R2/Rock'n'Reel
R2 is a music magazine published bi-monthly in the United Kingdom. It was launched in 1988 as Rock'n'Reel, changing its name to R2 in early 2009. It covers a broad base of music, from the mainstream to the fringes of roots, rock, folk, singer-songwriter, blues, world, country and beyond.
83 articles
List of articles in the library
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2007
WHATEVER YOU think you know about Joe Brown, forget it. ...
Blood, Sweat & Tears, Al Kooper: Al Kooper: The Blood, The Sweat And The Tears
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, February 2007
"...ALMOST NO one alive has lived as much rock 'n' roll history as Mr. Kooper in his assorted lives as performer, producer, sideman, songwriter, author, ...
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2007
"WHEN THE wrecking ball of success whacks you," reckons Fran Healy of Travis, "your life goes in fifty directions at once. We had to stop ...
Fionn Regan: History Lesson: Fionn Regan
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2007
THE PRETENDERS and the one-trick-ponies are always found out in the end. The procession of new Dylans has been relentless – and mostly underwhelming – ...
Ben Taylor: Sons and lovers: Ben Taylor
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, October 2007
David Burke talks to Ben Taylor about his dislike of folk music and his plans to shake it up a bit. And then there's the ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2007
AIMEE MANN reckons she could take Bob Dylan in a boxing bout. It would be a close run thing but age and height advantage would, ...
Damien Dempsey: Dublin Boy: Damien Dempsey
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2007
Damien Dempsey has a few things he wants to get off his chest and finds a willing listener in David Burke. ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2007
TOM WAITS owes it all to his wife, Kathleen Brennan. The one-time raggedy man and barfly, a sartorial amalgam of Frank Sinatra's Capitol covers, Be-Bop ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2007
THE SONG 'Bound' on Suzanne Vega's quite brilliant new album, Beauty & Crime, finds her wondering "if you might still want me". ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, 2008
The artist formally known as Mink demonstrates a direct and colourful use of language as he discusses his rich and varied career with David Burke. ...
Julie Fowlis: Gael Force: Julie Fowlis
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2008
JULIE FOWLIS spends a lot of time singing to people who, on the whole, haven't got a clue what she's singing about. But it makes ...
Joan Armatrading: Joan As Blueswoman
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2008
EARLIER THIS YEAR a new album by one of Britain's most enduring singer-songwriters debuted at the top of Billboard magazine's blues chart in the United ...
The Clancy Brothers: Liam Clancy: The Last Man Standing
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2008
JOHNNY CASH TOOK Trent Reznor's 'Hurt', a lacerating hymn about heroin addiction, and recast it as a profound meditation on his own mortality. But equally ...
Lambchop: Damage Control: Lambchop's Kurt Wagner
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2008
LAMBCHOP DEVOTEES can rest easy: despite frontman Kurt Wagner's solo tour of Europe last autumn, the Nashville collective have not made their last elegantly sombre ...
Joe Jackson: Still Looking Sharp
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2008
David Burke catches a rare sighting of pop music's invisible man. ...
American Music Club: The Golden Age of American Music Club
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2008
MARK EITZEL sounds very chipper – not at all the lugubrious character that comes across in his songs. With the release of American Music Club's ...
Bruce Springsteen: E Street shuffle: Bruce Springsteen
Retrospective by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2008
The Boss is coming to town! David Burke looks at the career and impact of the man whose been described as "the Steinbeck of rock'n'roll". ...
Pop Staples, The Staple Singers: Freedom Song
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2008
David Burke talks to the indefatigable Mavis Staples ...
Joan Osborne: Between the Covers
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2008
SOME ARTISTS are indelibly associated with one piece of work their whole lives. What once was a gift in terms of eliciting public acceptance can ...
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, June 2008
ONE THING Eric Anderson likes to make very clear is that he is not a folk singer. ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2008
MARK OLIVER EVERETT, alias E, alias Eels, is a respectful though reserved interviewee. ...
Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, August 2008
All my life I've thought of you as Scottish but you were actually born in England weren't you? ...
John Martyn: Still Wide-Eyed and Increasingly Legless
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2008
INTERVIEWS ARE like minefields. Amidst the chummy showbiz chat, there's almost invariably at least one potential hair-trigger moment when someone like me has to ask ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2008
Singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier was something of a late starter – but once she picked up that pen she certainly had plenty to write about. Having ...
John Hiatt: Tune-up: John Hiatt
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2008
JOHN HIATT WAS a complete fuck-up. The year was 1984 and his addiction to booze and cocaine induced what he referred to as "a semi-blackout ...
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan: Dishing the Dirt: Isobel Campbell
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, December 2008
ISOBEL CAMPBELL has just killed a bluebottle, a crime of muscacide for which she carries absolutely no remorse. ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2009
In a frank conversation, Jackie Leven recalls his difficult early years, his experience with heroin, and how he can come up with four albums a ...
