Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh has written more than a dozen books about rock and popular music, as well as editing several others. He co-founded Creem, the legendary Motor City rock and roll magazine that helped launch heavy metal, glam and punk, among other styles, and spent five years as an associate and contributing editor of Rolling Stone, where he was chief music critic, columnist and feature writer. In 1969, the nineteen-year-old Marsh dropped out of Detroit's Wayne State University to edit Creem. He departed in 1973 to become Newsday's pop music critic, music editor of The Real Paper, and then joined Rolling Stone as an associate editor. He and several others started Rock and Roll Confidential - later Rock and Rap Confidential - in 1983.
165 articles
List of articles in the library by artist
Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 14 July 1977
TO STIG Anderson, it's a familiar story. "I've seen it all a hundred times," says Abba's business manager, record company president and lyricist. "First, we ...
Profile by Dave Marsh, Creem, November 1972
"LUTHER ALLISON come into the picture about the middle of 1957. I needed a bass player and I met Luther Allison walkin' on Ogden Avenue ...
The Animals, Canned Heat, The Guess Who: The Animals, Canned Heat and Guess Who albums
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
The Animals With Eric Burdon: In The Beginning (Wand) Canned Heat: Live At Topanga Corral (Wand) Guess Who: Shakin' All Over (Scepter) ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, November 1972
ON A GREAT NIGHT, the Band grab and mesmerize, so that neither your eyes nor your thoughts can be on anything else. It helps that ...
The Band: The Weight: The Band's Anthology
Review by Dave Marsh, The Boston Phoenix, 1978
IT'S NOT HARD to understand the release of Anthology, the second repackaging of Band material in two years. The group made only eight albums (one ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan and the Hawks Live At Albert Hall, 1966
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, June 1971
IT IS THE MOST supremely elegant piece of rock'n'roll music I've ever heard. ...
Overview by Dave Marsh, Trouser Press, June 1980
EVER SINCE Col. Tom Parker, genius entrepreneur of Hadacol, dancing chickens and Eddy Arnold, signed Elvis Presley to an exclusive (on both parts) contract, managers ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 5 June 1975
JEFF BECK SEEMS finally to have figured out that his is not going to replace the great '60s group which bore his name and featured ...
Archie Bell and the Drells: Dance Your Troubles Away (TSOP PZ 33844)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 26 February 1976
Do You Wanna Dance? ...
Maggie Bell: Queen of the Night (Atlantic SD 7293)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 25 April 1974
The Ghost and Maggie Bell ...
Report by Dave Marsh, Melody Maker, 6 October 1973
GREAT WHITE ROCK has not often come from New York City and its surrounding boroughs, even though – or perhaps because the American music business ...
The Blues Brothers, Aretha Franklin: The Blues Brothers: Original Soundtrack (Atlantic)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 4 September 1980
WITH THEIR second LP, Blues Brothers John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd have moved from the gratuitously racist to the merely patronizing — progress of a ...
Bob Dylan, Joan Baez: Renaldo and Clara (dir: Bob Dylan; Circuit Films 232mins)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 9 March 1978
Ballad in plain dull ...
David Bowie: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (RCA)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, September 1972
DAVID BOWIE may become a star this year, or he may not. This may or may not make a difference in your life. But, for ...
Brinsley Schwarz: Nervous On The Road
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, December 1972
NERVOUS ON THE Road continues in typical Brinsley fashion. It's full of jumping good time rock songs, a little rockabilly, a shade of the Band ...
Jackson Browne: Jackson Browne
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, June 1972
MYTHICALLY, JACKSON BROWNE emerged from an article in Cheetah (the magazine of rock, when Crawdaddy! was the 'zine of roll) in late '67 or early ...
Jackson Browne: The Pretender (Asylum 7E-1079)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 27 January 1977
Stalking the great Pretender Cycles of uncertainty ...
Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid (Reprise)
Review by Ben Edmonds, Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1972
The Kid is gonna Booglarize ya ...
Eric Carmen: Boats Against The Current
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 22 September 1977
THIS IS THE SORT of album people accuse Paul McCartney of making: syrupy romanticism without bite or backbeat. It is not as overtly classical as ...
Eric Carmen: Avery Fisher Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 29 January 1976
ERIC CARMEN looks like his music, the slickness of which is so overwhelming that the ragged edges are jarring until you realize they've been placed ...
Chairmen Of The Board: Chairman of the Board: In Session (Invictus)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
THIS IS REPUTEDLY a live set, recorded in Harlem at the Apollo but I doubt that. But regardless of that little caveat emptor, the Chairmen ...
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 3 September 1981
HARRY CHAPIN often described himself as a "third-rate folk singer," and judging from most of the reviews he received in these pages and elsewhere, he ...
Harry Chapin: Singing for the World's Supper
Report and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 6 April 1978
THE MORNING OF February 3rd, singer/ songwriter Harry Chapin flew to Washington D.C. from Ontario. He'd just done a concert and, having slept on the ...
Ray Charles: I Believe to My Soul
Essay by Dave Marsh, Harp, September 2004
One of these days, and it won't be longYou gonna look for me, and I'll be gone ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 29 November 1979
IN THE BEGINNING, Cheap Trick was lovable because they tried to pull off the toughest trick in the book: making rock that was both bonehead-hard ...
Cheap Trick: In Color (Epic PE-34884)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 22 September 1977
Cheap Trick's comical treat ...
Alice Coltrane: Ptah The El Daoud (Impulse AS9196)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
I MIGHT WELL purchase this album before any other recorded in the past year. Alice Coltrane has developed and matured her music into a statement ...
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Warner Bros.)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 8 May 1975
IN 1971, COMMANDER Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, already a legend in such disparate climes as San Francisco and Detroit, finally reached a recording ...
Report by uncredited writer, Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1972
The new Plastic Ono Band comes to Ann Arbor to Free John Sinclair – Starring David Peel, Archie Shepp, Ed Sanders, Stevie Wonder, Commander Cody, ...
Ry Cooder: Show Time (Warner Bros. BS 3059)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 11 August 1977
IT OUGHT to be surprising that Ry Cooder opens his new album with a rock & roll song, Gary "U.S." Bonds' 'School Is Out'. If ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
SAM COOKE HAS always seemed, to me at least, the most underrated (or simply ignored – you don't really rate these people) of all the ...
Rita Coolidge, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson: Duel to the Death: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Report and Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, July 1973
I DON'T KNOW whether Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid will be a great rock'n'roll western or merely a machismo wetdream. Three days on the ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, February 1972
AT FIRST GLANCE these two don't seem to have much in common, aside from the fact that they're both on the same label. While that's ...
The Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us (International Record Syndicate, Inc.)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 24 July 1980
WELCOME TO ART-rockabilly, a merger of the sensibilities and guitar styles of Link Wray and Lou Reed. Actually, this concoction — like fried grasshoppers and ...
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 Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 9 September 1976
Central Park Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo ...
Devo: Duty Now for the Future (Warner Bos.)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 20 September 1979
Devo destroyed ...
The Dictators: Manifest Destiny (Asylum 7E-1109)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 28 July 1977
THREE YEARS ago I dismissed the Dictators' first album by saying that the joke of a bunch of musical-mental incompetents acquiring a record contract had ...
Dire Straits: Bottom Line, New York
Live Review by Dave Marsh, Melody Maker, 10 March 1979
LIVE, DIRE Straits are precisely what they are on record: a throwback to the kind of unassuming funk that hasn't enjoyed much popularity since Delaney ...
