, February 1973
CARLOS SANTANA laid his gleamingly new Gibson double electric white lead carefully on the stage of The Academy of Music and the M.C. reverently requested ...
Interview by David Rensin, Crawdaddy!, March 1973
LOS ANGELES – Bonnie Raitt is by nature a purposeful woman. On a personal level, she is attempting to forge a new ethic reaching beyond ...
Eric Weissberg: Dueling Banjos
Profile and Interview by Noe Gold, Crawdaddy!, June 1973
TWO SETS of calloused digits have been seen onscreen recently in movie houses large and small, strutting over the frets of a Yamaha guitar and ...
Interview by David Rensin, Crawdaddy!, June 1973
I WANT TO talk on the grass in the sun. Lowell George wants to be interviewed while sitting in the cockpit of a movie prop ...
Soul, Man: Taki 183 Fights the Bugaloo Boulevards to a Draw
Report by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, June 1973
BACK IN THE bugaloo boulevards of my youth, there were diddyboppers who roamed the midnight streets. They were haunters of alleys and pool halls, riders ...
Will Reggae Make It? Jamaica Says It Will!
Overview by Greg Shaw, Crawdaddy!, June 1973
THE STONES, Aretha, Traffic, Paul Simon and Roberta Flack have all made celebrated pilgrimages to the island and bandwagon trend-watches are beginning to mutter about ...
Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention: Over-Nite Sensation (Discreet)
Review by Noe Gold, Crawdaddy!, December 1973
THERE HE sits, perched atop his Olympian toadstool, dropping farts and thunderbolts into a tape recorder. Few have escaped his world unscathed by his grungy ...
Review by Noe Gold, Crawdaddy!, January 1974
SPUNKY, THAT'S got to be the word for it. A hybrid of spicy and funky. ...
Jackson Browne: Such a Clever Innocence
Interview by David Rensin, Crawdaddy!, January 1974
I've been out walking,I don't do that much talking These days.These days I seem to think a lot About the things that I forgot to ...
Review by Michael Gross, Crawdaddy!, January 1974
LOU REED IS the grand ghoul of them all. He happens to scare people. He stands in the same relation to Bowie and Iggy and ...
Profile and Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, March 1974
Genesis combines surreal songwriting with an interesting instrumental and visual approach. Lead singer Peter Gabriel notes: "We all took courses in pretentiousness." ...
Review by Noe Gold, Crawdaddy!, April 1974
GRIEVOUS ANGEL is the final, triumphant chapter of an epitaph Gram Parsons must have begun writing years ago. No one could have done it better ...
Joni Mitchell: Court and Spark (Asylum)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, April 1974
Red Roses for a Blue Canyon Lady ...
Boz Scaggs: Slow Dancer (Columbia)
Review by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, June 1974
SLOW DANCER is Boz Scaggs' fifth album, and you have to wonder when he's going to start repeating himself, because none of them sound the ...
Hall & Oates: Daryl Hall & John Oates: Abandoned Luncheonette (Atlantic SD 7269)
Review by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, June 1974
ATLANTIC RECORDS has the habit of taking original material and placing it in the context of an incredible array of session musicians. When they're working ...
Dr. John: Dr John: Finally In The Right Place
Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, June 1974
From Gris Gris to Gumbo to the Top of the Charts, with "goofer dust an' powders an' oils an' sachets an' lotions an' candles an' ...
Herbie Hancock, The Headhunters: Rollin' & Tumblin': Head Hunting with Herbie Hancock
Interview by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, June 1974
After years of high-quality struggle, one black jazzman has finally hit it big. Were the compromises worth it? ...
Review by Michael Gross, Crawdaddy!, July 1974
And when the kids had killed the man they had to break up the band... almost. Now that the glitter thunder is over, perhaps it'll ...
Mott the Hoople: The Hoople (Columbia)
Review by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, July 1974
IT'S TOUGH being a rock and roll star these days. Ask Ian Hunter, Mott the Hoople's lead singer and group dictator. After five years of ...
Gladys Knight, O'Jays: Soul Man: "Cholly" Atkins
Profile and Interview by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, July 1974
THE MAN who taught the Temptations their strut, the Pips their dip, the Miracles their whip... takes it all in stride. ...
