Musician
Musician was a monthly magazine that covered news and information about popular musicand was published between 1976 and 1999. It became known for its extended and thorough articles about the stars of rock music.
485 articles
List of articles in the library
8-Eyed Spy, Albert Ayler, James Chance & the Contortions, Miles Davis: Free Jazz/Punk Rock
Essay by Lester Bangs, Musician, April 1980
IN A New York City nightclub, a skinny little Caucasian whose waterfall hairstyle and set of snout and lips make him look like a sullen ...
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, October 1980
The '70s were dawning, and the golden age of rock 'n' roll was about to give way to terminally mellow singer/songwriters or lowest-common-denominator heavy metal ...
Jimi Hendrix: The Voodoo Lives On
Essay by Dave Marsh, Musician, October 1980
HENDRIX SAW himself as a symbolic figure who contained in his bloodstream elements of all races. The goal of his performances was both racial and ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1980
"YES, THE BOY'S got a voice/But his words don't connect to his eyes," sings Paul Simon, and I couldn't describe the problem with One Trick ...
Talking Heads: Dr Pepper Music Festival, Wollman Skating Rink, Central Park NY
Live Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, November 1980
THE TALKING Heads' avowed inspiration, when they began as a trio in 1976, was boredom with the contemporary art scene. The homemade music they began ...
Clifton Chenier: Verbum Dei High School, Watts, Los Angeles
Live Review by Don Snowden, Musician, January 1981
VERBUM DEI High School is better known for turning out basketball players like the Chicago Bulls' David Greenwood than staging musical events, but zydeco king ...
Elton John: Concert in Central Park, September 1980
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, January 1981
SOME PERFORMERS just don't know when to quit — and thank goodness for that. We followed tennis star Jimmy McEnroe into Central Park's Sheep Meadow ...
Interview by Sam Sutherland, Musician, January 1981
Songwriter, keyboardist, arranger, member of the Doobies and owner of The Voice reveals himself as a somewhat reluctant superstar. Thrust into pop music's center stage ...
Talking Heads: Remain In Light (Warner Bros.)
Review by Van Gosse, Musician, January 1981
I DON'T KNOW about you, but I've been holding my breath through all of 1980, waiting for something to happen. So far there's been a ...
Profile by Laura Fissinger, Musician, January 1981
"ONE OF MY big dreams is to write music that communicates moods so concisely that each song would be like a movie — you could ...
Interview by Dave Marsh, Musician, February 1981
A YEAR AGO, taking a respite from recording to play two nights of the M.U.S.E. anti-nuke concerts, Bruce Springsteen pared his normal three hour show ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1981
THE WANDERER is disco diva Donna's Inferno, a trip that will take us through her cold hell, up against fiendish temptation and out the other ...
Jim Carroll: The Transformation of Jim Carroll
Profile and Interview by Laura Fissinger, Musician, February 1981
IS JIM CARROLL, streetwise poet, athletic Catholic Boy, being pushed into the vacant position of rock'n'roll martyr? ...
Gary Numan, XTC: XTC and Gary Numan: The New English Art Rock
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1981
BOTH XTC and Gary Numan express a sense of the new English isolation. Americans seem to like the car-crazy Numan, while the pure British pop ...
Gang of Four, Sector 27: Gang of Four: Gang of Four (Warner Bros. EP); Tom Robinson: Sector 27 (IRS)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, April 1981
THE LAST twitches of the dying Left or the first angular thrusts of the New Right? It's your Move. The Gang of Four's solemn Marxist ...
Essay by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, April 1981
ON JULY 4, 1980, the Beach Boys sat at the base of the Washington Monument and played to a vast sea of half a million ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, April 1981
The slapstick guerilla politics have never sounded more outlandishly unfashionable. Gone are the triple-front-line punk harmonics & amphetamine raw power. Ditto for the crunching metallic ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty: Where Has John Fogerty Gone?
Essay by Dave Marsh, Musician, April 1981
As apocalyptic anxiety at nameless dread descend on the body politic, how relevant the work of Creedence Clearwater now seems. ...
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, June 1981
TONIGHT, the smoky Rock Lounge is filled with sassy fifteen-year-old teeny-boppers in leather jackets, jeans and black Converse sneakers, looking tough, chewing gum and hanging ...
Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis: The Million Dollar Quartet
Essay by Dave Marsh, Musician, June 1981
WE USUALLY think of Elvis Presley simply stepping into Sun Studios in Memphis, in answer to Sam Phillips' call, and walking out a few days ...
The Bongos, Bush Tetras, Our Daughter's Wedding, The Outsets, Pylon: The New Independents
Overview by Van Gosse, Musician, June 1981
A pot pourri of personal insights into the galaxy of artist-centered independent labels, including a sample (sampler?) of the latest bumper crop. ...
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1981
Unable to slake his thirst for new music, Santana swings from jazzy solo outings to rock-based group projects. ...
Dave Edmunds, Rockpile: Dave Edmunds: New Wave, 1955
Profile and Interview by Dave Schulps, Musician, July 1981
"MUSICALLY, WE didn't find a niche for ourselves. It amounted to a couple of songs from a Nick Lowe album, a couple of songs from ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Tom Petty
Interview by Dave Marsh, Musician, July 1981
WHEN TOM PETTY burst into his manager's Sunset Blvd offices early this April he was exuberant. No wonder. He'd just finished mixing his fourth and ...
U2: Uncle Sam's, Minneapolis MN
Live Review by Laura Fissinger, Musician, July 1981
PRAISE FOR Ireland's U2 first spread through the U.K. press like head colds in autumn. Now with the American release of their debut LP, Boy, ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, August 1981
WHEN IS A guitarist not a guitarist? What distinguishes pop music from avant-garde or classical? Why is most cerebral music purely instrumental? Can you dance ...
Grateful Dead: Reckoning (Arista)
Review by Michael Goldberg, Musician, August 1981
GOOD NEWS... you don't have to be a diehard Deadhead to enjoy the latest live LP issued from the Dead's headquarters in mellow Marin County ...
The Doors: Jim Morrison: Bozo Dionysus A Decade Later
Essay by Lester Bangs, Musician, August 1981
WE SEEM TO BE in the midst of a full-scale Doors Revival. It had been picking up steam for a while, but when Jerry Hopkins' ...
Joe Ely: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, August 1981
SINCE HIS recent notices have offered us a new-and-improved Joe Ely, I have to begin by swearing on a stack of ticket stubs: I've been ...
Profile by Dave Schulps, Musician, August 1981
IT'S CALLED the "new romanticism," and it is to England '81 what Two-Tone ska was to England '80; that is, the year's musical craze. ...
Beaver Brown, The Bill Blue Band, Iron City Houserockers: The Heart Of Blue-Collar Rock
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, August 1981
The voices of the American working class, a gritty chorus or struggle, boredom, and uneasy weekend refuge, are heard in the music of the Iron ...
David Johansen, New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders: Beyond The Valley Of The New York Dolls
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, October 1981
THE FIRST TIME I ever laid eyes on the New York Dolls was New Year's Eve, 1972, at the old Mercer Arts Center, and, quite ...
Report by J.D. Considine, Musician, October 1981
Band like REO, Styx and Journey have taken the details of the rock sound and made the medium the whole message, capitalizing on the rock ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, October 1981
LISTEN TO the cacaphonous cutting edge of no wave punk-jazz in the privacy of your very own SONY walk-man. Be-bop down the street snapping yer ...
Profile and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, October 1981
Urban time warps and geomusical quantum leaps later, Kid Creole and his pal Sugar-Coated are washed up on a sandy Island with only their wits ...
The Neville Brothers: Fiyo on the Bayou (A&M)
Review by Laura Fissinger, Musician, October 1981
WHAT THE hell is a music that thinks of itself in a perpetual present tense going to do with a rapidly accumulating history? Performers like ...
Van Halen: Fair Warning (Warner Brothers)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, October 1981
THE GENERALLY accepted notion of guitar heroics holds that heavy metal is a lead guitarist's forum. Practice and history, however, suggest another conclusion. Despite the preponderance of ...
Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, November 1981
AL ANDERSON, NRBQ's rotund bear of a lead guitarist, gave his meanest squint and chewed up the title line to his rollicking, vintage-sounding rockabilly tune: ...
Smokey Robinson: Painters Mill Star Theater, Baltimore
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1981
IT'S HARD TO imagine that a Smokey Robinson concert could hold much in the way of surprises. Celebrating his 25th year in the business, Robinson ...
The Beat, The Specials: The English Beat: Wha'ppen? (Sire); The Specials: 'Ghost Town' (EP)
Review by John Swenson, Musician, November 1981
TWO TONE is not merely the introduction of a black sensibility in British pop for the first time, it's a true melding of the interracial ...
The Go-Go's: Beauty and the Beat (IRS)
Review by Toby Goldstein, Musician, November 1981
IT HASN'T been easy to be a fan of groups like the Raspberries during the past few years. What those minions of white-suited quartets and ...
The Ramones, Squeeze: Radio Relief: Squeeze And The Ramones
Profile and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, 1 November 1981
Squeeze and the Ramones keep alive an intercontinental rivalry of rhythm for real-life people. But the Beatles and the Beach Boys?...Well, maybe not. ...
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, December 1981
Between the pleasant song hooks and facile photogenia of the Police there lies a sophistication and urgency that has justly brought Andy Summers, Sting and Stewart Copeland to the ...
Report by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, 1982
THE DOOBIE Brothers are one of the last great AM radio bands, one of the last rock groups to concentrate primarily on hit singles. Now ...
Review by Van Gosse, Musician, February 1982
Talking Heads Alone ...
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1982
Malcolm McLaren, the shaker and baker of British punk, turned the Sex Pistols into an epochal event, turned Adam Ant around and now plays Svengali ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Neil Young/Crazy Horse: Re•ac•tor (Reprise)
Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, February 1982
WE'RE TALKING dirty guitars in excelsis here; under the headphones, this record sounds like an automatic weapons fire-fight in a sawmill — or better yet, ...
New Order: The Cinema, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Musician, February 1982
ON MAY 18, 1980 Ian Curtis, lead singer for a relatively obscure English rock band called Joy Division, hanged himself. This immediately made Joy Division, ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Rossington Collins Band: The Rossington Collins Band
Profile and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, February 1982
Southern Rock Survival Among the Alligators ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1982
LIKE ALL good Irishmen, I enjoy nothing better than a good talker. At the same time, I share the instinctive Irish mistrust of anyone for ...
Van Morrison: Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Musician, February 1982
IF THIS was the National Enquirer, the headline on this piece, printed in tacky 48-point bold type, would read: VAN MORRISON FINDS GOD! POP STAR ...
Dr. John: Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack (Clean Cuts)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1982
AS THE TITLE implies, this is Dr. John being himself, stretching out on the piano and doing what comes naturally. At the same time, there's ...
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1982
Seminal art-rockers in the '70s, Genesis takes off in an exciting new direction, leaner and more aggressively funky, yet moody and lyrical, led by Phil ...
Interview by Toby Goldstein, Musician, March 1982
Joan Jett, explosive rock 'n' roll contact hitter, leads her hordes of Joan clones into a fight to be themselves. ...
Laurie Anderson: Market Street Cinema, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Musician, March 1982
LAURIE ANDERSON looked like some kind of punk mystic as she stood on the stage of the Market Street Cinema in San Francisco. Her brown ...
Joan Armatrading: Angel of Intrigue
Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, April 1982
Joan Armatradlng has bartered her acoustic folk roots into a gutsy, punk maelstrom; her new album, Walk Under Ladders, crackles with aggressive electricity and sensual ...
Prince: Warner Theater, Washington DC
Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, April 1982
DRY ICE smoke drifted across the darkened stage of Washington's Warner Theater, as an unreleased tape played of Prince singing the double orgasm lyrics of ...