The Dixie Chicks: I Shall Be Free: The Blacklisting of Dixie Chicks
Comment by Dave Marsh, Harp, June 2003
IN CHRIS BUHALIS'S 'Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues', John Ashcroft declares questioning him un-American, to which the singer replies, "It's called a democracy. ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
THE UNFORTUNATE situation epitomized here is that of the record company which has to resort to the "greatest hits" ruse when a band doesn't meet ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 28 July 1977
IN NEW Orleans it is easier to perceive an American musical tradition than anywhere else; the city is the fount not just of jazz, but ...
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, July 1972
GUMBO IS DR. JOHN'S fifth album, but it seems like his first. For once, the record and the recording both feel right, as though they ...
Essay by Dave Marsh, Creem, February 1972
PICKS OF THE WEEK: BOB DYLAN, 'GEORGE JACKSON' (Ram's Horn, BMI). Bringing it all back home, the ever-relevant Dylan, who watched the river flow for ...
Interview by Dave Marsh, Harp, November 2002
With his latest CD Jerusalem, Steve Earle has written the most political and urgent release of his career. Dave Marsh explores the reasons why. ...
Earth Wind and Fire: Earth Wind & Fire: I Am
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 23 August 1979
MAURICE WHITE, Earth, Wind and Fire's presiding genius, ranges across popular music like a robber baron, selecting only the tastiest artifacts for his collection. ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, August 1972
I'M LISTENING TO a tape of The New John and Yoko lp. If you thought, as I did, that Sometime in New York City was ...
The Faces: A Nod Is As Good As A Wink
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1972
A Nod Is As Good As A Wink is the first signal that the Faces have matured as a band. Their infatuation with variations on ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, July 1973
SOMETIME ROD STEWART or the Faces (or both) should make a record that is enjoyable without being enervating. The effect of each of their records ...
The Faces: The Daring Young Man And The Flying Chimpanzees
Report and Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, August 1972
THE LAST WEEK of April, the American Retreaders Association shared the Executive Inn, Louisville, Ky., with a collection of dwarves, freaks, dope dealers, high wire ...
Fleetwood Mac: Big Mac — Over 8 Million Sold
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 12 January 1978
THERE IS nothing mysterious about Fleetwood Mac sweeping Rolling Stone's 1977 Readers' Poll. Rumours, the album that topped the charts for six months, has sold ...
The Four Tops: The Great Levi Stubbs
Memoir by Dave Marsh, Rock and Rap Confidential, October 2008
WHEN I WAS 15, I met the Four Tops on a downtown Detroit street, where they were doing a photo shoot with the Supremes. ...
Peter Frampton: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 18 November 1976
Frampton Packaging Pays Off ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 18 September 1980
LUCID AND DRIVEN, Peter Gabriel's third solo album sticks in the mind like the haunted heroes of the best film noirs. With the obsessiveness of ...
Marvin Gaye: No-One Quite Like Him
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Record, July 1984
Blessed with a cool born of control rather than emotional distance or reserve, Marvin Gaye was the artist who best expressed Motown's mix of disparate ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1973
SOCIOLOGISTS LIKE TO talk about black people mimicking whites, and I suppose that it is inherent in the presumptions most of us make about black ...
Marvin Gaye: Midnight Love (Columbia) ****
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 20 January 1983
AS A COMEBACK album, Marvin Gaye's Midnight Love is remarkably arrogant: it simply picks up from 1973's Let's Get It On as if only ten ...
Marvin Gaye: No One Quite Like Him: The Art and Artistry of Marvin Gaye
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Record, July 1984
I USED TO think Marvin Gaye was the most underrated soul singer of the '60s. Now I'd expand that judgment, not only because of his ...
Gloria Gaynor: Experience (MGM M3G 4997)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 6 November 1975
DRIVEN BY a three-song montage, Gloria Gaynor's first MGM album was the very model of modern disco production: loud, compact, as hummable as it was ...
Gary Glitter: Garbage Rock Comes of Age
Essay by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1973
WHEN THE CURTAIN comes up, the band are all ready there, pumping out a fuzzy, semi-atonal, rhythmically confused version of left-field '50's music. They are ...