The Eagles Have Stopped Takin' It Easy
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Crawdaddy!, July 1974
With a new lead guitarist, a new producer, a hit and a series of almosts, the Eagles step out on the border... ...
The Eagles: On The Border (Asylum 7E-1004)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, July 1974
DON FELDER is one mutha guitar player. Swooped up by Eagles from a stint with David Blue, his Joe Walsh-type flash is a welcome addition ...
Review by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, July 1974
THE TRUE TEST of any band is in live performance. Prima donna "entertainers" can escape with sickly back-ups and pass muster simply on the force ...
David Bowie: Lindsay Kemp: The Man Who Taught Bowie His Moves
Interview by Mick Brown, Crawdaddy!, September 1974
LONDON — Lindsey Kemp doesn’t converse. He orates. Words spill out, like wine from a jug, in a long, liquid flow; pictures spring to life, ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Second Helping (MCA)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Crawdaddy!, September 1974
FLORIDA's Lynyrd Skynyrd keeps getting compared to the Allman Brothers Band, mostly because the group is Southern, and because lead singer Ronnie Van Zant has ...
Alice Cooper: Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits
Review by Michael Gross, Crawdaddy!, November 1974
THEY'VE CALLED the perpetration of Alice Cooper on the pop public one of the greatest PR coups of all time. They've called Alice a charlatan, ...
Atlanta Rhythm Section: Third Annual Pipe Dream (Polydor PD 6027)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, November 1974
A COMBINATION of inventive writing and consummate musicianship like this hasn't been heard from out of the South since the Allman's Idlewild South (still unsurpassed ...
Bobby "Blue" Bland, B.B. King: Soul, Man: New York Johnny meets L.A. Jane for a Medium Massage
Report by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, November 1974
L.A. IS A great big freeway they say, pay a hundred down and buy a car, if you don't you won't get very far. Tooling ...
Review by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, November 1974
Stevie & Sly: Invention and Pretension ...
The Beach Boys: Wild Honey, 20/20 and Endless Summer
Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, November 1974
CAPITOL HAS BEEN repackaging the Beach Boys for a long time, but they haven't done a good job of it since Best Of Volumes I, ...
The Rolling Stones: The Stones: It Wasn't Only Rock 'n Roll (And I Liked It)
Retrospective by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, November 1974
IN EARLY 1967 a rumor shot through the Crawdaddy office that Brian Jones had left the Stones. Tim Jurgens and I agreed that, if true, ...
Captain Beefheart: Bluejeans and Moonbeams (Mercury SRM-1-1018)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, January 1975
VAN VLIET stepped through the black hole and never quite looked or saw the same again. Eventually taking to earth as the Spotlight Kid, he ...
Randy Newman: Good Old Boys (Reprise MS 2193)
Review by Susin Shapiro, Crawdaddy!, January 1975
RANDY NEWMAN has never been one to woo the predictable or cling to the musical status quo for inspiration. In his sleep-soaked tousled tenor he ...
The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper Hits the Road
Report by Susin Shapiro, Crawdaddy!, February 1975
NEW YORK — It had to happen. The formation of a road show with the music of Lennon and McCartney had to be money in ...
Jack Bruce: Back on Harmony Row
Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, March 1975
COMBINE CREAM, the Stones, and some avant-garde jazz and you've got this year's talk of the town. ...
Kiki Dee: More Than Opening For Elton
Profile and Interview by Michael Gross, Crawdaddy!, March 1975
NEW YORK – The first time Kiki Dee came to New York City, she was showcased by her newest record company, Rocket Records, at the ...
Leonard Cohen: The Romantic in a Ragpicker's Trade
Interview by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1975
"I THINK MARRIAGE is the hottest furnace of the spirit today," Leonard Cohen said on the phone from Mexico. "Much more difficult than solitude, much ...
Terry Callier, Garland Jeffreys, Booker T. Jones, Linda Lewis: Soul, Man: The New "Black Folk"
Overview by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, April 1975
ALL THROUGH the '60s, Booker T. and the MGs were one of the genuine oddities of soul. ...