Profile and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Musician, April 1982
WITH THEIR hair greased back into pompadours, their shirtsleeves rolled up and cigarettes dangling from their lower lips, Phil Alvin and his younger brother Dave ...
Eric Clapton: Farther Up The Road
Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, May 1982
FEW MUSICIANS have been more misunderstood, more overburdened with great expectations and more erroneously worshipped than Eric Clapton. ...
Bananarama, Fun Boy Three, The Specials: Fun Boy Three: Beyond The Specials
Interview by Toby Goldstein, Musician, May 1982
Amidst English fear and loathing, three Special survivors sing of hope, racial understanding and an end to the lunacy. ...
Doc Pomus: "Doc" Pomus: Songwriter Superhero
Retrospective and Interview by Gary Kenton, Musician, June 1982
The writer of such greats as 'Save The Last Dance For Me', 'Teenager In Love', 'Hushabye' and 'Suspicion' talks about his life as a Brill ...
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1982
APPEARANCES CAN be deceiving. As the rest of Chic pumped out the urgent, staccato vamp to 'Stage Fright', Nile Rodgers, Alfa Anderson, Luci Martin and ...
Dave Edmunds: D.E.7th (Columbia)
Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, June 1982
THE CHORDS in the title of D.E.7th are, of course, a conspicuous pun on the fact that this is Edmunds' seventh solo record. The question ...
Dr. John: Dr John: On Becoming Mac Rebennack
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1982
The legend of Dr. John and his gumbo ragtime voodoo funk medicine, as told by the man who invented him, lived him and let him ...
Graham Parker: Rock's Last Angry Man Reflects On Life After The Rumour.
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, June 1982
ON GRAHAM Parker's last American tour, he and the Rumour visited Washington's Lisner Auditorium in 1979 with one of the greatest rock'n'roll shows this writer ...
The Human League, Japan: Human League: Dare (A&M); Japan: Japan (Virgin/Epic)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1982
CONTRARY TO popular belief, all synthesizer bands are not unlistenable. True, many do sound rather like the result of an infinite number of silicon chips ...
Profile by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, June 1982
WITH A WHOLE February afternoon to spend at home, the mailman's latest batch of new wave releases went on the turntable. They told a distressing ...
The dB's: The dBs: The Ritz, New York NY
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, June 1982
THE CONVENTIONAL wisdom on these Carolina-bred, N.Y.-honed popsters says they're expert in the studio, puzzlingly erratic in concert. On two Albion import albums, Stand For ...
Joe Cocker's Island Renaissance
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, July 1982
THE NOONDAY sun has come and gone over the town of Nassau, the Bahamas, and Joe Cocker's afternoon boating party, which left port as proper ...
Laurie Anderson: Big Science (Warner Bros.)
Review by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, July 1982
THIS IS THE avant-garde art music album for folks who generally hate the stuff. Anderson captures the rarely realized potential of modern art music and ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1982
BENEATH THE ENDLESS SUMMER CINEMATIC SCENES OF JEALOUSY & TRAGEDY OF SWEETNESS & DREAD ...
Willie Nelson: Always On My Mind (Columbia)
Review by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, July 1982
JUST WHEN you thought you couldn't bear one more version of Paul Simon's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', Willie Nelson comes by and makes the song ...
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Imperial Bedroom
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1982
THIS IS ELVIS Costello's best yet. I know you've heard that before, and probably about a couple of his albums, but I can't help it ...
Girlschool: Coast to Coast, Baltimore MD
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1982
FROM A DISTANCE, Girlschool looks pretty much like any other heavy rock group — long hair, Marshall stacks, denim and leathers. But it doesn't take ...
The Human League, Japan, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Soft Cell: Human League et al: Synth-Pop
Report and Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1982
Music Without Musicians...But Not Without Craftsmanship and Great Songs ...
The Byrds, The Rolling Stones: Rock Fashion: Lace Fop to Costume Ball Chic
Guide by John Mendelssohn, Musician, August 1982
An informal survey of the great movements in rock fashion, those cyclical variations on the theme of outraging mom and dad. ...
Squeeze: The Fine Art Of Pop Songwriting
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, August 1982
ATTENTION! LINDA Ronstadt and Willie Nelson! Attention Bonnie Raitt and Judy Collins! Attention Aretha Franklin and Frank Sinatra! Attention all you interpretive pop singers who ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, August 1982
IF YOU THOUGHT Sandinistal's epic sprawl would be edited down to a solid, filler-free album this time, guess again. Combat Rock reflects that triple-record set's ...
Bongos Ikwue & the Groovies: On the Road with a Nigerian Rock Band
Report by Randall Grass, Musician, October 1982
FOR YEARS most people have experienced African music via Hollywood as something mysterious, primitive, even threatening; or, courtesy of social scientists, as something arcane, exotic ...
Gang Of Four: The Revolution Lightens Up
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, October 1982
While their political passion remains undimmed, these post-punk party comrades are now using heinous capitalist tactics like great melodies, gang vocals and good humor. ...
Ace, Paul Carrack, Nick Lowe, Squeeze: Paul Carrack: "Singin' Like A Boid"
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, October 1982
Keyboard specialist for Ace, Roxy and Squeeze, Carrack has brought his muscular, gritty voice and soulful hit tunes out of the shadows and up to ...
Rosanne Cash: Romance, rock and realism in the new Country
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, October 1982
THE ENDURING appeal of country music has been its ability to describe the messy problems between men and women with accuracy and poignancy. For years, ...
Grateful Dead: Phil Lesh's Unbroken Changes
Interview by David Gans, Musician, November 1982
The Grateful Dead's Mad Professor of the Bass ...
Richard Hell: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Toby Goldstein, Musician, November 1982
DURING NEW York City's early punk era. Richard Hell & the Voidoids were extremists bobbing on a sea of originals. Hell's agonized vocals whined his ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis: The New Deal Origins of Rock 'n' Roll
Essay by Dave Marsh, Musician, December 1982
EACH YEAR, on August 16, the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, Memphis State University hosts a memorial service and seminar in his honor. ...
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, December 1982
LUTHER VANDROSS curled up in the stuffed arm chair with his Wizard-of-Oz red ruby shoes tucked under his massive bulk. When he described Dionne Warwick's ...
Darlene Love: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Musician, January 1983
WHATEVER INCONGRUITY exists in the idea of a mature woman getting onstage and protesting that she's not too young to get married, or defiantly proclaiming ...
Donald Fagen Revisits an Era of Innocence
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, January 1983
"LACK OF IRONY," says Donald Fagen with a wry grin, "is not exactly my specialty." It's an odd apology – more like a boast – ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, January 1983
THE "MYSTICAL" BEATLE had his first hit in a long time last year with that cloying, simplistic eulogy, ‘All Those Years Ago’. On his latest ...
Jonathan Richman: Wax Museum, Washington DC
Live Review by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, January 1983
IT'S EASY TO laugh at Jonathan Richman's wavering, off-key singing as he drifts off into naive, spoken monologues. When he visited Washington's Wax Museum this ...
Review by Laura Fissinger, Musician, January 1983
ONCE UPON a time, Prince was assessed thus: a (modestly) gifted dance floor sexmeister; a (very) occasional visitor to profundity and innovation; and (mostly) a ...
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, January 1983
THESE ART-ROCKERS ward off chaos with an armor of meticulously conceived pop songs that cloaks its creators' identifies even as it showcases their talents. ...
Culture Club: Kissing To Be Clever (Epic/Virgin)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1983
JUST WHEN you thought the last thing you needed was another washed-out attempt at dance music, along comes Culture Club to smash all your preconceptions ...
Joe Jackson: Who Needs Rock'N'Roll?
Profile and Interview by David Gans, Musician, February 1983
JOE JACKSON works, from the very start of his two and a half hour show. He sings with every inch and every ounce of his ...
Marvin Gaye: Midnight Love (CBS)
Review by Carol Cooper, Musician, February 1983
UPON RELOCATING to England in 1981, Marvin Gaye complained to London's New Musical Express that his last Tamla release, In Our Lifetime, was flawed because ...
Michael Jackson: Thriller (Epic)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, February 1983
IT SEEMS only a matter of time now before Michael Jackson becomes a candy bar or a video game. His music, after all, that remarkably ...
The Beat: The English Beat: Special Beat Service (IRS)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1983
UNLIKE WH'APPEN, Special Beat Service successfully manages the transition from 2-tone to full color, giving the English Beat a sound that is at once more ...
The Beat: The English Beat: 2-Tone Survivors Make a Joyful Noise
Interview by Bill Holdship, Musician, February 1983
"THE CIRCUMSTANCES that brought the Beat together make us tenuous, in a way," observes singer/guitarist Dave Wakeling. "With any one set of musicians, sooner or ...
Yoko Ono: It's Alright (Polydor/PolyGram)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1983
THERE ARE still many Beatles fans who accuse Yoko Ono of cannibalizing John Lennon's soul. Undoubtedly, Yoko's new solo effort will add fuel to their ...
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band: The Distance (Capitol)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Musician, March 1983
IT WOULD be both easy and unfair to write off Bob Seger's followup to Against The Wind as a bid for the widest possible audience. ...
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, March 1983
CONTRARY TO the prevailing opinion, when these five Akron androids pose the rhetorical question, "Are we not men?," they don't mean, "We are not men," ...
George Clinton: Computer Games (Capitol)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1983
THERE ARE times when I think George Clinton puts out uneven albums just to piss the rest of the world off. I mean, there are ...
ABC, Culture Club, The Thompson Twins, Yazoo: New Romantics: Sweat & Ice
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, March 1983
THE NEW BRITISH DANCE ROMANTICS: ABC, THOMPSON TWINS, YAZ, CULTURE CLUB ...
The Psychedelic Furs: Psychedelic Furs: The Ritz, New York NY
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1983
RICHARD BUTLER stalks to his microphone, a vision in beige. While the other six Psychedelic Furs take their places decked out in the standard postpunk ...
The Roches: Three Sides to Every Situation
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, March 1983
AT TIMES, the three Roche sisters seem blissfully oblivious to how the rest of the world operates. Take their clothes. Backstage at Washington's Wax Museum, ...
Al Green: Sanctity & Sexuality on a Higher Plane
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, April 1983
LISTENING TO Al Green's three gospel albums for Myrrh Records is a disorienting experience. The songs are traditional hymns that have been sung in black ...
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Musician, May 1983
IT HAPPENS all the time. Some well-meaning rock fan comes up to guitarist Albert Lee and starts telling him he's a great player. "And man, ...
Holly & The Italians: Warner Theatre, Washington DC
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, May 1983
UNDER NORMAL circumstances, Holly Beth Vincent would be the perfect punk debutante. Between the seedy elegance of her second-hand black evening dress and the rakish ...
Profile by Don Snowden, Musician, May 1983
THE SET PASSES the midway point without incident when a commotion suddenly breaks out in the packed, sweat-drenched crowd on the dance floor. Rival gangs ...
U2: Small Victories in a Rock and Roll Struggle of Sound and Emotion
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, May 1983
STUMPY, PRINCELY Bono Vox drives along Dublin Bay, left arm grasping the wheel of his humble sedan while he uses the right – temporarily game ...
The Equals, Eddy Grant: Eddy Grant: A Reggae Popster Makes His Own Breaks
Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, June 1983
REMEMBER D.I.Y.? Remember all those fierce and earnest punk rockers who vowed to bypass the corporate monopoly and conquer the rapidly devolving Western world? It ...
Bananarama, Fun Boy Three: Fun Boy Three: Waiting (Chrysalis); Bananarama: Deep Sea Skiving (London)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1983
ON THE surface, these two records seem to have a lot in common. Aside from the fact that the Funboys helped to get Bananarama together ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1983
R.E.M. HAS the most hypnotizing sound of any group playing rock today. That sounds like hyperbole, I know, but it's true. Thanks to their densely ...