Lesley Gore: They Don't Own Her
Report by Dave Marsh, Let It Rock, July 1975
IN 1964, A seventeen-year-old freshman named Lesley Gore put out her first record, 'It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)'. It was ...
Al Green: The Lord Will Make a Way (Myrrh) **
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 23 July 1981
ONE NIGHT, after listening intensively to the grand and ancient gospel groups (pre-psychobabble Staples Singers, the Soul Stirrers with and without Sam Cooke, Dorothy Love ...
Woody Guthrie, Curtis Mayfield, Sinead O'Connor: 'The Star Spangled Banner'
Comment by Dave Marsh, Vox, November 1990
WHEN SINEAD O'CONNOR refused to allow 'The Star Spangled Banner' to be performed at her late August concert at the Garden State Arts Center in ...
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 ...
Jimi Hendrix: Hendrix In The West
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1972
I DON'T KNOW if there, is even anything to add to Jimi's legend. You can build it up or tear it down but it remains ...
The Heptones: Party Time (Island MLPS 9456)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 11 August 1977
LEROY SIBBLES is one of the finest singers reggae has produced, and one of its best songwriters. In consequence, the Heptones' second American album has ...
Billie Holiday, Diana Ross: Lady Sings The Blues (Motown/Paramount Pictures)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, December 1972
I had to be darkened down so the show could go on in dynamic-assed Detroit. It's like they say, there's no damn business like show business. ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, July 1972
THERE'S SOMETHING intriguing in the idea that Humble Pie are so thoroughly enjoyable yet refuse so adamantly to yield to any kind of critical insight. ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1972
MOTOWN HAS ALWAYS been known for its little ones more than its big ones, and the Jackson Five are no exception. This is undoubtedly their ...
James Jamerson: What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted?
Comment by Dave Marsh, Record, November 1983
"I walk in shadows, searching for light, Cold and alone, no comfort in sight. Hoping and praying for someone who'll care, Always moving and going ...
The Jam: All Mod Cons (Polydor)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 17 May 1979
FOR TWO albums, the Jam made leader Paul Weller's obsession with Pete Townshend and the early Who stand up as an acceptable substitute for personal ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 26 July 1979
Been down so long, it looks like down to me ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, August 1972
JETHRO TULL's admirers are wont to believe that the lads are an inventive, entertaining, eminently witty, oft profound rock group, with a propensity for satire ...
David Johansen: Live It Up (Blue Sky) ****
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 5 August 1982
DESPITE A RAFT OF extraordinary songs and some devastating performances, David Johansen has never made a uniformly good record. In fact, listening to Johansen's albums ...
John Lennon: Ghoulish Beatlemania
Essay by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 22 January 1981
WHEN A ROCK star dies in a plane crash or from an overdose of drugs and alcohol, the accident may seem tragic or repulsive, but ...
Elton John: Looney Tunes: The Myth of the Vicious Circle
Essay by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
ROCK AND roll began in a twilight zone, a pure thing swirling in out of a pretty pristine void. That it grew from blues and ...
The Kinks: Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygroround — Part One
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
WELL, ALL RIGHT. It took two months but I think I begin to understand the meaning of this album, which is that the Kinks understand, ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 2 January 1975
TWO YEARS AGO, while working for another magazine, I rejected a rambling interview between black poet Nikki Giovanni and singer Gladys Knight. The interview wasn't ...
Denise LaSalle: Denise La Salle: Trapped By A Thing Called Love
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1972
IF THIS ISN'T THE best soul album this year, someone is going to have to come up with something really amazing. Denise La Salle is ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 10 April 1975
BRITISH BLUES has always been a workmanlike form, as much a job as a pleasure. Alvin Lee is smart enough to realize this, and having ...