The Who: The Celluloid Passion Of Roger Daltrey
Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, April 1975
LONDON – "They just don't make records like they used to," the mini-cab driver complained, battling the mid-day London traffic, edging the car towards Battersea. ...
John Cale, Nico: John Cale: Fear (Island); Nico: The End (Island)
Review by Mick Brown, Crawdaddy!, May 1975
ALONG WITH Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico were members of the first – and definitive – incarnation of the Velvet Underground. ...
Nils Lofgren: Nils Lofgren (A&M Sp-4509)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, May 1975
THE GOFFIN-King classic, 'Goin' Back', has got to be one of the great melancholy rock/drama tunes of all time. The Byrds once did it proud, ...
David Bowie: Young Americans (RCA APL 1-0998)
Review by Michael Gross, Crawdaddy!, June 1975
FROM ITS Hunky Dory-esque cover picture to the blue-eyed Philly soul music it contains, David Bowie's Young Americans LP is the strongest set of studio ...
Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti (Swan Song SS 2200)
Review by Bruce Malamut, John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, June 1975
The Zeps Runneth Over ...
Leo Sayer: Star Gazing With Leo Sayer
Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, June 1975
THE MATRONLY ladies selling ice creams and chocolates have fled the lobby. The theatre grows dark. A four-piece band ambles out from the wings, barely ...
The Ohio Players: Ohio Players: Taking Hit Parade Mountain By Strategy
Interview by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, June 1975
SATCH SATCHELL, prime mover of The Ohio Players, is standing backstage at Radio City Music Hall mumbling something to himself about "we the #1 group ...
Rufus featuring Chaka Khan: Rufusized (ABCD-837)
Review by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, June 1975
AS A LYRICIST, Chaka Khan displays a sensibility and sensitivity that one cannot usually associate with any of the popular branches of Black music. Sly ...
Al Kooper, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mose Jones: Southern Rock: Gone With The Trend
Report and Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, July 1975
Al Kooper may not give a damn, but with Lynyrd Skynyrd hot and the Atlanta Rhythm Section burnin', Southern Music is rising again. ...
Review by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, August 1975
IT HAS BEEN three years since The Harder They Come lifted reggae from obscurity to culthood and raised hopes that Jimmy Cliff would begin a ...
Wings: Venus And Mars (Capitol SMAS 11419)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, September 1975
McCartney: Looking Glass Hero ...
Profile and Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, October 1975
LONDON – "Where did they come from?" demanded a rock 'n roll lifer, pointing towards Dr. Feelgood who were entertaining at a star-studded and overstuffed ...
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, October 1975
Young and Coyne En Route to Martyrdom ...
Overview by Bud Scoppa, Crawdaddy!, October 1975
IN BRITAIN during the late '60s and early '70s, while rock 'n roll was being transformed into Big Business, a network of bands sprang up ...
Stephen Stills: A Sympathetic Self-Portrait
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, October 1975
"I'M DRUNK," Stephen Stills is screaming at his manager, Michael John Bowen, standing on the second floor balcony of a seedy Holiday Inn motel, high ...
Eric Clapton: Please Take This Badge Off Of Me
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, November 1975
Trying to transcend the past, Eric Clapton puts reggae on the laidback burner and rediscovers electricity ...
Fleetwood Mac: Fleetwood Mac (Reprise MS 2225)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, November 1975
1972'S BARE Trees marked a turning point for drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie (the rhythm section that backed Mayall when Clapton was with ...
Patti Smith: Somewhere, Over the Rimbaud
Profile and Interview by Susin Shapiro, Crawdaddy!, December 1975
NEW YORK – IT'S 8:30 a.m. on a fog-soup Friday, an indecent hour to be conducting an interview, much less making a record. ...
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, February 1976
the last record review ...
The Band: Across The Great Divide with Robbie Robertson
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Crawdaddy!, March 1976
A Portrait of the Artist as a Mystery Man ...
Rock Dreams/Schemes: The History of Crawdaddy(!)
Retrospective by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, March 1976
YOU ARE looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news briefs; the specialty ...
Review by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, May 1976
PUB ROCK BREAKDOWN ...
Peter Frampton Comes And Gets It
Report and Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, May 1976
NEW YORK – Peter Frampton seems an unlikely hero. Soft-spoken, he projects something of a folk ambiance, not the glitter/stud machismo characteristic of so many ...