Al Jarreau: Jarreau (Warner Bros.)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1983
ALTHOUGH POP has always seemed Al Jarreau's destiny, his disposition toward jazz kept getting in the way. It wasn't so much that Jarreau bopped when ...
Divinyls: The Divinyls: Painters Mill Star Theater, Baltimore
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1983
CHRISTINA AMPHLETT looks like Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann doing Patti Smith. She's standing at the microphone at Baltimore's Painters Mill Star Theater, wearing an amazingly ...
Wall of Voodoo: Oddballs Amok in the Melting Pot
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1983
MARTY ROBBINS has just ridden back into El Paso to see his beloved Felina, and is met instead by a vengeful posse. The lights go ...
The dB's, Pylon, R.E.M., Chris Stamey: Mitch Easter's Drive-In Studios
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, August 1983
Producing the Post-Punk Pantheon ...
R.E.M.: Subverting Small Town Boredom
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1983
ALMOST EVERYBODY else at the Athens, Georgia, Holiday Inn was there for some convention being held at the University of Georgia — seminars in bovine ...
Simple Minds: Ontario Theater, Washington D.C.
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1983
A THIN SLIVER OF STYLE ...
Culture Club: Hey Fella, You Wanna Step Outside And Say That?
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Musician, October 1983
BOY GEORGE and Culture Club aren't what they seem. ...
Fela Kuti: Fela: Return of the Afrobeat Rebel
Profile by Randall Grass, Musician, October 1983
KANO, NIGERIA, 1974: Sitting in the midst of a spacious, immaculate patio surrounded by manicured shrubbery and the graceful curved stone-and-glass walls of a post-modern restaurant, ...
Judy Mowatt: I-Three with a Message
Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, October 1983
WHEN PETER Tosh briefly joined Judy Mowatt on stage towards the end of her New York debut at First City, it felt for a moment ...
NRBQ: Organic Eclecticism in Orbit
Profile and Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, October 1983
SEEING NRBQ play in a club for the first time is a little like sauntering into an amusement park with all-new rides — you're happy ...
Minor Threat: Hardcore Happiness
Profile and Interview by RJ Smith, Musician, November 1983
THE MUSIC of Minor Threat has great humor, an ultra-physical beat, and the pace of a ride in the front seat of a roller coaster. ...
The B-52s, Will Powers, Tom Tom Club: Steven Stanley: "Youth Sound"
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1983
Common Sense at Compass Point. ...
Was (Not Was): Born To Laugh At Tornadoes (Ze/Geffen)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1983
FOR AN ALBUM that boasts such a pointedly diverse array of vocalists — would you believe Mitch Ryder, Mel Tormé, Doug Feiger and Ozzy Osbourne, ...
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Musician, 1 November 1983
THE FOUR women stood in the semi-dark recording studio. "Okay, let's go," said the producer. ...
Grand Mixer D.ST, Herbie Hancock, Material: Herbie Hancock: Comeback Scratch
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, December 1983
"I DIDN'T JUMP on anybody's bandwagon with this record," insists Herbie Hancock, who has climbed aboard more than a few in a career which has ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, January 1984
ALTHOUGH IT'S doubtful Nancy Reagan listens to either rap or reggae records (or anything more soulful than Ray Anthony, for that matter), she ought to ...
Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin: Jimmy Page: The Life And Times Of A Guitar Prophet
Interview by John Tobler, Musician, January 1984
JIMMY PAGE was born in Heston, West London, on January 9, 1944, and moved with his family to nearby Feltham during his infancy. He spent ...
Paul McCartney: Pipes Of Peace (Columbia)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, January 1984
JUST WHEN you thought it was safe to like Paul McCartney again, along comes an album that makes Ram look like Abbey Road. It isn't ...
George Clinton: You Should Nuf Bit Fish (Capitol)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, February 1984
FOR MORE than a decade George Clinton has been mingling sci-fi symbolism, technopop textures, topical satire and shake-yer-booty funk into a personal cosmology as exotic ...
Great Polysynths For Under $2,000
Overview by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1984
Making Trickle-Down Economics Work for You ...
Ray Parker Jr.: Ray Parker, Jr.: Woman Out Of Control (Arista)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, February 1984
RAY PARKER, Jr. is a riddle. He's a black, crossover auteur who writes, produces, arranges and pretty much performs everything on his records, claims Motown ...
T Bone Burnett, Warren Zevon: T Bone Burnett: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, February 1984
America as Fallen Starlet ...
Was (Not Was): Was Not Was: All Over The Road With Two Motor City Outcasts In A Studio Tornado
Interview by David Gans, Musician, February 1984
"WHEN BLACK people hear our music," proclaims Don Fagenson, "they know we're white. Even our funkiest stuff. I think it happens to be a plus. ...
Carlos Alomar, David Bowie: Who The Hell Is Carlos Alomar?
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1984
The Guitar Power Behind Bowie's Thin White Throne ...
The dB's, Chris Stamey: Chris Stamey: The Wonderful Wacky World of an ex-dB
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, April 1984
SOME ROCKERS start earlier than others. North Carolina native Chris Stamey, for example, was a mere nine years old when he got his first tape ...
Kool and the Gang: Kool & the Gang: Twenty Years of Funk Foundation and Pop Permutation
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, April 1984
ROBERT "KOOL" Bell's father was a boxing man. He worked his trade on the upper west side, part of a neighborhood now long gone, Lincoln ...
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band: New Orleans' Revenge
Profile and Interview by Randall Grass, Musician, April 1984
PROPELLED BY a polyrhythmic shuffle from drums, the hot, festive chorus of horns danced into muggy night air through the open doors of Tipitina's down ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, April 1984
AS HIP-HOP, the rapping and scratching music of the break dancers, bounces out of the urban subculture and into the mainstream, it's reasonable enough to ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, April 1984
IT WASN'T too long ago that new wave partisans like myself (and most likely you, too) were sneering at mainstream rock for being predictable, un-threatening ...
Miles Davis, Marcus Miller, Luther Vandross: Marcus Miller Gets Around
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, May 1984
THE FUNKY THROUGH-LINE BEHIND LUTHER VANDROSS & ARETHA; THE JAZZY AGITATOR BEHIND MILES, GROVER & SANBORN ...
Review by Laura Fissinger, Musician, May 1984
CAR 'N' BAR dance bands area pop staple with a frequently short shelf life. One or two albums into some of these careers, then it's ...
The Smiths, The The: The The: Soul Mining (Epic); The Smiths: The Smiths (Warner Bros.)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, May 1984
"FIFTEEN MINUTES with you/I wouldn't say no," sings the Smiths' Morrissey, echoing Warhol's famous dictum. Well, there you go again, as President Reagan is wont ...
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, May 1984
CECIL AND Linda Womack are sitting on a couch in their home near Philadelphia while Micah, their youngest, plays with a pull-toy on the floor. ...
Morrissey, The Smiths: Not the Jones: Morrissey
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, June 1984
AMERICA MAY HAVE been charmed by Boy George, but it's more difficult to imagine it embracing the Smiths and their poetic singer/writer Morrissey, the U.K.'s ...
XTC: Love and Disguise on a Farmboy's Wages
Interview by Karen Schlosberg, Musician, June 1984
IF THERE WERE A TRUE NORM for British pop bands, it would be XTC, who reflect where they're from and what they see so accurately ...
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Musician, 25 June 1984
"THERE WERE times last year when I would walk in here and say, 'Look at this,'" muses George Duke, surveying the now calm control room ...
The Dream Syndicate: Dream Syndicate: Medicine Show (A&M)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, July 1984
WHAT'S THE best way to judge a band like the Dream Syndicate? On one hand, they're a lean, hard-charging attack force, with plenty of swell ...
Elvis Costello: Constitution Hall, Washington D.C.
Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1984
"I'M GOING TO do something you've never seen me do before," Elvis Costello told the audience at Washington, D.C.'s Constitution Hall as he unstrapped his ...
Jermaine Jackson: Jermaine Jackson (Arista)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1984
IF MICHAEL Jackson's public persona makes him out as a bit of a dreamer, there's always enough fire in his work to add an edge ...
Interview by Julie Panebianco, Musician, July 1984
Hit Production from the Leaner Side of the Tracks ...
Santana: Paul Reed Smith's High-Class Hybrid
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1984
Bridging the Age-old Gap Between Strat and Paul ...
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Goodbye Cruel World (Columbia)
Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, August 1984
BEFORE YOU sink into Elvis Costello's latest, brilliant slough of despond, make sure you keep your copy of the lyrics (printed on the album sleeve). ...
Profile by Richard Grabel, Musician, August 1984
RAP CONTINUES to have plenty to say, and with good reason. The unemployment, underemployment and general hardship that afflict ghetto kids aren't ending under the ...
Dennis Brown, Sly & Robbie, Yellowman: Sly & Robbie: Night of the Living Dread
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, August 1984
The Riddim Twins Celebrate Ten Years ...
Judas Priest, The Scorpions: Judas Priest, Scorpions: Purity & Power
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, September 1984
Total, Unswerving Devotion to Heavy Metal Form: Judas Priest and the Scorpions ...
Prince & the Revolution: Purple Rain (Warner Bros.)
Review by James Hunter, Musician, September 1984
Stylistic Seizures from the Love Laboratory: Prince Lets His Latest Out of the Bottle ...
Tina Turner: The Soulful Queen of Rock'n'roll Struts Back Into the Spotlight
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, September 1984
PRIVATE DANCER is Tina Turner's new album; 'I Might Have Been Queen' the first song; and it's hard to decide which title, album's or single's, ...
Herbie Hancock: Sound-System (Columbia)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1984
DON'T MAKE the mistake of turning up your nose at this because it's "another goddamn rock record." Don't even fall for the line that Sound-System ...
The Beach Boys, Culture Club: Steve Levine's Cross-Cultural New Age
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, November 1984
It's a Clean Machine, Very Clean: The Digital Powerhouse Behind Queen George's Platinum Throne ...
U2: The Unforgettable Fire (Island)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1984
Turning Point: U2 mixes textural growth with thematic ambiguity in a view of Mythical America. ...
The dB's: America First: Seasoned Native Sons Follow Their Own Muse: The dB's
Interview by Ira Robbins, Musician, December 1984
"THERE'S NOTHING WRONG with honest American music," says Peter Holsapple, guitarist, keyboard player and main songwriter of the dB's. He goes on to cite Elvis ...
John Lennon, Yoko Ono: Yoko Ono's Sweet Vindication
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1984
ONCE YOKO Ono was the most unjustly maligned figure in I popular music; now that some measure of public sympathy has swung to her side, ...
Jesse Johnson: Jesse Johnson (A&M)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, 1985
WHEN A guitarist makes his reputation in Minneapolis, proceeds to write the hottest tune on the most recent Time LP ('Jungle Love'), plays his ass ...
Al Jarreau: Has The Adult Contemporary Songwriter Eclipsed The Jazz Singer?
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1985
FOUR JARREAU brothers grew up in Milwaukee. They all sang. Three still live there. "My older brother had a fine tenor voice," Al recalls. "The ...
Culture Club: Waking Up With The House On Fire (Epic)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, January 1985
NOBODY HAS ever accused Culture Club of having too much depth. For them, frivolity is its own reward, and there's more than enough meaning in ...
Fela Kuti: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Live In Amsterdam (Capitol); Perambulator (Lagos international)
Review by Randall Grass, Musician, January 1985
NIGERIA'S FELA Anikulapo-Kuti was the presumed messiah to break African pop internationally, just as Bob Marley had broken reggae. He sings in comprehensible pidgin English. ...
Daryl Hall & John Oates: Hall & Oates: Big Bam Boom (RCA)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, January 1985
Maestros of Yuppie Soul, Hall & Oates keep their sleek street machine in high gear. ...
Stevie Wonder: Selections From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: The Woman In Red (Motown)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, January 1985
THE NEW Stevie Wonder album has this problem: It thinks it's a soundtrack. It doesn't get violent about it, true. In fact, except for the ...