Laura Lee: Women's Love Rights (Hot Wax)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1972
LAURA MAY claim she's "startin' a new movement today" but to tell you the truth she's just following in the Holland Dozier Holland tradition of ...
John Lennon: American Grandstand: Another Open Letter to John Lennon
Column by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 23 August 1979
DEAR JOHN: It's been almost two years since I wrote my first open letter to you, imploring you to break your silence, make another record ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
BOTH OF THESE records are remarkable in some aspect, a sort of East-West five years after Butterfield and Allan Watts. Certainly, until this point, John ...
John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen: Behind the Scenes: Iovine in the Right Place
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 17 November 1977
NEW YORK — In 1973, when he was working with producer John Lennon as assistant engineer on Harry Nilsson's Pussycats album, Jimmy Iovine looked up ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: The Killer Rocks On
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, July 1972
YOU CAN TELL this one is special from the beginning. The strings come in, but all of a sudden, there's an insistent, pounding drum driving ...
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 ...
Loretta Lynn, The White Stripes: Jack White and Loretta Lynn: Deconstructing Jack
Comment by Dave Marsh, Harp, July 2004
AT THAT POINT, after one and a half listenings, I concluded that White had heard all the Loretta Lynn records ever made and liked everything ...
Manfred Mann's Earth Band: Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1972
MANFRED MANN'S strength, perhaps his only one, is as an interpreter. His jazzlike motions with Chapter Three – the group that was broken up so ...
Curtis Mayfield, Diana Ross: Black Music
Comment by Dave Marsh, Let It Rock, May 1973
SOMETIME LAST fall, John Percy Boyd, Mark Bethune and Michael Brown, a trio of black college students in Detroit, decided to put an end to ...
Essay by Dave Marsh, Creem, October 1971
Their mamas all warned 'emnot to come into townBut they got it in their blood,now they gotta get down– 'Shakin' Street', The MC5 ...
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 ...
MC5, New York Dolls, The Sex Pistols: The Sex Pistols: Kick out the jams
Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 25 August 1977
IT CONTRAVENES logic, but there is little doubt in my mind that the most important record of the past year is the Sex Pistols' 'God ...
John McLaughlin: My Goal's Beyond (Douglas 9)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, November 1971
THIS RECORD isn't as good as John McLaughlin's first record Devotion. It's pretty damn depressing. ...
Keith Moon, The Who: Keith Moon 1947-1978
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 19 October 1978
LONDON, ENGLAND — Keith Moon died before he got old. The Who's spark-plug drummer, who turned thirty-one on August 23rd, was found dead in the bedroom ...
Van Morrison: His Band And Street Choir
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, October 1971
THERE'S A SECRET to every Van Morrison album, and even this one, which too many of us wrote off too long ago, has it. The ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, October 1972
AFTER TUPELO HONEY Van Morrison must have been faced with a choice. He could continue with his domestic tranquility myth, which was as artistically false ...
Elliott Murphy: Last of the Rock & Roll Stars?
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, January 1974
UNLIKE THE everyday American pop star, Elliott Murphy doesn't need to demand attention when he enters a room; he just walks in, and he's got ...
New York Dolls: The New York Dolls: Too Much Too Soon
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 20 June 1974
Lotta Goin' Nowhere Goin' On ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 7 August 1980
PAINTED IN CONTRASTING shades of urban blight, suburban boredom and rural decay, Michigan is perfect primitive rock & roll territory: a place where nothin' to ...
Laura Nyro: Smile (Columbia PC33912)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 6 May 1976
LAURA NYRO'S first album in four years fails to live up to the promise of her lovely early records. While Smile has a certain charm ...
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 ...
Review by Dave Marsh, MOJO, September 1996
IT'S NOT HARD to understand why some folks hate Pearl Jam. Isolate just about any element from the band's mix — Eddie Vedder's vocals and ...