Doobie Brothers: Takin' It To The Streets (Warner Bros. BS 2899)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, July 1976
THESE GUYS were always a little too boogie-static for my taste, playing everybody's perfect AM riff. That was the old Doobies, however, under the leadership ...
Led Zeppelin: Presence (Swan Song SS 8416)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, July 1976
MEAT-EATERS' REVENGE ...
Santana: The Ice Cream Man Cometh
Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, July 1976
LACROSSE, WISC – "Everything OK with the Dip?" ...
The Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger: I Want To Go Out On A Limb
Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, August 1976
PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE hovering around the sedate Scottish hotel lobby like desperate fireflies. They have been buzzing about all afternoon, nervously checking shutter speeds and light ...
Steve Miller: Fly Like An Eagle (Capitol ST 11497)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, August 1976
MAURICE AND THE JOKER TAKE ALL THE MONEY AND RUN ...
Review by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, August 1976
DA RAMONES: NO MERCYBEATS ...
Blue Oyster Cult: Agents Of Fortune (Island)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, September 1976
It’s back-to-the-roots for the Oysters this time; the roots being the band’s late-’60s incarnation as the Stalk-Forrest Group. Which is to say, Agents Of Fortune ...
Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page: Hollywood Anger
Interview by Mick Brown, Crawdaddy!, September 1976
The gossip-monger who exposed Babylon, created Scorpio Rising and inspired 'Sympathy for the Devil', turns to Magick and the ascending Lucifer. ...
Rod Stewart: Lean And Hungry Rod
Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, September 1976
YESTERDAY ROD STEWART wanted his picture taken. Today he's not so sure. Flaunting a carefully arranged scruffy look, the singer strolls into a rented London ...
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, October 1976
BECK HAMMERS OUT JAZZ-OLA ...
Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers: Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, October 1976
WHAT WE HAVE here, as every pop observer knows, is a four-piece band led by a highly eccentric singer-songwriter full of inspiration and highly visible ...
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Crawdaddy!, November 1976
LOS ANGELES – "Hughie [McDowall] just smashed one cello absolutely to pieces," Bev Bevan recalls with a laugh. "He throws it in the air and ...
Patti Smith: Radio Ethiopia (Arista)
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, December 1976
CHATTY PATTY: PISSIN' IN WAX ...
Stanley Clarke: School Days (Nemperor NE 439)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, December 1976
STANLEY CLARKE is a great bass player even if he is a Scientologist; his involvement in defining Fusion (so-called) Music as a genre has been ...
The Miamis, Mink DeVille, The Shirts, Tuff Darts: Various Artists: Live At CBGB's (CBGB 315)
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, December 1976
MEANWHILE, DOWNTOWN ...
The Modern Lovers, Jonathan Richman: Ultra-Modern Lovers: Sophomoric Seduction In The Big, Red Apple
Report and Interview by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, January 1977
NEW YORK — It had been pouring for most of two days, but the rain began to let up about four in the afternoon. As ...
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, February 1977
FRANK ZAPPA GREETS THE MOTHERSHIP ...
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, February 1977
JONI DRONES, MELANIE FINDS NEW KEY ...
The Ramones, Talking Heads: Ramones & Heads: Punk Art?
Report and Interview by Toby Goldstein, Crawdaddy!, February 1977
NEW YORK — The glittered frenzy of recent years has receded into a brooding severity of black and grays. The punk-rockers, newest manifestations of media ...
Wendy Waldman: The Main Refrain (Warner Bros. BS 2974)
Review by Geoffrey Himes, Crawdaddy!, February 1977
HER SURF'S UP, SHE'S NO PET ...
The Babys, Blondie: The Babys (Chrysalis CHR 1129); Blondie (Private Stock PS 2023)
Review by Toby Goldstein, Crawdaddy!, March 1977
PUNK HARLOW WITH THE BABYS ...
Report by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, March 1977
NEW YORK — "Disc jockeys' mortgages were being paid, women were being provided; it was a slimy era." ...
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, March 1977
GENESIS REACHES WUTHERING HEIGHTS ...