Ry Cooder: Cooder at the Movies
Interview by Don Snowden, Musician, 28 February 1985
"A MOVIE SCORE is probably the last refuge of abstract music," remarks Ry Cooder in the spartan foyer of a Hollywood sound studio. "You can't ...
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, April 1985
IT'S NOT terribly surprising that Alison Moyet's first solo record sounds like a modern pop evocation of 60s soul — after all, that's what everyone ...
George Russell Orchestra: The African Game (Manhattan)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, April 1985
THE REISSUE of Ezz-thetics last year marked the first time in years George Russell's name had appeared on an American new release; he'd become one ...
Run-DMC: Run DMC: King Of Rock (Profile)
Review by Fred Goodman, Musician, April 1985
A REPORTER once jokingly asked Muhammad Ali if his retirement would spell the end of boxing. Instead of turning the question into grist for his ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, June 1985
MORE CURIOUS CONNECTIONS: NEW ORLEANS BRASS MEETS SPOKEN WORD ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, June 1985
MORE CURIOUS CONNECTIONS: NEW ORLEANS BRASS MEETS SPOKEN WORD ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, June 1985
Pop Royalty's First-Call Bassist Is Into More Than Keeping Time. ...
Midnight Oil: Red Sails In The Sunset (Columbia)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, June 1985
IN A SITUATION reminiscent of the celebrated "breath mint/candy mint" controversy, Australia's Midnight Oil is two bands in one. Listen once to Red Sails In ...
Miles Davis: You're Under Arrest (Columbia)
Review by Fred Goodman, Musician, June 1985
MILES DAVIS' brilliance is so often attributed to his musical innovations and refusal to coast on past accomplishments that it's easy to overlook his talent ...
Santana: Cooling Into The Norm
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Musician, June 1985
A BRISK BREEZE cools the crisp San Francisco afternoon but the glaring lights and cumulative body heat of 50-odd crew members, band friends and label ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, June 1985
"SINCE I'M A songwriter," Joan Armatrading explains, "I'd like to think I can write lots of different things. I suppose that can confuse people." ...
Philip Bailey, Phil Collins: The Second Coming of Phil Collins
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1985
A SEASONED PLAYER ENJOYS CHARTBUSTING NEW LIFE AS A SOLO STAR ...
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, June 1985
Industry of Mercy: Bruce & Tina lead a parade of mobilized mega-stars. ...
Eurythmics: Be Yourself Tonight (RCA — CD)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, July 1985
PERHAPS THE title is meant to be ironic, for Annie "Zelig" Lennox is one pop chameleon who adapts to her surroundings. ...
Marvin Gaye: Dream Of A Lifetime (Columbia)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1985
JUST WHEN you thought it was safe to go back into the bedroom, here comes Dream Of A Lifetime, an appropriately kinky coda to the ...
Review by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, July 1985
AS JOY DIVISION, they ignited a trend of anguished confession that turned punk's Angry Young Men in Leather to post-punk's Sad Young Men in Analysis. ...
Billy Idol: Steve Stevens: The Idolmaker
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, July 1985
Billy Idol's Six-Strinq Sidekick Fortifies the Image with Proto-Punk Musical Muscle. ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1985
NOW THAT Bob Dylan is establishing himself as a born-again rocker, why shouldn't the new wave stage a folk revival? But listening to Radio Tokyo ...
Aretha Franklin: Who's Zoomin' Who? (Arista)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, September 1985
ARETHA FRANKLIN has never made a bad record. When her records lacked the fire that ignited her greatest singles, that voice has been enough to ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, September 1985
GREAT SINGING is its own reward, and that's particularly true of the Womacks, Bobby, Cecil and Linda. Their voices carry not only the experience of ...
John Cage, Brian Eno: John Cage & Brian Eno: A Meeting of Sound Minds
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, September 1985
BRIAN ENO is waiting in the calm, green courtyard between his apartment and studio, just a short distance from London's trend-setting King's Road. Under the ...
Midnight Oil: The Only Band That Really Matters
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, September 1985
THERE'S A TV commercial running on television stations in Sydney that explains a lot about modern-day Australia. The ad is for McDonald's, and seeks to ...
The Style Council: Internationalists (Geffen)
Review by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, September 1985
LEADING THE Jam, Paul Weller was usually eloquent about the ineloquence of youth. Now he's an adult, and he's learned all about monetarism (it's bad) ...
Walter Becker, China Crisis, Steely Dan: Walter Becker: Dr. Wu Goes Hawaiian
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, September 1985
STEELY DAN'S MYSTERY MAN REAPPEARS ...
Interview by Fred Goodman, Musician, October 1985
A BEBOP REVOLUTIONARY KEEPS ON GROWING AND BLOWING ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Two Guys And A Tape Deck Become A
Interview by Ira Robbins, Musician, October 1985
Only one of the following two statements is true. Which? A) Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark is a synthesizer duo, a pair of chilly intellectual ...
Joan Armatrading, Jimmy Page, Paul Young: Pino Palladino Doesn't Fret
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, October 1985
Paul Young's Bassist Shines Through The Screaming Hordes ...
Joni Mitchell: Dog Eat Dog (Geffen)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1985
Joni looks at dogs from both sides now: coyotes to curs to sheepskin wolves ...
Billy Idol, The Psychedelic Furs, Donna Summer: Reel American: Keith Forsey's Disco Snarl
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, November 1985
From Donna Summer to Billy Idol, from Psy-Furs to Simple Minds, the union of style and raunch. ...
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1985
Doctor of Applied Song Medicine, Studio Psychology, R&B Analysis and Chart Metallurgy... ...
Sheila E.: Romance 1600 (I.R.S.)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1985
ARTISTS USUALLY sound more distinctive and less derivative over time. Sheila E. seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The Glamorous Life, her solo ...
Simple Minds: Jim Kerr Ghostdances Through A Stormy Landscape
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, December 1985
JIM KERR, listening to a playback of 'Ghostdancing' is getting down. Or maybe getting up. It's hard to say because we're seated at a small ...
Al Green: He Is The Light (A&M)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, January 1986
AL GREEN'S gospel recordings never really turned on his pop following, in part due to their uneven quality, but also because hosannas, no matter how ...
Review by Jon Young, Musician, January 1986
OUT OF THE ASHES: JOE STRUMMER ROCKS, MICK JONES SWINGS ...
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, February 1986
THE CLUBHOUSE is up on the fourth floor of an office building Raymond Chandler might have called "reasonably shabby" fifty years ago. It's on a ...
Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins: Sunrise In Memphis
Report and Interview by Joe Sasfy, Musician, February 1986
Nashville's Hottest Producer, Chips Moman Returns to the Birthplace of Rock ...
Trouble Funk: Saturday Night Live! From Washington, D.C. (Island)
Review by Fred Goodman, Musician, February 1986
STARS OF the D.C. Go-Go scene, Trouble Funk represent a throw-back to an earthier, less predictable disco groove. Saturday Night purports to present the groove ...
Sammy Hagar, David Lee Roth, Van Halen: Van Halen: All For One & Free For All
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1986
Poolside mayhem with a reshuffled band of rock 'n' roll anarchists ...
The Rolling Stones: Ian Stewart: Like A Rolling Stone
Obituary by Mark Rowland, Musician, March 1986
IAN STEWART helped found the Rolling Stones, and he remained an integral member of that group until December 12, 1985, the day he died of ...
Chic, Led Zeppelin, The Power Station: Tony Thompson: It Ain't The Meat, It's The Emotion
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1986
The Power, the Glory, and the Groove: Our Man from Chic Hits Hard and Hits Big, from Zep to Power Station to Madonna ...
Robert Palmer, The Power Station: Robert Palmer's Power Outage
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, April 1986
The Power Station and Palmer's Latest LP Are Both "Heavy Metal Funk". Which Came First? ...
Dwight Yoakam: Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. (Reprise)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, May 1986
TIPPING HIS Stetson to Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard, Yoakam recharges the honky-tonk tradition like a savior sent down from hillbilly heaven. Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., ...
Jackson Browne: Lives In The Balance (Asylum)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, May 1986
JACKSON BROWNE is mad as hell. He's also a gentleman, which removes the sting from his expressions of outrage on Lives In The Balance. Although ...
Wally Badarou, Marianne Faithfull, Grace Jones, Level 42: Wally Badarou's All-World Keyboards
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, May 1986
The Synthesizer Star of Compass Point on Getting and Keeping International Feel ...
Cherrelle, The SOS Band: Cherrelle: High Priority; S.O.S Band: Sands Of Time (Tabu/CBS)
Review by Fred Goodman, Musician, June 1986
WHAT HAS Prince wrought? Legend has it that songwriting and production duo Terry Lewis and James "Jam" Harris III, a. k. a., Jimmy Jam, were ...
Level 42: Mark King's Level 42 Goes Back To Bass-ics
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, June 1986
The Birth, Growth and Simplification of Britain's Best Funk Band ...
Fabulous Thunderbirds: The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1986
FROM RIB JOINTS TO MOVIES, THE T-BIRDS MAKE IT TOUGH ENOUGH ...
Van Halen: 5150 (Warner Bros.)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, June 1986
POST-LOBOTOMY VAN HALEN GO ON WITH HALF A MIND ...
Peter Gabriel: From Brideshead to Sunken Heads
Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, July 1986
PETER AND I were at school together – at Charterhouse, an expensive private school in Surrey, of the variety the British perversely insist on calling ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, July 1986
"Flute and harp add sweetness to a song; better than either, a sweet voice." (Ecclesiasticus 40:21) ...
Bob Dylan: Knocked Out Loaded (Columbia)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, September 1986
DESPITE A high-visibility tour with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, his best band since the Band, Bob Dylan's new studio album is being released with ...
The Cars, Elliott Easton: Elliot Easton, Closet Traditionalist
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, September 1986
THE CARS' GUITAR SPARKPLUG ON BEING APPROPRIATE ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, September 1986
FROM 'TENDER LOVE' TO 'NASTY', THEY'RE ALWAYS IN CONTROL ...
John Abercrombie: The Unguitarist: John Abercrombie
Interview by Fred Goodman, Musician, September 1986
IN SEARCH OF A BROADER PALETTE, A JAZZMAN TURNS TO SYNTHESIS ...
Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, September 1986
"I DON'T REALLY see myself as a guitar player," says U2's Edge. "I'm more of a songwriter or composer. In looking for a new way ...
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band: Mardi Gras In Montreux (Rounder)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, October 1986
IF DECADES of drab Dixieland combos have left you thinking that the New Orleans notion of collective improvisation is mere fabrication, prepare to be converted. ...
Tina Turner: Mega Woman Conquers the World
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, October 1986
QUEEN TINA DOES NOT WANT ANY MORE POP, FUNK, REGGAE OR SOUL. QUEEN TINA WANTS TO ROCK 'N' ROLL ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, December 1986
"THERE'S A lot of pollution out there," says Daniel Lanois, drinking tea in the gazebo of his Santa Monica hotel one September morning, before continuing ...
Miles Davis: Tutu (Warner Bros.)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1986
TUTU IS A pop album. Tutu is a jazz album. Wait, you're both right! Tutu seems unlikely to pry many new converts from either camp, ...
Tony Bennett: "The Best Singer In The Business" — Frank Sinatra
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1986
TONY BENNETT has recorded eighty-nine albums in a career spanning more than three decades, all on Columbia records. But his latest effort, The Art Of ...
Billy Idol: Whiplash Smile (Chrysalis)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, January 1987
BILLY BABY! What happened? Just when he seemed destined for a multi-platinum rut, with that frozen sneer and perpetually raised fist, the punk-turned superstar has ...
Ray Davies, The Kinks: Kontemplating the Kinks: Nothing's as Bad as Ray Davies Thinks
Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, January 1987
RAY DAVIES, we've always been told, is quintessentially English. The classic Kinks songs of the '60s – 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion', 'Sunny Afternoon', 'Waterloo Sunset' ...