The Persuasions: Street Corner Symphony
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1972
THE PERSUASIONS ceased to be a pleasant, though strange, acappella curiosity with their last album, We Came to Play. That album took a more pop ...
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 ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, November 1971
I WAS IN Los Angeles this spring, when a friend dropped in to say, "Hey there's a new Pink Floyd album and it's all old ...
Iggy Pop, The Stooges: Iggy & The Stooges: Raw Power (Columbia)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1973
Iggy in Exile: Love in the Fire Zone ...
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. ...
Elvis Presley: A Bad Year for Elvis Presley
Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 24 December 1981
THOUGH ELVIS Presley died in 1977, he made more headlines in 1981 than any living rock star. The initial tremors were felt on July 31st, ...
Elvis Presley: How Great Thou Art
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 22 September 1977
ELVIS IN THE PROMISED LAND ...
The Ramones, The Sex Pistols: American Grandstand: Punk Inc.
Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 29 December 1977
PETER RUDGE, who manages the Rolling Stones' American tours and likes to speculate about rock & roll almost as much as I do, suggested recently ...
The Raspberries: Starting Over
Review by Dave Marsh, Let It Rock, April 1975
A YEAR AGO, the Raspberries seemed like nothing so much as a prefabricated rock band in the tradition of the Monkees. ...
Essay by Dave Marsh, Let It Rock, January 1974
LET'S GET one thing straight. Otis Redding's posthumous rise to the Kingship of soul is highly suspect. He earned the accolade a little too easily ...
Clarence Reid (aka Blowfly): Sex and the Single
Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 26 August 1976
TEN YEARS ago, the Kingsmen used to launch, full tilt, into their biggest hit, 'Louie Louie', then stop. "Hey, these guys never heard this song ...
Charlie Rich: Every Time You Touch Me (I Get High) (Epic PE 33455)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 31 July 1975
THE PARTNERSHIP of producer Billy Sherrill and singer Charlie Rich, one of the most profitable in recent years, has now run its course. Since the ...
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: From The Beginning…
Report and Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1972
SMOKEY IS LEAVING the Miracles. This may mean more to those of us in Detroit, who've watched the Miracles almost, but never quite, make the ...
Smokey Robinson: Cruisin' with Smokey
Interview by Dave Marsh, Record, August 1983
In an exclusive interview, the master of the romantic vignette-in-song gets into some nuts-and-bolts talk about the creative process and gets down with some vintage ...
The Rolling Stones: The Stones Roll On: A Scare in Boston; Success in Toronto; A Slip in New York
Report by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 31 July 1975
NEW YORK — The scariest moment came in Boston, when overzealous fans grabbed the writhing, confetti-spitting dragon that appears at the end of 'Jumpin' Jack ...
The Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger: I Can Get It Up, But I Can't Get It Down
Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, August 1975
OF COURSE, Mick Jagger was talking about flying the twin-engine Cessna which had brought him into the Marine Air Terminal in New York's LaGuardia Airport ...
The Rolling Stones: Black and Blue (Rolling Stones)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 20 May 1976
Decembers Children Today: Glimmer Twins Star As Stones Roll On ...
The Rolling Stones: Everybody's talking to Lisa Robinson
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 4 May 1978
NEW YORK — IT IS conceivable that America's most influential rock byline has never appeared in Rolling Stone. Lisa Robinson's natural turf is self-created and ...
The Rolling Stones: Looney Toons: The Rolling Stones — Seems Like A Freeze-Out
Comment by Dave Marsh, Creem, January 1973
IT SEEMS TO be December, and here we are with a full issue about the Rolling Stones, talking about such seemingly dated minutae as their ...
Sam & Dave: Sam & Dave: Back At' Cha!
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 6 November 1975
IF ANYTHING SYMBOLIZES the decline of the Stax Records era (recently brought to a probable close with the indictment of president Al Bell for bank ...