Mary Black: There's something about Mary Black
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2009
MARY BLACK wouldn't class herself as a dreamer, even though she's realised a few dreams others of us have maybe harboured. Playing London's Royal Albert ...
The Handsome Family: Handsome is as Handsome does
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, August 2009
WHAT DO YOU GET when you cross the Platters with 19th century Romanticism? Why, the new album from the Handsome Family, of course. ...
Dolores O'Riordan: Travelling Light
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2009
Dolores O'Riordan, former singer with the Cranberries, tells David Burke of her journey close to the edge during those heady days of pop stardom, and ...
Sinead O'Connor: Faith and Courage
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2009
TRUTH WILL always out in the end. And the truth-sayers will be vindicated where once they were vilified. ...
Ruby Turner: The Gospel according to Ruby
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, October 2009
"THEY CAN KEEP their big record deals. Gone are the days when I'm going to be told what to do. I can go to bed ...
David Gray: "I was ready to throw off the past"
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2009
YOU'D THINK having three number one UK albums and two that charted in the US top 20, not to mention the biggest selling Irish album ...
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2009
DESPITE ALL HER best efforts to stick a spike in the wheel of success, Laura Marling is fast-becoming the most talked-about young singer-songwriter of recent ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2009
DAMN THAT Lyle Lovett, he sure is one elegant gent. While this R2 writer, in a Prada or Armani suit, would look plain guilty, Lovett ...
The Blues Band, Paul Jones, Manfred Mann: Paul Jones
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2009
SELDOM HAS the descriptive shorthand "long-awaited" been more apposite than in the case of Starting All Over Again, a rare Paul Jones solo album released ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2009
THERE COMES A time in every young man or woman's life when dad mounts the pulpit and delivers a homily on the kind of music ...
Rodrigo y Gabriela: Natural Acoustics: Rodrigo y Gabriela
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2010
YOU'D THINK a pair of former thrash-metal heads from Mexico City would have the kind of backstage rider that was a hedonistic Eden. Not a ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2010
HERE'S A MAD IDEA – Sharon Shannon as Ireland's next President, replacing Mary McAleese and thus maintaining the recent tradition (established with the appointment of ...
The Chieftains: Hail to the Chief: Paddy Moloney
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2010
Paddy Moloney talks to David Burke about the band's latest album, a collection highlighting a "forgotten" chapter in the history of neighbouring Mexico and America. ...
Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2010
"I DON'T OWN MANY THINGS," Laura Veirs tells me. "I'm not a things person." ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2010
WHEN Christian Koch wrote in The Guardian earlier this year that British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin was a big fan of "that most ...
Fionn Regan: Shadows and light
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2010
Fionn Regan has just released his much-anticipated second album. It was something of a long haul, as he explains to David Burke. ...
The Black Keys: The Ongoing Adventures Of Two Complete Knuckleheads
Interview by Johnny Black, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2010
"WE DIDN'T KNOW what the hell we were doing," laughs the Black Keys' frontman Dan Auerbach, in a not entirely successful attempt to sum up ...
Richmond Fontaine: Willy Vlautin: It's only rock'n'roll
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2010
Devotees of Richmond Fontaine can rest easy: frontman Willy Vlautin's burgeoning reputation as a novelist doesn't portend the demise of the Americana outfit – at ...
Corinne Bailey Rae : Corinne Bailey Rae: Faith, Hope And Charity
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2010
NOT EVERY do-gooding celebrity is like Bono, you know. There are those among the nouveau riche who'd rather eschew the kind of attention the U2 ...
Mary Chapin Carpenter: Modern Miracles: Mary Chapin Carpenter
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2010
Having successfully overcome a major health scare, and now with a UK tour imminent – her latest album finding favour with fans and critics alike, ...
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2010
"I ALWAYS COME off to cats like you as negative, but it's not that way. I'm just honest." Shelby Lynne's been explaining what it is ...
Steve Earle: Alive and Kicking: Steve Earle
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2011
STEVE EARLE IS, as his fellow Americans are wont to say, in a good place. "I'm pretty happy. I've got a new little boy, a ...
Courtney Pine: Common Cause: Courtney Pine is making all the right connections
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2011
IF THE JAZZ police, those self-appointed protectors of a genre that's about freedom of expression (the irony is obviously lost on them), didn't know what ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2011
IF I WERE TO tell you that Alison Krauss has won more Grammy Awards than any other female artist, and is third on the all-time ...
Gillian Welch: Air Miles: A Transatlantic Conversation with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, Fall 2011
MOBILE PHONES, don't you just hate them? I know that to most of the Earth's populace they're as essential as a limb these days, but ...
Lisa Hannigan: Companion Piece
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2012
David Burke spends a little time with Lisa Hannigan and hears how her latest solo album, Passenger, is an altogether more relaxed affair. ...
