Fred Schruers
Fred Schruers' writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Circus, Premiere and Entertainment Weekly. He wrote a business blog about the entertainment industry at Portfolio.com, in addition to being one of Premiere magazine's most loved-and-feared figures (he wrote the annual Power List). Fred is currently a senior writer for TheWrap.com.
Steven Ward's 2001 interview with Schruers
92 articles
List of articles in the library
Patti Smith: Radio Ethiopia (Arista)
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, December 1976
CHATTY PATTY: PISSIN' IN WAX ...
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, February 1977
JONI DRONES, MELANIE FINDS NEW KEY ...
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner Bros.)
Review by Fred Schruers, Circus, April 1977
YOU COULD look it up. After 10 years and a like number of frequently boring albums (some great stuff in there, too), these penguin fanciers ...
Jan Hammer, Jeff Beck: Jeff Beck & Jan Hammer: More Lively Than Wired
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 9 June 1977
Jeff Beck Explodes With The Jan Hammer Group Live ...
Little Feat: Time Loves A Hero (Warner Bros. BS 3015)
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, July 1977
FEATS HAVE FAILED ME NOW ...
Jesse Winchester: Winchester '77: Jesse Trades His Burden For A Breeze
Interview by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, July 1977
MONTREAL— Hands jammed into his back pockets, Jesse Winchester stands at the window staring holes through the spring snowstorm. Birch logs spit and crack reassuringly ...
Richard Hell & The Void-Oids: Blank Generation (Sire SR 6037)
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 20 October 1977
RICHARD HELL HAS been touted as an underground genius for nearly three years, and this debut album boldly tries to document him as such. The ...
Review by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, November 1977
WHEN LINDA Ronstadt dropped her hands down the mike-stand and went to make some small talk with the audience at a New York concert early ...
Tom Waits: Foreign Affairs (Asylum 7E-1117)
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 17 November 1977
THE ADMIRING audience that Tom Waits built up with his early work now worries about him in a way that does his derelict's persona proud: ...
Randy Newman: Inside The Criminal Mind
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Crawdaddy!, December 1977
EAST BATON Rouge Parish, LA. — "I wasn't unhappy. I didn't feel guilty about it. I just didn't do anything for three years." ...
Deniece Williams is Here to Stay
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 2 February 1978
Songbird Album Showcases Ex-Wonderlove Singer ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty Can Make 'Em Scream
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 2 February 1978
Are the Heartbreakers on the Brink of Stardom? ...
Rick Danko: Rick Danko (Arista)
Review by Fred Schruers, Circus, 16 February 1978
SO IT WASN'T our imagination — Band fans have been chomping on gruel since the release of the group's second album. Rick Danko's solo debut ...
Natalie Cole: A Thoughtful, Thankful Sophisticated Lady
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 2 March 1978
Natalie Cole's Career Soars after Two Grammys, Three Hits ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 2 March 1978
Canadian Guitarist Expands Basic Unit For U.S. Surge ...
Emmylou Harris: Full House at the Elite Hotel
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 16 March 1978
Emmylou Harris' Fourth LP Is a Grand and Seedy Selection ...
Elton John, The Ramones, Sex Pistols: Mr. Ramone, Meet Mr. Rotten
Report by Fred Schruers, Circus, 16 March 1978
CIRCUS Invades Britain for a Classic Punk Clash ...
The Outlaws: Outlaws Brought Back Live
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 11 May 1978
Southern Renegades Captured at Last on Vinyl ...
The Tubes: What Do You Want from the Tubes?
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 11 May 1978
Double "Live" Package Delivers Best of Bay Area Bonzos ...
Nick Lowe: Pure Pop for Now People (Columbia JC 35329)
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 1 June 1978
NICK LOWE, the man who produces Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, is a rising deity on the English pop front. But as you might guess ...
Jimmy Buffett: Red-Eyed Sails in the Sunset
Profile by Fred Schruers, Circus, 8 June 1978
Jimmy Buffett Floats Home Another Relaxing Rock Monster ...
Ian Dury: Tales of sex & drugs & rock & roll
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 15 June 1978
IAN DURY, between sets at the Bottom Line, is lolling on a chair in the just-cleared club. "With, with, wiv, with," he says. "Not for ...
Elvis Costello is Angry and Convincing: This Year's Model Fulfils Every New Wave Expectation
Profile by Fred Schruers, Circus, 22 June 1978
IT'S 1:30AM IN the Bootlegger Lounge in Syracuse, NY. Elvis Costello, the one with the owlish stare and the spitting mad vocals, the man whose ...
Patti Smith Riding Crest of New Wave
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 22 June 1978
Easter, Her Third LP Is Commercial and Artistic Success ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: A Puff Away from Huge
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 6 July 1978
Bob Marley and the Wailers Gain Fans Near and Far with Kaya ...
Patti Smith: The Patti Smith Group: The Palladium, New York NY
Live Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 13 July 1978
Patti comes home a hero ...