Savoy Brown: Lookin' In, Lookin' Out
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Circus, October 1970
IF THE BRITISH blues scene seems circular, both in terms of the way it has progressed over the last few years and in terms of ...
Bob Seger: Back in '72 (Palladium / Warners)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1973
BOB SEGER'S 'Rosalie' is so strong it could break you in half. But it is the only song here that is close to what I ...
Bob Seger: Doncha Ever Listen To The Radio…
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1972
How To Remain Obscure Through Better Rock 'n' Roll ...
Paul Simon: What Do You Do When You're Not A Kid Anymore And You Still Want To Rock & Roll?
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 30 October 1980
IN ONE-TRICK PONY PAUL SIMON LOOKS AT THE WAY THINGS MIGHT HAVE BEEN. ...
Sly & The Family Stone: Fresh (Epic)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, September 1973
Sly Today: Caring, Confident, Contradictions ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 24 January 1980
It's too late to stop now ...
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Harp, May 2005
THE RECORD industry thought it covered its tracks by finally making a huge deal out of Ray Charles, at the first Grammy ceremony after his ...
Patti Smith: Her Horses Got Wings, They Can Fly
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 1 January 1976
Factory Girl, Coal Stove Visionary, Scion of Rimbaud and the Ronettes, Patti Smith Now Challenges the Assembly Line of Rock & Roll ...
Spencer Davis Group: The Return of Spencer Davis
Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
SPENCER DAVIS suffers from a peculiar affliction – his name is tied inextricably to that of Stevie Winwood, it's almost certain that, first time around ...
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 ...
Bruce Springsteen: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (Columbia)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1973
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN has enough gall to actually commit suicide on stage of his own volition. Unlike Alice Cooper and David Bowie, who only yak about ...
Bruce Springsteen: Little Egypt From Asbury Park
Profile by Dave Marsh, Creem, October 1975
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SITS cross-legged on his half-made bed, and surveys the scene. Records are strewn across the room, singles mostly, intermixed with empty Pepsi bottles, ...
Bruce Springsteen: Shouldn't He Be Famous?
Comment by Dave Marsh, Let It Rock, December 1974
IT WAS DIFFICULT to tell just when the stage caved in. It seemed to happen during 'Rosalita', the last song before the encore. But maybe ...
Report and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 24 August 1978
A true believer witnesses mass conversions, rock & roll vandalism, a rocket upside the head and a visit with God. ...
Bruce Springsteen: Darkness on the Edge of Town (Columbia JC 35318)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 27 July 1978
The Boss' triumphant return ...
Stephen Stills, Neil Young: Stephen Stills & Neil Young: Nassau Coliseum, New York NY
Live Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 26 August 1976
Flaws and Applause — Young's Hot, Stills's Not ...
The Stooges: The Incredible Story
Special Feature by Dave Marsh, ZigZag, December 1970
THERE'S A SAD possibility that people are on the verge of discovering, exploiting and generally going on about the Detroit Sound (like they did with ...
Tha Dogg Pound: Doggy Food (Death Row/Interscope/Priority)
Review by Dave Marsh, San Francisco Chronicle, 3 December 1995
DOGG POUND DOWN AND DIRTY ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 26 June 1980
AS A FUNDAMENTALLY religious artist, Pete Townshend fashions his music from sermons and confessions. Though it's not an easy thing for intellectuals to admit, this ...
T. Rex: Can The Electric Warriors Conquer America?
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1972
YOU CAN SEE Marc Bolan almost anywhere and walk away with the same impression. You'll think he looks cherubic, not a little elfin, and that ...
Tom Waits: Reno Sweeney's, New York City NY
Live Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 23 October 1975
AS A PERFORMER, Tom Waits seems closer to Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen than to anyone else currently working in rock; unlike them, however, Waits ...
The Who: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, February 1972
THERE ISN'T MUCH to say. They're really let us down this time. I don't know if anyone else resents it, but I do. Why reissue ...