Interview by Steven Rosen, Musician, January 1987
"THE GUITAR is a very difficult instrument to get a great sound on. There's no doubt about it — it takes a lot of years." ...
Luther Vandross: Give Me The Reason (Epic)
Review by Steve Bloom, Musician, January 1987
DESPITE FOUR consecutive platinum albums — and Give Me Reason is sure to be his fifth — Luther Vandross has not really come very far ...
Los Lobos: A Story of Survival
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, April 1987
YOU CAN'T say Los Lobos is special just because they've been together thirteen years, or because most of the band has known one another since ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, April 1987
Mick Hucknall Knows What He Wants and Simply Red's Going to Get It. ...
Van Morrison: Quotations From Chairman Van
Interview by Chris Salewicz, Musician, April 1987
It's always a pleasure to run into Van Morrison, that musical legend and legendarily reluctant interview subject. Finding Van in London recently, Musician decided to ...
Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, May 1987
U2 Wrestle With Their Moment Of Glory ...
Charles Brown: Still Deep in the Blues
Profile and Interview by Jon Young, Musician, July 1987
"PEOPLE WHO come to see me play say, 'Are you Charles Brown or are you his son? After all these years, you should be walking ...
Wire: State-of-the-Art Return to Action
Profile and Interview by Howard Wuelfing, Musician, July 1987
WIRE IS back. After a "sabbatical" of some seven years, the British group released a four-song EP of new material titled Snakedrill, and The Ideal ...
LL Cool J: L.L. Cool J: Bigger And Deffer (Def Jam)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1987
THE INEVITABLE challenge of a great debut: what to do for an encore. For James Todd Smith — a.k.a. Cool James, a.k.a. L.L. Cool J ...
Sly & Robbie: Can the Riddim Twins Rock the Mainstream?
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, August 1987
AS SUPPORTING players, they've become as recognizable and popular as comic book superheroes. Is there anyone who isn't familiar with Sly Dunbar's brightly-colored tams and ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, October 1987
TIME WAS when any R&B act of consequence bore the imprimatur of Prince or one of his aliases. These days, the big buzz is from ...
Memoir by Dave Marsh, Musician, October 1987
REMEMBERING THE CONSCIENCE OF AMERICAN MUSIC ...
Tom Waits is Flying Upside Down (On Purpose)
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, October 1987
"IT'S ALWAYS the mistakes," Tom Waits is saying. "Most things begin as a mistake. Most breakthroughs in music come out of a revolution of the ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Crazy Horse: Who Is Neil Young's Band, Anyway?
Interview by Dave DiMartino, Musician, November 1987
DOES CRAZY Horse have day jobs or something? These guys have played on the Neil Young records most people swear by. From 1969's Everybody Knows ...
Ry Cooder, Jim Dickinson, Green On Red, The Replacements: Jim Dickinson and the New Low-Fi
Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, November 1987
Wherein a dangerous redneck weirdo becomes studio godfather to post-punk's finest. ...
Terence Trent D'Arby: Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby (Columbia)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, November 1987
YOU CAN'T call Terence Trent D'Arby shy. On his audacious, uneven debut, this extroverted youngster co-produces, writes most of the tunes and sings 'em in ...
Van Morrison: Poetic Champions Compose (PolyGram)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1987
"IF MY HEART could do the thinking, and my head began to feel," pleads Van Morrison on a song from his latest album, a sentiment ...
Duke Ellington, Mercer Ellington: Mercer Ellington: Duke's heir accepts no substitutes
Interview by Steve Bloom, Musician, December 1987
I TOOK THE A train to Mercer Ellington's apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. There I was, sitting in the train, flipping through Duke Ellington ...
George Michael: Artist or Airhead?
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, January 1988
IS IT TIME TO TAKE WHAM!'S ARCHITECT SERIOUSLY? ...
Ry Cooder: Get Rhythm (Warner Bros.)
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, January 1988
SO RY COODER gives us his first non-soundtrack album in five years, and it's great, rock-solid, a worthy companion to John Hiatt's Bring the Family, ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, March 1988
STING'S BRING On the Night was a big-budget home movie by a talented musician convinced that every breath he takes deserves to be documented. It ...
NRBQ: Uncommon Denominators (Rounder CD); God Bless Us All (Rounder)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, March 1988
AFTER 20 YEARS, and typically without fanfare, NRBQ has gotten around to releasing their first live album, God Bless Us All, and first career retrospective, ...
Robyn Hitchcock: Globe of Frogs (A&M)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, March 1988
EXALTED BY an adoring audience, rock 'n' roll cult figures frequently turn amusing quirks into annoying affectations. Happily, this isn't the case with Robyn Hitchcock, ...
Steve Winwood: The Lord-Alge Brothers — The First Family of Engineering
Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, March 1988
The three stooges of the studio get the last laugh. ...
Review by Holly Gleason, Musician, April 1988
LYLE LOVETT represents a new voice in Nashville: the quirky country songwriter who believes that even cowboys get the blues. Consequently, this Texan's viewpoint can ...
David Sylvian: The Loner Emerges
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, May 1988
JAPAN'S RECLUSIVE LEADER FINDS TECHNO-POP MATURITY IN A SOLO AFTERLIFE ...
Bryan Ferry, Madonna: Pat Leonard: The Madonna Method
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, May 1988
PRODUCING BRYAN FERRY AND ARRANGING MADONNA IN THE WORLD OF HIGH-STAKES HIGH-TECH ...
Neil Young: Cruise Control: Neil Young's Lonesome Drive
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, June 1988
EVEN IN Los Angeles, where cool cars are as common as Taco Bells, you can't help but ogle the elegant black and chrome Caddy limo ...
Dennis Chambers, The Police, Bruce Springsteen, Tony Williams: How To Think Like A Drummer
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1988
Becoming a Drumhead in 6 Easy Lessons ...
Jesse Johnson: Every Shade of Love (A&M)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, July 1988
YOU'D BE excused for mistaking one-Time guitarist Jesse Johnson for his former Twin Cities running mate, Prince. ...
k.d. lang: Shadowland: The Owen Bradley Sessions (Sire)
Review by Holly Gleason, Musician, July 1988
LISTENING TO Shadowland, k.d. lang's second album, you can't help thinking you've fallen into a time warp, back to when Patsy Cline ruled the radio. ...
Jane Ira Bloom, Steve Coleman, Kenny G, Grover Washington Jr: Kenny G et al: Safe Sax
Report and Interview by Steve Bloom, Musician, July 1988
What's Sales Got to Do With It? A Lot. ...
Leonard Cohen's Nervous Breakthrough
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1988
"I THINK IF I HAD ONE OF THOSE GOOD VOICES, I WOULD HAVE DONE IT COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY," Leonard Cohen ruminates. "I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SUNG ...
Prince: Lovesexy (Warner Bros./Paisley Park); The Black Album (unreleased)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1988
Taking It Back to the Streets ...
Living Colour, The Scorpions: Scorpions: Savage Amusement (Mercury); Living Colour: Vivid (Epic)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1988
ADMIT IT — most of you would no sooner listen to metal than volunteer for root canal work. Metal is nasty, noisy, brutish, the kind ...
Review by Jon Young, Musician, August 1988
RECENTLY THE paper brought news that two men have been arrested for the murder of DJ Scott LaRock last year, giving By All Means Necessary ...
The Smithereens Get Non-Technical
Interview by Dave Schulps, Musician, August 1988
LEARNING TO DO MORE WITH LESS, INCLUDING — GASP — REAL INSTRUMENTS AND REAL SONGS ...
Depeche Mode's Synthetic Survival
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, October 1988
You can't stop the beating of a human heart ...
Review by Randall Grass, Musician, October 1988
Stetsasonic: In Full Gear (Tommy Boy); Masters Of Ceremony: Dynamite (4th & Broadway); Eric B. & Rakim: Follow the Leader (UNI); Salt 'N' Pepa: <i>A ...
The Sugarcubes: Iceland's "Little People" Make a Big Noise
Interview by Amy Linden, Musician, October 1988
THE SUGARCUBES are not only a new band, and a very good band, but they are probably (no, let us make that definitely) the only ...
Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, Whitesnake: Does Keith Olsen really believe in this stuff, or what?
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, November 1988
IT'S EASY to sneer at the increasingly predictable formulas that sell records in the millions these days. What's hard is to actually believe in the ...
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, November 1988
"WITH ALBUMS, you can't just play it straight on every track. If a song wants to be a hit, if it seems like — done ...
Randy Newman: Pop's Mark Twain Continues to Mix the Oil With the Vinegar
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1988
EVERY FIVE years or so, Randy Newman gets a little famous. Back in 1972, he recorded 'Sail Away', a song that grew so much in ...
Sam Phillips: The Heretic Finds Some Happiness
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1988
SAM PHILLIPS is sitting in a New York office, looking remarkably unwilted in the sultry August heat and listening to me complain about having been ...
Was (Not Was): What Up, Dog? (Chrysalis)
Review by James Hunter, Musician, November 1988
DURING THE early '80s, Detroit-based songwriters and producers Don Ferguson and David Weiss competed with New York City art-funksters under the name Was (Not Was). ...
Barbara Lynn: A Good Thing She Didn't Give Up
Profile and Interview by Jon Young, Musician, December 1988
"I'M A CAPRICORN, and Capricorns don't give up," Barbara Lynn laughs, explaining how she's endured years of obscurity. "All this time I've had the patience ...
Guns N' Roses: If Guns N' Roses are Outlawed, only Outlaws will have Guns N' Roses
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1988
"IF I'D GONE on through school," Axl Rose says, "I'd probably be a lawyer. Then I could take half the people who screw with me ...
John Hiatt: Slow Turning (A&M)
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, December 1988
THE FOLLOW-up to one of 1987's most acclaimed albums," imprinted on Slow Turnings cover sticker, says it all. Hiatt's previous Bring the Family garnered press ...
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, December 1988
"IT'S KIND of a body, these last two albums," John Hiatt says. He's explaining why his recent concerts include only material from Slow Turning and ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1989
HAL WILLNER, UNRIVALED KING OF THE "TRIBUTE" ALBUM, TURNS TO DISNEY ...
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, February 1989
A Plectral Purist Answers the Dumb Questions ...
Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney: Elvis Costello in Love & War
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, March 1989
THERE'S A deceptive balm in the air, a bright December afternoon curdled by icy darts of breeze, as Elvis Costello and Cait O'Riordan stride along ...
Jeff Healey Band: Jeff Healey: Have Guitar, Will Sit
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, March 1989
JEFF HEALEY is the most unorthodox guitarist since Stanley Jordan. He plays seated, most of the time, with his guitar flat on his lap. As ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, April 1989
TECHNIQUE IS not something most listeners associate with New Order. Sure, the band has made significant strides over the years, developing a sound far more ...
Joe Satriani, Mick Jagger: The Devil And Joe Satriani
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, April 1989
A Guitar Hero Strikes a Different Kind of Bargain ...
Enya: Clannad's Little Sister Sails Away
Interview by Michael Azerrad, Musician, May 1989
ENYA IS sitting in Geffen Records' New York offices, looking a bit perplexed. "People in the British press were referring to me as...'beat.' Something about ...
Henry Threadgill: Rag, Bush and All (Novus)
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, May 1989
HENRY THREADGILL, who with Air explored the trio format more thoroughly than most jazz musicians, has been shifting his focus toward composition and large ensemble ...
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band: Voodoo (Columbia)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, May 1989
HAVING BACKED Elvis Costello (Spike) and inspired David Byrne (The Knee Plays), the Dirty Dozen Brass Band of New Orleans may be poised to capture ...
Thomas Dolby: Has The Man of a Thousand Faces Spread Himself Too Thin?