The Eagles: One Of These Nightmares
Interview by Barbara Charone, Crawdaddy!, April 1977
Say a Prayer for the Pretenders... ...
Foreigner: Foreigner (Atlantic SD 18215)
Review by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, June 1977
FOREIGNER IS a Boston/Cream pie a la mode whose futile search for the perfect hard-rock formula is diverted long enough for them to squeeze out ...
Little Feat: Time Loves A Hero (Warner Bros. BS 3015)
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, July 1977
FEATS HAVE FAILED ME NOW ...
Review by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, July 1977
RIDDLE OF THE SOUTHSIDE ...
Pezband, Sweet: Sweet: Off The Record (Capitol STAO-11636); Pezband: Pezband (Passport PP98021)
Review by Toby Goldstein, Crawdaddy!, July 1977
SUGAR POPS ...
Jesse Winchester: Winchester '77: Jesse Trades His Burden For A Breeze
Interview by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, July 1977
MONTREAL— Hands jammed into his back pockets, Jesse Winchester stands at the window staring holes through the spring snowstorm. Birch logs spit and crack reassuringly ...
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, August 1977
ALONG WITH THE New Wave, there seems to be a related roots discovery phenomenon taking place: the full scale re-examination of mid-'60s pop R&B that ...
Roger Daltrey: One of the Boys
Review by Ira Robbins, Crawdaddy!, August 1977
DALTREY'S FOUR-YEAR solo career, apart from his personal excess/success as a matinee film idol, has certainly left much to be desired by anyone with more ...
The Dictators: Manifest Destiny
Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, August 1977
IT WOULDN'T BE hard. One could assemble a tidy list of contemporary Major Acts whose initial fate it was to be cast as "critics' favorites": ...
Barry Manilow: Trying To Get the Feeling
Interview by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, September 1977
IT'S ELEVEN-below-zero on the Avenue, pitch black and hailing glassy bullets the size of golf balls. Empty buses on the suicide run choke back jetstreams ...
Review by Toby Goldstein, Crawdaddy!, October 1977
KISSING OFF BAY CITY'S ROLES ...
Betty Wright: In The Wright Place
Profile and Interview by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, October 1977
NEW YORK — America needs a new Queen of Soul. Aretha has abdicated, Natalie Cole is a pretender; Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, Millie Jackson and ...
Hall & Oates: Magic: Hall & Oates' Wizardry
Interview by Don Snowden, Crawdaddy!, October 1977
LOS ANGELES – "I think I would have been either Gary Gilmore or a musician," Daryl Hall maintains in deadly earnest, nonchalantly flicking an ash ...
Review by Ira Robbins, Crawdaddy!, November 1977
Every British band knows it: only American success buys the Bentleys. Be Bop Deluxe, Steve Harley and Ian Hunter have all had their stateside ups ...
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, November 1977
WHEN LINDA Ronstadt dropped her hands down the mike-stand and went to make some small talk with the audience at a New York concert early ...
Review by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, November 1977
DON'T CRY DADDY ...
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, December 1977
EVIL MINDS, DIRTY HABITS ...
Randy Newman: Inside The Criminal Mind
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, December 1977
EAST BATON Rouge Parish, LA. — "I wasn't unhappy. I didn't feel guilty about it. I just didn't do anything for three years." ...
Boz Scaggs: Down Two Then Left (Columbia JC 34729)
Review by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, January 1978
MO' DANCING & SLICK DEBRIS ...
Earth, Wind & Fire: Earth Wind & Fire: All 'n All (Columbia JC 34905)
Review by Bruce Malamut, Crawdaddy!, February 1978
EARTH WIND & Fire have come a long way from the jazzed-out horns, elasticized rhythms and coolness (unique for avant-soul) of their first album. ...
The Sex Pistols: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols (Warner Bros. BSK 3147)
Review by Toby Goldstein, Crawdaddy!, February 1978
BOLLOCKS OR BULLETS? ...
Aerosmith: Draw The Line (Columbia JC 34856)
Review by Toby Goldstein, Crawdaddy!, March 1978
SCREAM ON ...