The Who: Quadrophenia Reconsidered
Comment by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1974
PHILADELPHIA ON Tuesday night is nobody's good time. Nonetheless, because the Who were not coming to New York on their fall tour, it was worth ...
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, October 1971
WHO'S NEXT IS TO the Who what the White Album must've been to the Beatles. After Tommy, which was a concept-rock summit, not, as commonly ...
The Who: Betrayed by Rock'n'Roll
Comment by Dave Marsh, MOJO, July 1996
Fan and friend Dave Marsh celebrates Pete Townshend's most puzzling work, Quadrophenia, written in an era full of possibilities which,"ended badly". Could it be that ...
Jackie Wilson: The Trials of Jackie Wilson
Report by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 18 November 1976
CHERRY HILL, New Jersey — Since September 1975, Jackie Wilson has lain in a series of southern New Jersey hospitals, intravenously fed and unable to ...
Betty Wright: I Love The Way You Love (Alston)
Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, May 1972
SOMETIME LAST spring, a single appeared called 'I Love the Way You Love'. One of the people I live with bought it; she said, "This ...
Comment by Dave Marsh, MOJO, September 1994
"Coming to the conclusion that he was a second-rank artist scared the hell out of even a veteran heretic like myself." Neil Young unpraised by ...
Neil Young: Tonight's The Night
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 28 August 1975
"I'm sorry. You don't know these people. This means nothing to you." — Neil Young, in the liner notes ...
Warren Zevon on the Loose in Los Angeles
Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 9 March 1978
IN THE OPENING LINES of the title song from Warren Zevon's new album, Excitable Boy, the title character smears Sunday pot roast all over his ...
List of genre pieces
American Grandstand: The Reel Paper
Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 19 May 1977
JOAN MICKLIN Silver's new movie, Between the Lines, purports to tell the story of the Boston Mainline, an alternative weekly not unlike Boston's relatively real-life ...
Arnold Shaw: Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues (Collier)
Book Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 28 December 1978
Birth of Rhythm, Death of the Blues ...
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1981
(On January 29 CREEM publisher and founder Barry Kramer died at 37, just as we were going to press. Our business is words, but they ...
Report by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
ALGIERS, Algeria (UPS) — Timothy Leary has once again spent some time in jail — and this time his jailer was none less than Eldridge ...
Gloria Stavers: October 3rd, 1927-April 1st, 1983
Obituary by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 12 May 1983
ON THE surface, 16 magazine was no more than a shallow, dizzy fanzine for teenage girls. It was crammed with bubblegum singers, TV idols, "win ...
Hollywood Special: Elements Of Style
Report by Dave Marsh, Creem, August 1974
I Was Afraid They'd All Be California Girls ...
Memoir by Dave Marsh, Musician, October 1987
REMEMBERING THE CONSCIENCE OF AMERICAN MUSIC ...
John Sinclair: Guitar Army (Douglas)
Book Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1973
TO MOST people, John Sinclair looks like just another mutant dinosaur relic of the First Golden Age of Psychedelic Apocalypse. But that's not any more ...
Essay by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 16 December 1976
THERE'S BEEN nothing but grief since Newsweek (or was it the Sunday New York Times!) decided that rock critics invented Bruce Springsteen. Only a moron ...
Essay by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 13 January 1977
ROCK CRITICISM is now often seen in many quarters as more important than rock itself. Many critics carry this one step further by superimposing their ...
Vinyl Shortage: Curse of the Vanishing Dynaflex
Report by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1974
"Before the vinyl shortage is over, kid, they may have to make your Jethro Tull albums out of earwax." ...
Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 25 March 1976
EACH YEAR, the American music industry embarrasses itself by nationally televising a 90-minute display of the irrelevant and the ridiculous, the Grammy Awards. ...
Punk Attack: 'The Obituary of Rock and Roll'
Book Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 28 June 1979
Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons: The Boy Looked at Johnny (Pluto Press) ...
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