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, May 1989
1. OPEN ON long shot of Hollywood skyline. Grimy fog and half-hearted drizzle give the city the mean, seedy look it always has when the ...
Ziggy Marley, Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club: Clubbing It with the Tom Tom Club
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, July 1989
Chris and Tina are now in "a real band." And it's not Talking Heads. ...
The Cure, Dinosaur Jr.: What's The Big Idea? Robert Smith's Conception of the Cure
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1989
ON THE whole, the average pop fan's image of the Cure is pretty close to the way the band appears in the video to 'Fascination ...
Ziggy Marley, Tom Tom Club: Ziggy Marley: His Own Man
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, July 1989
Ziggy Marley, with a little help from his friends, is moving out of his father's shadow. ...
The Beastie Boys: Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique (Capitol)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, August 1989
HIDE THE silverware. Put the vinyl slipcovers back on the furniture. Turn Mom's picture to the wall. Those eager-to-offend Beastie Boys are back at the ...
Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys: Jeff Lynne's Guitar Craze
Interview by James Hunter, Musician, August 1989
A Wilbury explains why Tom Petty's solo album sounds the way it does ...
Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt: Life Lessons: Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1989
Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt find hope in a hard world. ...
Kool Moe Dee: Knowledge Is King (RCA/Jive)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, September 1989
HE MAKES hit records. The girls won't leave him alone. The man considers his spiritual healing powers comparable to those of Christ. And yet, rapmaster ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, September 1989
Batty Prince, Torn Between Good and Evil ...
World Saxophone Quartet: Rhythm 'n Blues (Elektra/Musician)
Review by Kirk Silsbee, Musician, September 1989
JUST AS WSQ triumphantly addressed the music of Ellington/Strayhorn on its own terms a couple of years ago, so they now tip their mouthpieces to ...
Richard Thompson Rings Some Changes
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1990
The acoustic eclectic appreciates purists, but wouldn't want to be one ...
Last Exit: Johnny D's Uptown Lounge, Sommerville MA
Live Review by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, April 1990
Love at First Sight ...
Rush: Screwing Up Pop — On Purpose
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, April 1990
RUSH MAY BE the only band on earth to have made "fear of boredom" a primary musical motivation. Needless to say, they don't put it ...
John Cale, Lou Reed: Lou Reed and John Cale: Songs for Drella (Warner Bros.)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, May 1990
Forty-five Minutes of Fame — Reed and Cale Build Warhol a Velvet Coffin ...
That Petrol Emotion: Chemicrazy (Virgin)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, May 1990
MAYBE OLD-fashioned guitar bands will follow dinosaurs and vinyl into extinction one of these days. In the meantime, give thanks for That Petrol Emotion, who've ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, June 1990
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON occupies an unusual place among American songwriters. His songs have been covered by such legends as his inspiration Bob Dylan ('They Killed Him'), ...
Soul II Soul: Jazzie B Keeps On Movin'
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, June 1990
JAZZIE B SAT near one corner of the crowded North Hollywood sound studio, watching the musicians casually file into the room and take their places ...
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band: The New Orleans Album (Columbia)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, June 1990
I KNOW this is supposed to be jolly listening — and much of it is — but there's something about records like this that taps ...
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, July 1990
BOB CLEARMOUNTAIN exudes a calm, deliberate air as he moves around the cluttered interior of a recording truck parked outside L.A.'s Universal Amphitheatre. Politely negotiating ...
Phil Collins, Genesis: Front Man: Phil Collins
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1990
IN A REVIEW of Phil Collins' latest album, ...But Seriously, J.D. Considine wrote that Phil was more fun when he was frivolous. That's where Phil ...
Howard Hewett: Howard Hewett (Brian)
Review by Amy Linden, Musician, July 1990
HOWARD HEWETT was the lead singer in the dance/pop trio Shalamar, whose femme fatale, Jody Watley, has since become the much bigger star. It would ...
Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam/Columbia)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, July 1990
Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution — Public Enemy Gets Tough ...
Anita Baker: Compositions (Elektra Entertainment)
Review by James Hunter, Musician, August 1990
FOUR YEARS ago, Anita Baker quietly stormed the pop music charts with Rapture, a reclamation of jazz-soul balladry driven by acoustic resonances and Baker's forthright ...
Billy Idol: Front Man: Billy Idol
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1990
I KNOW you're still in rehab [note: Idol's left leg was severely injured in a motorcycle accident several months ago]. But with Charmed Life flying ...
Retrospective by Paul Nelson, Musician, October 1990
It takes a tough hopper to be cool ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Ragged Glory (Reprise)
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, October 1990
The Force of the Horse: Neil Young & Crazy Horse Triumphant ...
Steve Earle Does It the Hard Way
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, October 1990
DRIVING WEST out of Nashville on a summer afternoon the hills look green and lazy, a deceptively pastoral view. "This is a poor county," Steve ...
J.J. Cale: 6 Weeks On, 46 Off: J.J. Cale's Got it Made
Interview by Dave DiMartino, Musician, November 1990
"ALL MY records are kind of in a demo state," says the elusive J.J. Cale, typically self-effacing, in the L.A. office of BMG Records one ...
MC5: After the Revolution: the Legacy of the MC5
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Marsh, Musician, November 1990
SOMEWHERE THERE exists an alternate universe in which the MC5 became the biggest band in history — bigger than the Beatles (their ambition), bigger than ...
ZZ Top: Front Man: Billy Gibbons
Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, November 1990
DID YOU ever play with Stevie Ray? Of course. [ZZ Top's] Frank and Dusty grew up with him in Dallas, and just this morning we ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Van Zant: Johnny Van Zant: It's A Family Affair
Interview by Jon Young, Musician, November 1990
Johnny Van Zant grabs the spotlight with a walk down Brickyard Road ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Lost and Found and Lost Again: Stevie Ray Vaughan 1954-1990
Retrospective by Tony Scherman, Musician, November 1990
"STEVIE WAS on it. Playin' great, kickin' butt," says Robert Cray, and when Double Trouble was done, everybody — the Vaughan brothers, Cray, Buddy Guy ...
Marc Ribot: Master of the Sideways Guitar
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, November 1990
The odd man in is proud of his mistakes ...
Mazzy Star: Hermit Meets Introvert
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, November 1990
WHEN SONGWRITER/guitarist David Roback met Hope Sandoval, he recalls that "she was one of those people who hang around in the shadowed corners of a ...
Live Review by Gene Santoro, Musician, November 1990
Still Ethnic After All These Years ...
The Replacements: All Shook Down (Reprise/Sire)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, November 1990
THE REPLACEMENTS' first two major-label albums after establishing themselves as an indie/cult/critics success — Tim ('85) and Pleased to Meet Me ('87) — contained no ...
Victoria Williams: Swing the Statue! (Rough Trade)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, November 1990
ECCENTRIC AND proud, Victoria Williams could be a cross between Tom Waits and Natalie Merchant. Or maybe Jonathan Richman and Kate Bush. Anyway, Swing the ...
Traveling Wilburys: Bert and Ernie Fill in for Lefty: Traveling Wilburys - Vol. 3
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, December 1990
THEY SAY YOUR PERSPECTIVE changes when you’ve got a kid, and since little Mikey hit the one year mark at our house, I’ve been listening ...
Carlos Santana: Finding Melody in Rhythm
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, December 1990
Quick pick tricks and global licks ...
Report and Interview by Robert Gordon, Musician, December 1990
WHO Little Richard WHERE Macon, Georgia WHEN September 23, 1990 ...
Guns N' Roses: Slash: Appetite for Reconstruction
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1990
Access to Excess with Guns N' Roses' Slash ...
Carl Stalling: The Carl Stalling Project: Music from Warner Bros. Cartoons 1936-1958
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, December 1990
MOST PEOPLE have probably never heard of the late Carl W. Stalling, but they've undoubtedly heard his music. As the chief composer for cartoons at ...
Talking Heads, Bernie Worrell: Bernie Worrell: Aspects of the Funk
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, February 1991
Jamming with keyboardist extraordinaire Bernie Worrell ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Neil Young: Ragged But Right
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, February 1991
RIGHT THIS minute out here on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the future of gutbucket rock stands in some question. ...
Danny Gatton: Picking Danny Gatton's Brain
Interview by Gene Santoro, Musician, February 1991
Some of the tricks that make the world's greatest unknown guitarist great ...
Interview by Jon Young, Musician, February 1991
The brothers Robinson work it out ...
Report by Fred Goodman, Musician, February 1991
Did all that wheeling and dealing in the '80s doom the music industry? ...
Elvis Costello, Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: Jerry Garcia and Elvis Costello: Strange Bedfellows
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, March 1991
AS EVERYONE knows, Grateful Dead fans come in all sorts and sizes — including one Elvis Costello. And so, when Musician got the idea of ...
Patrice Rushen: The Lady Plays a Vamp
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, March 1991
Keyboard wizard Patrice Rushen unravels jazz improvisation ...
Charles Brown: Jazzin' the Blues with Charles Brown
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, April 1991
Sneaking something extra between those three chords ...
James Brown, Bootsy Collins, Funkadelic: Bootsy Collins Effects the Funk
Interview by Gene Santoro, Musician, May 1991
Scouting bass hyperspace, speaking without words ...
Fishbone Swims Upstream To Spawn Its Punk-Funk Hybrid
Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, May 1991
IT'S ONLY a rehearsal in a warehouse in a desolate section of downtown L.A. ...
Nikki D, Yo Yo: Yo-Yo and Nikki D: Bum Rush the Locker Room
Interview by Evelyn McDonnell, Musician, May 1991
Yo-Yo and Nikki D turn the turntables on sexist homies ...
Tony Williams Reinvents Himself
Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, June 1991
Can't stop worrying, can't stop growing. The world's best drummer turns to composing. ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1991
THE 'NICK OF Time' baby has arrived. "Everyone thought I was singing that song about me," Bonnie Raitt is saying. "But it was happening to ...
De La Soul: De La Soul Is Dead (Tommy Boy)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, July 1991
De La Soul's Serious Fun ...
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, July 1991
Keyboard giant tells how it all started and how it all works ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1991
Guilty pleasures are the best kind ...
Aaron Neville: Warm Your Heart (A&M)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, August 1991
WITH HIS brothers and on his own, Aaron Neville has been involved with some truly fine records. But it's also true that he recently reached ...
EMF: Naughty Neophytes of Noise
Interview by Mat Snow, Musician, August 1991
The thin line between accessibility and credibility ...
Ice-T: The Code of Many Colors
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1991
ON THE cover of Ice-T's new record, O.G. Original Gangster are two photos. In the first he's wearing a tuxedo, standing against a backdrop of ...
Review by Jon Young, Musician, September 1991
WHETHER YOU loathe him or merely despise him, Vanilla Ice has cast the entire rap scene in a new light. Now the likes of Heavy ...
Elvis Costello, Phil Spector: Larry Knechtel Emerges
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, September 1991
On Phil Spector, waltzing with Elvis Costello and "arm playing" ...
Tony Bennett: Forty Years — The Artistry of Tony Bennett (Columbia/legacy)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, September 1991
THERE'S NO ONE so cold as a cold Italian, the saying goes. And as this lovingly crafted, four-CD boxed set demonstrates, there's none so warm ...
Widespread Panic: Widespread Panic (Capricorn)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, October 1991
ITS SWELL that R.E.M. and the B-52's represent the enlightened New South. But don't you miss the backwards Old South, where hairy wild men who ...
Luther Vandross: Front Man: Luther Vandross
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1991
MARCUS MILLER said it was amazing how clearly you conceive your recordings, that not only would you know how you'd want a harmony part voiced, ...
Neil Young: Frontman: Neil Young
Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, December 1991
WHAT'S THE best way for you to write? I pick up things from people on the streets, in airports, at parties. The night before last ...
Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, December 1991
Before Storyville, before the Band, a Toronto street punk headed down the Crazy River. ...