John Martyn: One World (Island)
Review by Steven X Rea, Crawdaddy!, April 1978
JOHN MARTYN'S music is a blur of blues and jazz and rock: Bessie Smith's emotiveness, Hoagy Carmichael's mellowness, Skip James' growl and bellow, and Martyn's ...
Review by Dave Schulps, Crawdaddy!, April 1978
BESERKLEY RECORDS certainly keep things interesting. Slightly over a year ago they became the first American New Wave independent to secure a distribution deal with ...
Jefferson Starship: Earth (Grunt BXL1-2515)
Review by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, May 1978
STARSHIP FINDS PEACE ON EARTH ...
Wire: Pink Flag (Harvest ST-11757)
Review by Gary Lucas, Crawdaddy!, May 1978
"If you are a 'romantic,' you have not lived if you have not been present at a battle... The likelihood that you will get your ...
Kate Bush: The Kick Inside (Capitol ST 11761)
Review by Kris DiLorenzo, Crawdaddy!, June 1978
MARY HOPKIN meets Emily Bronte, Laura Nyro discovers reggae, Joan Armatrading masquerades as Joni Mitchell — comparisons with other vocalists are inevitable, but Kate Bush ...
Television: Adventure (Elektra)
Review by Dave Schulps, Crawdaddy!, June 1978
TELEVISION USE the energy and the imagery of the Big Apple, cross-pollinating them with a musical vision akin to what was coming out of the ...
Carly Simon: Boys In The Trees (Elektra)
Review by Jon Young, Crawdaddy!, July 1978
CARLY SIMON used to be dangerous. Remember? She had to her credit a lethal attack on marriage ('That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should ...
Review by Ira Robbins, Crawdaddy!, October 1978
Ever since Pete Townshend immortalized teenage rebellion with the phrase "Hope I die before I get old," he has been haunted by the obvious ramifications ...
Joe Ely, The Flatlanders: Heart Of Texas: Ely's Honky-Tonk Heroics
Profile and Interview by Joe Nick Patoski, Crawdaddy!, April 1979
LUBBOCK, TEXAS — To understand why Joe Ely is the most promising singer/songwriter to come out of Texas since Willie Nelson, one must understand his ...
Dire Straits: Of Sultans and Kinks: Dire Straits Speak Up
Interview by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, April 1979
SHEFFIELD, ALA. — Mark Knopfler keeps getting these compliments, and they make him nervous. Ever since his classic British R&B quartet, Dire Straits, came to ...
Journey: Truth About Evolution: Journey's Road
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Crawdaddy!, April 1979
LOS ANGELES — No one ever said touring was easy. Missed planes, sleepless nights, stolen equipment, cheap motels and mediocre food are all part of ...
Review by Bob Spitz, Crawdaddy!, March 1987
BETTE'S OFF, NO CISSY STRUT ...
Report by Geoffrey Himes, Crawdaddy!, October 1996
ON OCTOBER 20th, 1977, the single-engine prop plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed into a swamp in Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing the band's lead singer Ronnie Van ...
The Who: A Bargain... The Best You Ever Had: Thoughts On Compiling The Who's 30 Years of Maximum R&B
Essay by Chris Charlesworth, Crawdaddy!, 1998
THREE YEARS AGO I met Paul Williams for the first time at the Frankfurt Book Fair. This resulted in Omnibus Press, of which I am ...
The Beach Boys: The Disciples of Brian: The Beach Boys' legacy in Decade #4
Essay by Geoffrey Himes, Crawdaddy!, 1998
What were the best Beach Boys records of the 1990s? Geoffrey Himes takes issue with his friend Paul Williams. ...
Report and Interview by Carol Cooper, Crawdaddy!, September 2000
As an acronym, the term A.S.E.A.N. has become the name of a small regional trade & tourism organization known as the "Association of South East ...
Elvis Presley and the Impulse Towards Transculturation
Essay by Rob Bowman, Crawdaddy!, Spring 2000
ELVIS WAS A hero to most but he never meant shit to me/You see straight out racist the sucker was simple and plain/Motherfuck him and ...
Review by j. poet, Crawdaddy!, 14 January 2009
WHEN YOU PUSH THE PLAY BUTTON on a track by Jeb Loy Nichols, you never know what you're going to get. Parish Bar opens with ...
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