The Kinks: The Once and Future Kinks
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 2 November 1978
Untangling fourteen years of rock & roll fantasy ...
Blondie: What Deborah Harry won't do
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 14 December 1978
Blondie's punk Garbo ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 5 April 1979
NEW YORK — "I can read your thoughts right now, every one from A to Z," sings Chaka Khan in her current hit, 'I'm Every ...
Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 17 May 1979
Elvis Costello puts his foot in his mouth ...
Robert Fripp's Public Exposure
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 26 July 1979
The return to 'an intelligent way of living' ...
Rachel Sweet: Sixteen and Nobody's Fool
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 23 August 1979
AKRON, OHIO ...
Delbert McClinton: Keeper of the Flame (Capricorn)
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 13 December 1979
DELBERT McCLINTON'S virtues are plain, but they're hardly simple. He's too much of a hybrid and vocal wizard ever to be simple. His is the ...
Aretha Franklin: La Diva (Atlantic)
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 20 March 1980
IT'S NO news that, during the last several years, Aretha Franklin has regressed from being one of our most powerful R&B performers into a mere ...
Rodney Crowell: A Songwriter Surfaces
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 21 August 1980
'Ashes by Now': his first hit ...
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 ...
Carlene Carter: Musical Shapes (Warner Bros.)
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 13 November 1980
IT'S ALWAYS embarrassed Englishmen like Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton that they got rich by showing Americans how palatable their native R&B and blues were. ...
Dave Davies, The Kinks: Dave Davies Forgets About The Past
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 13 November 1980
NEW YORK CITY — "Eyes can lie," warns Dave Davies in his song 'Visionary Dreamer'. "And sometimes words are oh so useless..." ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Boss is Back
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 27 November 1980
Bruce Springsteen hits the road for his first tour in two years, and along the way gives ample life to his performing legend. ...
Bruce Springsteen and the Secret of the World
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 5 February 1981
FAME GRIPS A JERSEY BOY... BUT HE GETS OUT UNSCATHED ...
Garland Jeffreys: Escape from the Demons
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 14 May 1981
NEW YORK CITY ...
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 ...
G.E. Smith: An Ace Axeman Steps Out Front
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 6 August 1981
NEW YORK CITY — "All I've ever wanted to call myself is a player," says unsung guitar legend G.E. Smith as we sit down to ...
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, ...
The Kinks' Resurgence Continues
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 4 February 1982
NINETY MINUTES after the Kinks' show at the Seattle Center Coliseum, Ray Davies is strolling out of a restaurant called Bob Murray's Dog House, a ...
The Police, Sting: The Police's Sting considers a new career
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 4 March 1982
PHILADELPHIA — DEEP in the bright yellow innards of Philadelphia's Spectrum Arena, the reluctant rock god known as Sting eyes a dressing room crowded with ...
Marshall Crenshaw: Marshall Crenshaw (Warner Bros.)
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 13 May 1982
MARSHALL CRENSHAW'S rock & roll has the kind of crafty simplicity that has to be called classic. Like the Everly Brothers and the early Beatles, ...
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 ...
Black Uhuru: Tear It Up (Island) ***½
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 10 June 1982
MOST OF THE songs on this live LP date back to Black Uhuru's early days and, as a result, may not be familiar to American ...
Ry Cooder: The Slide Area (Warner Bros.) **
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 24 June 1982
RY COODER HAS made ten albums (excluding soundtracks) since his 1970 debut LP, and with the exception of one overly precious stiff (Jazz), each new ...
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 ...
The Pretenders: James Honeyman-Scott: 1956-1982
Obituary by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 22 July 1982
JAMES HONEYMAN-Scott, the twenty-five-year-old lead guitarist for the Pretenders, died in his sleep in London sometime during the early morning hours of June 16th. The ...
Kid Creole & The Coconuts: Kid Creole and the Coconuts: Wise Guy (ZE) **
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 5 August 1982
THE TITLE OF this record in the U.K. is Tropical Gangsters, in line with the album's plot, which finds Kid Creole and the Coconuts shipwrecked ...
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 ...
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 – ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Long After Dark
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 20 January 1983
TOM PETTY and the Heartbreakers play a finely crafted band of meat-and-potatoes rock. ...
Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Love Over and Over (Polydor) ***½
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 17 March 1983
WHILE THEIR most compelling virtue is their lovely vocal interplay, Kate and Anna McGarrigle have always been careful to use classy session players. As a ...
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 ...
A&R Crisis: Why U.S. Acts Can't Get Record Deals
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 23 June 1983
NEW YORK CITY — "When you do A&R," says Karin Berg as she climbs the steps of Manhattan's cavernous, sparsely populated Ritz nightclub near midnight ...
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 ...
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). ...
Richard Branson: Rock & Roll at 30,000 Feet
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 25 October 1984
From Tubular Bells to Boy George, Richard Branson has made millions from music. Now he's trying to run his own airline. Is he smart enough ...