Report by Fred Goodman, Musician, January 1992
"IN MARCH of 1985 the band was broke. People were selling their houses. The IRS was calling every day." ...
Earl Palmer the Rhythm Bomber, the Funk Machine from New Orleans
Retrospective and Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, January 1992
From Bessie Smith to Elvis Costello, the Amazing Life and Perfect Time of a Great Rock 'n' Roll Pioneer ...
Motley Crüe's Piece of the Action
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1992
WHAT A difference a decade makes. "When we started," Motley Crüe singer Vince Neil recalls, "we were so naive about the business that our first ...
Ice Cube, Bill Laswell, N.W.A, Public Enemy: Fear of a Rap Planet
Report and Interview by J.D. Considine, Alan di Perna, Musician, February 1992
The biggest style of the last decade has a problem with attitudes. By J.D. Considine ...
Cowboy Junkies: Black Eyed Man (RCA)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, March 1992
THE NAME Cowboy Junkies suggests an addiction to an attitude, and the nodded-out, muted quality of their music — everything, including the drums, Margo Timmins' ...
Review by James Hunter, Musician, March 1992
SINCE 1987, Keith Sweat has exhibited the grip and attitude of a classic soul singer, rather than a conventionally powerful voice. He and frequent collaborator ...
Steve Forbert: The American in Me (Geffen)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, March 1992
HE HAS seen the best minds of his generation, ripped by recession and crunched by credit rates, run screaming from the country club of life. ...
Willis Alan Ramsey: A Perfect Ending to a 20-year Vacation
Profile and Interview by Tom Graves, Musician, March 1992
AT THE END of Willis Alan Ramsey's only album, a self-titled 1972 Shelter release, the song 'Northeast Texas Woman' fades to studio chatter, and the ...
The Beatles, The Byrds, Cream, The Rolling Stones: What's In A Name?
Essay by John Mendelssohn, Musician, April 1992
Band names have mirrored the aspirations and excesses of the times. A definitive field guide to the epic trends and gonzo greats of rock nomenclature. ...
Charlie Rich: Building Better Bridges: Charlie Rich in jazz country
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, May 1992
"NOW YOU play the bridge for me." ...
Interview by Tony Scherman, Musician, May 1992
The bedroom secrets of a drummer's hands ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain: Honey's Dead (Def American)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, May 1992
EVER SINCE the J & M brothers — Jim Reid, vocals; William Reid, guitar — shaded down the obliterating blasts of white noise which made ...
Report and Interview by Paul Zollo, Musician, May 1992
"IT ALL COMES from the centre," she says, pointing to her navel. Tori Amos is explaining where her songs are conceived. "It's like a constant ...
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, June 1992
VISITING REHEARSALS FOR A STADIUM TOUR ...
Live Review by Fred Goodman, Musician, June 1992
INXS in Australia ...
Lush, Ride: Lush: Spooky (4AD/Reprise); Ride: Going Blank Again (Reprise)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, June 1992
VISIONARY ART or nouvelle junk food? Perfect masters of evocative soundscapes, Britain's Lush and Ride can create a mood quicker than you can dim the ...
Miles Davis, Easy Mo Bee: Miles Davis with Easy Mo Bee: Doo-Bop (Warner Bros.)
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, June 1992
THE RAP ON MILES ...
Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels: Mitch Ryder in the Middle of Nowhere
Report and Interview by Fred Goodman, Musician, June 1992
FOR MOST MUSICIANS, TOURING IS A THOUSAND MILES AWAY FROM LIMOS AND STADIUMS. ...
Bob Dylan: Pantages Theatre, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1992
THE UNITED States may be too vast a place for any one person to hold the title of greatest living songwriter. So let's be fair ...
Lindsey Buckingham: The Speed of Sound
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, August 1992
Lindsey Buckingham gets tight with tone ...
Bill Nelson, Robert Wyatt: Robert Wyatt & Bill Nelson: Tough Guys Don't Dance
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, August 1992
Bill Nelson meets Robert Wyatt. For 20 years they've bucked the system and made music at the edge of rock. Two vets discuss the never-ending ...
Jerry Donahue: Taking Tele 'Round The Bend
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, September 1992
THE BRASS NUTS OF A COUNTRY FIREBALL ...
Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience (A&M)
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, October 1992
SO NEW MISERABLE Experience was recorded at Memphis' Ardent Studios, where Big Star made their three minuscule-selling albums 20 years ago — and, as the ...
Hal Willner: Alone in the Dark
Interview by Gene Santoro, Musician, October 1992
SIXTY YEARS ago the Marx Brothers shot Animal Crackers in Astoria, at Paramount's East Coast studios. Last spring, Master Sound Studio, part of that now-refurbished ...
10,000 Maniacs, Robyn Hitchcock, The Sugarcubes, XTC: Paul Fox: College Rock Wizard
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, October 1992
PRODUCER PAUL Fox came up as a keyboard player in the skinny-tie era. "When I first moved to L.A., there was a big banner on ...
Review by Jon Young, Musician, October 1992
ENGLAND'S BRAND New Heavies may be an ordinary soul-funk combo, but that hasn't stopped enterprising A&R types from gettin' busy. For their debut album, somebody ...
Tom Waits: Bone Machine (Island)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, October 1992
VULTURES AT THE DINER ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1993
LET'S BEGIN with Ice-T'S Top Seven reasons for pulling 'Cop Killer' off the shelves: ...
Interview by Jon Young, Musician, January 1993
"I DIDN'T KNOW what to expect," says Mariah Carey, recalling the taping of her Unplugged special for MTV last March. "I wasn't originally planning on ...
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy: Michael Franti: Hero of Hiphoprisy
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1993
"ONE THING I try to do when I perform a song is go back to where I was in my mind when I wrote it," ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, January 1993
THE CORRECT ROCK 'N' ROLL ANSWER to society's "What are you rebelling against?" has always been Brando's "Whaddya got?" In this regard, Black Crowes frontman ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1993
NOT LONG ago, Tom Waits and his family uprooted from Los Angeles, his home for many years, and moved up the coast to the quieter, ...
Blues Traveler: Paramount Theatre, NYC
Live Review by Mike Mettler, Musician, February 1993
FOR BLUES TRAVELER, 1992 was a year to forget. An eager, improv-hungry, neo-retro band that long ago dubbed their endless cross-country trekking "On Tour Forever," ...
Review by Jon Young, Musician, February 1993
IN THE WAKE of the Rodney King verdict and the Los Angeles riots, Ice Cube can take grim satisfaction in seeing his harrowing rhymes validated ...
James, Soup Dragons: The Soup Dragons and James Tour America Together
Report and Interview by Paul Zollo, Musician, February 1993
"OUR GREATEST ambition is to play on the NASA Space Station," says Sean Dickson, songwriter and singer of the Soup Dragons. "We want to be ...
Annie Lennox, Eurythmics: Annie Lennox: Front Woman
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, March 1993
CONGRATULATIONS ON your Grammy nominations. Are you making any bets on how you'll do? ...
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, April 1993
"WE'VE HAD a joke going recently," Aimee Mann says, "that the new album has three themes: despair, defeat and revenge." ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Musician, April 1993
BASS LOVERS of the world, this one's for you. Every track on Stain, Living Colour's third record, is a journey to the deepest ends of ...
Paul McCartney: Docklands Arena, London
Live Review by Jon Young, Musician, April 1993
"THE WEEKEND starts here," beamed a well-preserved Paul McCartney, surveying the friendly crowd at London's Docklands Arena one dank Friday night in February. Say what ...
R.E.M., Neil Young: The Men on the Harvest Moon: Young-Buck!
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, April 1993
OUTSIDE THE sky was dark and the rain was falling hard. But the pre-concert scene congealing toward the rear of Universal Studios stage 12 was ...
Dinosaur Jr: J Mascis' Big Step
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, June 1993
WHEN DINOSAUR JR comes to your town, get ready for a unique event: the Dance of the 17 Footswitches. ...
Dwight Yoakam: This Time (Reprise)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, June 1993
DWIGHT YOAKAM made his mark as a new traditionalist country singer — vocally a natural, with the stoic throb and nasal soulfulness to give life ...
Guru: Jazzmatazz Volume One (Chrysalis)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, June 1993
"IT WAS INDEED a privilege and a blessing to have worked on this project with such amazing people." Eastwood at the Oscars? Clapton on Grammy ...
Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, June 1993
IF PEOPLE get the governments they deserve, as the saying goes, they probably get the pop stars they deserve as well. It's a humbling angle ...
Interview by Fred Goodman, Musician, June 1993
Hands-off from Muscle Shoals to Stax to New York City ...
fIREHOSE, Mike Watt: Mike Watt's Violent Extremes
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, June 1993
Free your bass and your mind will follow ...
Paul Westerberg: 14 Songs (Sire/Warner Bros.)
Review by Roy Trakin, Musician, June 1993
STRIPPED-DOWN WESTERBERG ...
Interview by Jon Young, Musician, June 1993
"THE TITLE is sarcastic," says Prince Be softly. "On the first record, we tried to show bliss by example, through utopianism. This time we tried ...
Report by Bruce Pollock, Musician, July 1993
FOR A band at the top of the local ladder, it's the best of times and the worst of times. It's when the answer from ...
The 10 Most Indefensible Recording Contract Provisions
Overview by Fred Goodman, Musician, July 1993
A man labors and fumes for a whole year to write a symphony in G minor. He puts enormous diligence into it, and much talent, ...
Victoria Williams' Sweet Visions
Profile by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1993
VICTORIA WILLIAMS resides on the second story of a rustic, wood-framed house, with a back porch that overlooks a sloping garden full of giant chard ...
Joni Mitchell at Troubadours of Folk Festival: Drake Stadium, UCLA
Live Review by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1993
FOR HER FIRST public performance in several years, Joni Mitchell found a way to affirm her spiritual ties to the folk music community whence she ...
Daniel Lanois: The Book of Daniel
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, September 1993
Dan Lanois The Musician Eclipses Lanois The Producer ...
Fishbone: Five-string Freestyle: Fishbone's Norwood Fisher
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, September 1993
AS A KID in the '70s, John Norwood Fisher listened intently to Funkadelic's Billy Bass and Aston "Family Man" Barrett from Bob Marley's band. Rather ...
Interview by Evelyn McDonnell, Musician, September 1993
STROLL INTO the Dayton, Ohio, house shared by twins Kim and Kelley Deal on a muggy summer afternoon and step over a clutter of CDs, ...
The Faces, Ian McLagan: Ian McLagan: Face the Face
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, October 1993
On the finer points of three-chord karate ...
Nirvana: Territorial Pissings: The Battles Behind Nirvana's New Album
Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Musician, October 1993
KURT COBAIN has found that being a professional rock musician is not quite what he imagined when he was banging out his raunchy punk rock ...
Counting Crows: Music From Big Orange
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1993
COUNTING CROWS SOWS SEEDS OF ROMANCE IN A WINTER OF DISCONTENT ...
George Clinton: Hey Man, Smell My Finger (Paisley Park)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, November 1993
BEING THE mad Messiah of Funk and all, George Clinton could easily coast on his rep. Instead he's come up with the best album of ...
Kate Bush: The Red Shoes (Columbia)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, November 1993
IF YOU'VE pegged Kate Bush as a dreamy cosmic spirit, don't miss the climax of The Red Shoes, where the stunning 'You're the One' renews ...
Tony! Toni! Tone!: Hitting the Wonder button with Soul's Hottest Retro Pioneers
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Musician, November 1993
"WE GOT one little trick we use when we're making records," says Tim Christian Riley. Tim and his cousins Dwayne and Raphael Wiggins comprise the ...
Hole: Live Through This (Geffen)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, 1994
"JUST YOU try to hold me down/Come on, try to shut me up," snarls Courtney Love near the end of Live Through This, hurling a ...