Nanci Griffith: Blue Moons and True Believers
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2012
About to make a welcome return to our concert halls and with a new album imminent, Nanci Griffith is in conversation with R2's David Burke. ...
Simone Felice: Beyond Thunderdome
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2012
Acclaimed singer-songwriter and sometime novelist Simone Felice talks life, love and near-death with fellow author – and R2 philosopher – David Burke. ...
Bonnie Raitt: Slipstream Effect: Bonnie Raitt
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, June 2012
IT'S BEEN A TOUGH seven years for Bonnie Raitt since the release of her last studio album, Souls Alike. She lost both her parents, Broadway ...
Carolina Chocolate Drops: Sweet Sounds: Rhiannon Giddens and Carolina Chocolate Drops
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, June 2012
RHIANNON GIDDENS'S birthday back in February was a bittersweet occasion. The Carolina Chocolate Drops co-founder-member's celebrations were tempered by her grief upon learning of the ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2012
His is a remarkable success story but, Seasick Steve tells David Burke, he takes nothing for granted ...
Declan Sinnott: All the right noises
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2012
Declan Sinnott's recently released solo record is cause for celebration, as David Burke reports. ...
Hurray for the Riff Raff: Protest and Survive
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2012
MUSIC AS AN instrument of change – remember that concept? It may seem a little naïve at a time when even the mighty have fallen ...
Alabama Shakes: Shakin' All Over: Alabama Shakes
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, Summer 2012
They've already created more buzz than a swarm of angry bees and, good news, they're returning to the UK later this year. Brittany Howard of ...
Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris: Old Friends, New Record: Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2013
It was a long time coming but, as Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell explain to David Burke, their new album together was all a matter ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2013
HUMILITY can be a deceptive character trait. Those who profess it are not always quite as humble as they seem. Like Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "He ...
Ron Sexsmith: A spoonful of sugar
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, September 2013
Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith's true-life confessions are easy to swallow, says David Burke. So why isn't he more widely prescribed? ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, November 2013
"PEOPLE ALWAYS say that we broke up. We never broke up – we're a family," says Moya Brennan of Clannad's return to the studio for ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2014
DR JOY DEGRUY coined the term Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome to describe the multi-generational trauma experienced by African Americans as a consequence of slavery. In ...
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2014
SHERYL CROW'S made a country album, they said. She's living down there in Nashville, hanging out with Vince Gill and Brad Paisley, going to church ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2014
LOOKING BACK often means you can no longer be arsed looking forward. That you'd much rather retrace your footprints on the road behind than make ...
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2014
HARD TO BELIEVE now, given her adulatory reputation among commentators and contemporaries alike, but when Lucinda Williams was hawking her songs around, looking for a ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2014
HOLLY WILLIAMS carries her lineage lightly. Which can't be easy when your grandfather was Hank Williams Sr, the beating heart and tortured soul of country ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2014
JAKE BUGG is giving me the run around. He has already postponed our interview twice at short notice, and now here he goes again, evading ...
The Delines: Willy Vlautin's New Band
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, December 2014
ON RICHMOND FONTAINE'S last tour, Willy Vlautin used to dream about being in a country soul band with support act Amy Boone. Then one night, ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, January 2015
DOLORES KEANE has been through the mill. Conspicuous by her absence from Irish folk song this century, she spent most of those wilderness years inveterately ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2015
THE OBJECTS OF pop culture iconography never grow old. Elvis Presley is forever framed as the hip-thrusting, kiss-curled, impossibly beautiful boy king, just as Bob ...
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2015
RYAN BINGHAM'S IN a more hopeful place these days. And though his humility wouldn't countenance my or anyone else saying so, it makes you glad ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2015
DON'T TELL THE wife, but I've fallen for Buffy Sainte-Marie. She probably doesn't feel the same way about me, but then being well-versed in the ...
Joss Stone: Water for Joss Stone's Soul
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2015
"PEOPLE WOULD SAY, 'So, who do you think you are singing these soul music songs when you are 16 and you're white and you're from ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, February 2016
IT'S BEEN A long hiatus, punctuated by the joy of nativity, the sorrow of bereavement and the pursuit of singular ambition, but the Corrs – ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2016
THE WORD "legend" has been devalued by misappropriation in modern linguistic currency. These days it is increasingly (and stupidly) used as a synonym for "star" ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, May 2016
DONNIE FRITTS MAY be an alumnus of Muscle Shoals, the Alabama mecca of southern soul, and a renowned songwriter and recording artist in his own ...
Report and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, June 2016
WHEN BEN HARPER reunited with his band, the Innocent Criminals, for a sold-out four-night run at San Francisco's Fillmore in March, 2015, seven years after ...
Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2016
WHEN YOU THINK about it, email is only a truncated form of letter writing. The art of literary correspondence re-imagined. And every bit as revealing ...
Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2016
IF THE Haitian government wants to improve the international perception of its country, appointing Leyla McCalla as cultural ambassador with a roaming brief could be ...
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