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (Dir. Jonathan Demme)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 25 October 1984
Heads play from heart in new film ...
Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 14 March 1985
Ten-day event comes off with few hitches ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 9 May 1985
How Rosanna Arquette, Madonna and director Susan Seidelman lost tempers and found each other through Desperately Seeking Susan ...
Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul: Q&A: Little Steven
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 16 January 1986
LITTLE STEVEN Van Zandt, to his simultaneous worriment and gratification, has become the symbol of the antiapartheid movement outside of South Africa. It's not surprising ...
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 5 June 1986
HERE WE ARE on a nice drive down Cahuenga Boulevard — the journalist's rental wreck following Madonna's forty-plus-grand midnight-blue Mercedes sports coupe — and the ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, April 1987
Mick Hucknall Knows What He Wants and Simply Red's Going to Get It. ...
B.B. King: Mississippi Homecoming
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 30 November 1989
RILEY B. KING, a son of the Mississippi Delta and by everyone's admission but his own the King of the Blues, stands by a two-lane ...
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'), ...
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. ...
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 ...
Daniel Lanois: The Book of Daniel
Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, September 1993
Dan Lanois The Musician Eclipses Lanois The Producer ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: This Is How It Feels
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 4 May 1995
"That's all we need is another dog onstage." Tom Petty's calm drawl has just gone as thick as black smoke from a smudge pot. Petty ...
Liz Phair: Wiltern Theater, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 1 June 1995
"FABULOUS... NOT so fabulous," SAID Liz Phair as she strapped on her red Fender Musicmaster guitar and faced a hall full of fans from Hollywood's ...
Sheryl Crow: She Only Wants To Be With You
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 14 November 1996
"CAN WE TALK?" Sheryl Crow plants a hand on her right hip and addresses what she calls a "granola crowd" packed tight in the Santa ...
Bruce Springsteen Finds "A Sense Of Place"
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 6 February 1997
SUNRISE, FLA.; "Don't make me come out there and slaaaap that tan off ya." Bruce Springsteen's warnings to potentially restless crowds tend to have a ...
Courtney Love: Love's Labor Lost
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 3 April 1997
How Courtney blew her fight for an Oscar nomination as the junkie wife of a porn king in The People vs. Larry Flynt ...
Retrospective by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 7 August 1997
On May 29, just as he was to begin recording the follow-up to his acclaimed album, Grace, JEFF BUCKLEY decided to take a swim in ...
Fleetwood Mac: Back In The Chain Gang
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 30 October 1997
Fleetwood Mac were the lovingest, fightingest, druggingest band of the '70s. Twenty years later, the psychodrama continues… ...
Master P: Survival of the Illest
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 27 November 1997
New Orleans' MASTER P builds a hip-hop empire from the underground up ...
Tupac Shakur: Revenge Killing?
Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 9 July 1998
Suspect in TUPAC killing shot in Compton ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 29 October 1998
MASTER P is hip-hop's man of the year, and then some. It seems hardly a week goes by without a new release from his No ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 18 February 1999
For forty years, CHRIS BLACKWELL has survived on killer instincts, killer bud and tough business tactics. Along the way, he's changed the course of pop ...
The Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy, Tupac Shakur: Suge Knight Linked to Notorious B.I.G. Murder
Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 27 May 1999
LOS ANGELES homicide detectives have reportedly identified jailed Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight as a prime suspect in the murder of rap star Notorious ...
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1999
JOHN COLTRANE, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus were not just virtuoso musicians but path-breaking composers and bandleaders who shaped the sound of modern ...
Loudon Wainwright III, Rufus Wainwright: Fathers & Sons: Loudon and Rufus Wainwright
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1999
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III, 53, was the folk-singing son of a famous Life magazine writer and came on the scene with several other "new Dylans" in ...
Buena Vista Social Club, Ry Cooder: Fathers & Sons: The Cooders
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1999
JOACHIM COODER was four years old when he decided he wanted to be a drummer, after watching his father, Ry, and drummer Jim Keltner record ...
Elvis Costello, Ross McManus: Fathers & Sons: The Costellos
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1999
DECLAN MACMANUS took to the stage in 1977, an angry young man sporting Buddy Holly glasses and a strange name: Elvis Costello. But he wasn't ...
Allman Brothers Band: Fathers and Sons: The Allmans
Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1999
THE STORY of the Allman Brothers Band is one of the most glorious and the most tragic in rock. On this year's tour, celebrating the ...
The Notorious B.I.G.: New Allegations Link Suge Knight to Murder of the Notorious B.I.G.
Report by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 20 January 2000
DEATH ROW RECORDS HEAD Marion "Suge" Knight, currently serving time for a parole violation at California's Mule Creek State Prison, has again been named as ...
Warren Zevon: Crystal Zevon's Story: Warren from A to Z
Interview by Fred Schruers, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 2007
Through interviews and diaries, the musician's ex-wife chronicles the hedonistic life of one of the genre's bad boys. ...
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