Alvin Lee, Blodwyn Pig, Robin Trower: Is There Life After Rock Guitar Godhead?
Overview by Roy Trakin, Musician, 1994
ALVIN LEE HAD reached the pinnacle of rock guitardom. Of course, by the time Woodstock was over, his "I'm Going Home... by helicopter" histrionics would ...
Dr. Dre, Snoop (Doggy) Dogg: Dr. Dre On How To Make An Album Doggystyle
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1994
DR. DRE ISN'T a good advertisement for music school. "With all these players out here, why should I waste this much time learning how to ...
Guns N' Roses: Frontman: Slash
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, February 1994
WHAT HAVE you been doing since The Spaghetti Incident? ...
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, February 1994
Collapsing stages in Japan! Elephant farts in Vegas! Eskimo shows in Alaska! A Survey of Abominable Venues and Disastrous Shows! ...
Angela Winbush's Old and New Style
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, March 1994
"NON-AESTHETIC records that sound like carbon copies of another." ...
Kate Bush: Frontwoman: Kate Bush
Interview by Jon Young, Musician, March 1994
THE DEDICATION of the album to your mother and songs like 'Moments of Pleasure' lend a strong sense of loss to The Red Shoes. ...
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, April 1994
ANYONE WHO thinks these aren't weird times in the music biz should consider the case of 23-year-old Beck, who is, according to Billboard, "at the ...
Bonnie Raitt: Frontwoman: Bonnie Raitt
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, April 1994
FOR YOU, how does Longing in Their Hearts differ or break new ground from Nick of Time and Luck of the Draw? ...
Grant Lee Buffalo: Born of Oblivion, Bound for Glory
Interview by Paul Zollo, Musician, April 1994
GRANT LEE Buffalo is three: singer/guitarist Grant Lee Phillips, drummer Joey Peters and Paul Kimble on bass. Its evident, after only moments with the band, ...
Report by Alan di Perna, Musician, June 1994
MUSIC, OF course, has always been interactive. People dance to it, make love to it, sing along with the lyrics and figure out the chord ...
Report by Fred Goodman, Musician, June 1994
FOUR BIG RECORD COMPANIES WANT A VIDEO CHANNEL OF THEIR OWN ...
Arrested Development: Speech: "Sampling is like picking up a spirit."
Interview by Jon Young, Musician, June 1994
SECOND ALBUMS are traditionally harder to make than first ones. Was that true for Arrested Development with Zingalamaduni? ...
John Fogerty, Randy Newman, Prince: Lenny Waronker: All In The Family
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, July 1994
Warner Brothers President Lenny Waronker is not your Average Corporate Cheese ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, August 1994
From Get Back to Backbeat Glyn Johns and Don Was Have Produced a Rock 'n'Roll Hall of Fame. ...
Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh: Dinosaur Jr.: Without a Sound (Sire/Reprise); Sebadoh: Bakesale (Sub Pop)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, September 1994
DINOSAUR JR.'S evolution into the J. Mascis show is now pretty much complete, with the drawling troubadour doing all the singing and playing on this ...
Luscious Jackson: Natural Ingredients (Grand Royal)
Review by Deborah Frost, Musician, September 1994
IF BLONDIE had met the Beastie Boys, Deborah Harry might still be the leader of the pack. And Natural Ingredients may be almost preternaturally accessible ...
Sheryl Crow: The Education of Sheryl Crow
Interview by Dave DiMartino, Musician, September 1994
The long strange trip of an overnight success ...
Bill Monroe: "Well, some fellers didn't know much to start with."
Interview by Dave Marsh, Musician, October 1994
IT'S NOT every day that I get to talk to somebody who invented a whole style of music. When you developed what became bluegrass, was ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Musician, October 1994
IF EXILE IN GUYVILLE was Liz Phair's response to Exile on Main Street, Whip-Smart may well be her answer to Smell the Glove. As if ...
Neil Young: Sleeps With Angels
Review by Bill Holdship, Musician, October 1994
IT'S A LITTLE LIKE San Francisco weather: If you don't care for Neil Young's musical style at any given moment, wait a while and it'll ...
Report by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1995
IN 1994 PEARL Jam showed they weren't just the biggest band in America, they were the most revolutionary. Now that's a combination we haven't seen ...
Review by John Mendelsohn, Musician, March 1995
LISTENING TO this predominantly gloomy album, it's easy to forget that, at his best – in 'Over You', say, or 'More Than This', Bryan Ferry ...
Sleeping With The Enemy: When Musicians Become Record Executives
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, March 1995
YOU WOULD think Gary Lemel is one of the luckiest guys around. As President of Music for Warner Bros, films, he gets to pal around ...
Throwing Muses: University (Sire/Reprise)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, March 1995
KRISTIN HERSH may envy the commercial inroads made by Belly and the Breeders, but she'd never let it show. Having helped pave the way for ...
Vanessa Williams: The Sweetest Days (Wing/Mercury)
Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, March 1995
VANESSA WILLIAMS' career has been marked by a series of noteworthy precedents — as the first black woman to be named Miss America, as the ...
Des'ree: Hitting the Unexpected Note
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Musician, May 1995
AT A TIME WHEN British pop is struggling to make inroads into the American charts, the stateside success of a South London girl named Des'ree ...
Report by Alan di Perna, Musician, May 1995
IN JANUARY OF 1992, singer Vince Neil appeared on the cover of this magazine, lighting a cigar with a thousand-dollar bill. His band, Mötley Crüe, ...
Merle Haggard: Frontman: Merle Haggard
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, September 1995
YOU'VE BEEN the subject of two recent tribute records, Mama's Hungry Eyes and Tulare Dust. What was your reaction to hearing them? ...
The Last Poets, Bill Laswell: The Last Poets: Bill Laswell on how to Produce A Holy Terror
Interview by J.D. Considine, Musician, September 1995
USUALLY, THE relationship between words and music on a recording puts the music first and the words second. But when Bill Laswell began work on ...
Meat Puppets: Arizona Dreams: The Parallel World of the Meat Puppets
Interview by Dave DiMartino, Musician, November 1995
FLASHBACK, 1994: It's mid-morning in Vancouver, and the sun shines brightly over the crisp, clear October sky. Not that you'd notice, if you were Curt ...
David Bowie, Brian Eno: David Bowie & Brian Eno: The Outside Story
Interview by Mac Randall, Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1995
DAVID BOWIE AND BRIAN ENO EXPLAIN IT ALL FOR YOU — by Mark Rowland ...
Elvis Costello, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Why Are Records Too Long?
Report by Roy Trakin, Musician, November 1995
And other odd twists of the CD revolution. ...
The Velvet Underground: Sterling Morrison, 1942-1995
Obituary by Bill Bentley, Musician, December 1995
STERLING MORRISON was one of the prime architects of modern rock 'n' roll, and very few people know it. As guitarist — with Lou Reed ...
Sonic Youth: The Importance of being Sonic Youth
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, December 1995
Sonic Youth take the Lollapalooza caravan to The Zone ...
Cypress Hill: Very Sane in the Brain
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1996
Cypress Hill survives the rap race ...
The Third Invasion: Britpop Strikes!
Overview by Barney Hoskyns, Musician, July 1996
"Oasis must die. Do not buy Oasis records. They will come to rape and pillage our women and invade America."(Courtney Love on the Net, early ...
Elvis Costello: All This Useless Beauty (Warner Bros.)
Review by Dave DiMartino, Musician, 1 July 1996
IT'S EASY to get lost within the sheer bulk of Elvis Costello's work – particularly since most of it, from 1977's My Aim Is ...
Meshell Ndegeocello: Me'Shell Ndegéocello: Peace Beyond Passion (Maverick/Reprise)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, August 1996
FUNK OUGHT to be its own reward, but Me'Shell Ndegéocello isn't buying that right now. Perhaps embarrassed by the commercial success of John Mellencamp's rollicking ...
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, October 1996
TWO HOURS north of San Francisco, you can drive a country road that snakes past a redwood grove, into a driveway that curls around a ...
Harlan Howard: How I Wrote All Those Songs by Harlan Howard
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1996
"I HIT NASHVILLE with the greatest bunch of guys — Roger Miller, Bill Anderson, Willie Nelson. We were hanging together every night at Tootsies, playing ...
Amy Rigby: Diary of a Mod Housewife (Koch)
Review by Jon Young, Musician, December 1996
IN THE LINER notes to her inspired study of relationship hell, Amy Rigby describes a mod housewife as "a woman being dragged kicking and screaming ...
Beck, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Beck meets Petty
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1997
Rockin', Writin', Survivin' in L.A. ...
Evan Dando, The Lemonheads: Evan Dando's New Traditionalism
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, January 1997
A Lemonhead's Personal History of Song ...
Iris DeMent: Frontwoman: Iris DeMent
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, January 1997
YOUR LAST record, My Life, was centered around the death of your father and felt very introspective. On The Way I Should, you address themes ...
Pavement: Brighten the Corners (Matador)
Review by Mac Randall, Musician, April 1997
INDIE CRED. It's tough to acquire, but it's even harder to hang onto. Take the case of Pavement, a band boasting a distinctive guitar-based sound ...
Essay by Mark Dery, Musician, August 1997
Will concert and club dates survive in the Internet age? ...
Radiohead: Radiohead Get The Details
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, September 1997
On tour in Spain with five musicians for whom the little things mean a lot ...
The Rolling Stones Chase The Voodoo Down
Report and Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Musician, October 1997
"MY WHOLE behavior with the Rolling Stones is governed by my first encounter with Keith," recalls Don Was. "He sent me a fax before we ...
fIREHOSE, The Minutemen, Mike Watt: Sideman: Mike Watt
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1997
ALTHOUGH YOU'VE really been the leader on most of your band projects since the Minutemen, playing bass almost connotes the term "sideman." ...
Steve Earle: El Corazon (E-Squared/Warner Bros.)
Review and Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, December 1997
Slice of Life ...
Bernie Taupin, Elton John: Bernie Taupin
Interview by Paul Zollo, Musician, January 1998
AS ELTON John's lyricist for three decades, Bernie Taupin is one of the most famous British songwriters of all time. ...
Pat Metheny Keeps the Story Going
Interview by Mac Randall, Musician, February 1998
A Master of Improv Stresses the Importance of Narrative ...
Interview by Dave Marsh, Musician, April 1998
ROCK BANDS ARE like families on the Tolstoyan model. The happy ones are exactly the same (perhaps because they're nonexistent?) while the unhappy ones are ...
Marc Ribot: Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans) (Atlantic)
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, October 1998
THE LAST time I saw Marc Ribot he was screaming into a microphone as his amplifier bled feedback, veins popping from his neck like battleship ...
Mark Lanegan: Scraps at Midnight (Sub Pop)
Review by Mac Randall, Musician, October 1998
THINK BROWN. Brown clouds of dust hanging on the horizon. Big brown rocks catching the last rays at sunset. Warm brown whiskey in a hip ...
Counting Crows, Natalie Imbruglia: Singing in the Rain
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, November 1998
Reflections on singing, with Natalie Imbruglia and Counting Crows' Adam Duritz. ...
Review by Mac Randall, Musician, January 1999
THIRTY-TWO years ago, Bob Dylan got into a little disagreement with his audience during a tour of England. A lot of his English fans at ...
Review and Interview by Jon Young, Musician, January 1999
YOU PROBABLY think you've got P.M. Dawn figured out. After all, the lush melodies, intricate production, and cosmic sentiments expressed by Prince Be's brooding vocals ...
Freedy Johnston learns to let go
Interview by Mark Rowland, Musician, April 1999
FREEDY JOHNSTON has this complicated relationship with control. He wants it over his music, for all the right reasons, but he knows from experience that ...
Janis Ian, Stan Ridgway: Songwriting: Sex and Memory
Interview by Paul Zollo, Musician, April 1999
Janis Ian and Stan Ridgway discuss the changing role of gender in modern lyrics. ...
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