Geoffrey Cannon
Geoffrey Cannon (pictured in July 1971) was the first ever regular rock critic for a UK daily national newspaper, The Guardian, for whom he wrote a weekly column between September 1969 and the summer of 1972 totalling over 150 pieces, many available here, as originally commissioned by Peter Preston, then features editor, later The Guardian editor. He wrote for other UK periodicals such as Melody Maker when edited by Richard Williams, New Society, Time Out, Zig Zag and — above — Harpers Bazaar (an assessment of Nic Cohn, right in the picture)
He wrote long pieces regularly for the Los Angeles Times thanks to Charles Champlin, and for the Chicago Sun-Times thanks to Bob Zonka and Al Rudis, the Village Voice, the Toronto Globe and Mail,and also for Fusion, Creem and Coast, and regularly for Kleine Zeitung (Austria) thanks to Gerfried Sperl and Rock & Folk (France) thanks to Philippe Paringaux. In the summer of 1972 thanks to Jo Bergman and Derek Taylor he was an official journalist covering the Rolling Stones 1972 US tour.
He interviewed and featured bands and singers, moguls and labels, reviewed concerts and albums, and wrote many think-pieces. Favourites available here include the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Band, the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, and Nico, Van Morrison, The Kinks, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and many Californian bands.
When he wrote for The Guardian he was also editor of the BBCtv and Radio journal Radio Times, which then had the highest magazine circulation in all Europe.
He began to write about 'pop music' (as it was then called) in New Society in 1963, in the context of 'pop culture', encouraged by Colin MacInnes and editor Tim Raison. In 1967 he began the first column on rock music for The Listener, commissioned by editor Karl Miller. In 1968 he co-produced films on Jimi Hendrix and the Incredible String Band for Cosmologies, and worked for Granada Television with Jo Durden-Smith, Mike Darlow, Jon Cott and David Dalton dreaming up rock spectaculars, in particular The Doors are Open and Johnny Cash at San Quentin, shown nationally and now classics. In 1970 he directed the Palermo Pop Festival for Italian television (RAI) and the Rolling Stones for Austrian television (ORF). In 1970 he wrote and appeared in London Rock produced by Revel Guest for Metromedia Television (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfDHvpqzmas). As from 1970 he was a regular contributor to BBC Radio London's Breakthrough produced by Steve Bradshaw. More details in his Wikipedia entry.
Bands and singers who were hot in his time as a writer who he often plays now, as well as the Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Velvet Underground, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell, include the MC5, the J Geils Band and Buffalo Springfield. He has lived in Brazil since 2000, and recommends the Tropicalia period Caetano Veloso, and Belchior.
Geoffrey Cannon looks back on his career as a music writer
113 articles
List of articles in the library
The arts in society: You're Sick, Daddy
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, 25 April 1963
2018 author's note: My very first published piece, written for New Society, of which I was a founder-member of staff as the sub-editor and production ...
The Beatles, Cliff Richard, The Rolling Stones: Pop Music Democratised
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, 3 December 1964
Author's note, 2018: Here is my late 1964 insight on the transformation of British pop into rock which can be dated to 21 February 1963 ...
Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, The Rolling Stones: From Pop Singers To Rock Bands
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 1965
Update, March 2019: I KNOW exactly when I wrote the piece below, where I was, and why I withdrew it from publication. It was January ...
The Kinks, The Mugwumps: The Mugwumps: The Mugwumps; The Kinks: Something Else by the Kinks
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Listener, 14 September 1967
(2019 note) Here is the first of the three pieces I wrote for The Listener, which started me as a rock writer. The second and ...
The Mothers Of Invention: Mother's Rites: Freak Out/Absolutely Free
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Listener, 19 October 1967
2012 NOTE: Here below is the second column I wrote for The Listener in late 1967. It was the first of a number I ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Listener, 22 November 1967
2012 NOTE: In the third (and last) column below written for The Listener in late 1967, I tried to begin to grope towards construction ...
Nico, The Velvet Underground: Andy Warhol: A Mirror Of American Death
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, 13 June 1968
2012 note: Cometh the hour... Paul Barker, the second and last editor of the UK weekly journal New Society, was once asked to speak on ...
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 22 October 1968
A STORY of virtue rewarded: Polydor, tiny in Britain compared with EMI or Decca, sold more LPs in the third quarter of 1968 than any ...
Letter by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 28 October 1968
25 FLORENCE TERRACE, FALMOUTH, CORNWALL TELEPHONE: FALMOUTH 1840 23rd October 1968 ...
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland (Polydor)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 5 November 1968
THERE ARE 19 naked ladies on the cover of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland (Polydor 613 008/9). Pictured inside, Jimi has a flicker of the lip-licking ...
Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (CBS 63308)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 12 November 1968
2018 note: The quality and impact of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is not because of the songs. It is because of the behaviour and ...
The Beatles: Back with the real Beatles: The Beatles (White Album) (Apple)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 19 November 1968
The Beatles' new album is about to be released. This is the first of two articles on what is likely to be the biggest event ...
The Beatles: Back to Spring: The Beatles: The Beatles (White Album) (Apple)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 26 November 1968
"EARTH, WATER, fire, and air met together in a garden fair," chants Robin Williamson, of the Incredible String Band, in 'Koeeoaadi There'. And if the ...
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, Oz, December 1968
Update, 2019. My Oz episodes — 1. IN DECEMBER 1968, age 28, I was interviewed for the post of editor of Radio Times, the BBC's ...
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 3 December 1968
2019: Thoughts after half a century. The piece below written as rock as a genre and a concept was emerging stands up quite well. As ...
The Rolling Stones: Beggars' Banquet (Decca SKL 4955)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 10 December 1968
The Stones' carrier wave ...
Overview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 24 December 1968
"AN ELECTRIC caterwauling of power... burning it, flashing it, whirling it down some arc of consciousness, the sound screaming up to a climax of vibrations ...
Harpers Bizarre: Anything Goes (Pye, WS 1716)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 31 December 1968
HOWARD JOHNSON ice-cream parlours, Harvey's hamburgers, Busby Berkeley movies: artificial, sentimental, surface childlike fantasies. Small-town radio stations, high school proms, Frank Capra, George Gershwin, Mickey ...
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 7 January 1969
Update, 2019. Forty years ago leading BBC tv Radio DJ Paul Gambaccini organised Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums, in which 47 rock music writers including ...
The Everly Brothers: Roots (Warner WS 1752)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 21 January 1969
Pulled up by the roots ...
Nico, The Velvet Underground: Letter to a Mystified Man
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 28 January 1969
DEAR Mr Davey — You write a neat letter, and I smiled, too. Last week you wrote to the editor of the Guardian (January 20). "If you ...
MC5: The MC5 Kick Out The Jams!
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, Oz, 1 February 1969
2019 note: My Oz episodes — 2. My first piece for Oz, "Why isn't London jumping?", a tirade against the BBC's programming of pop music, ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 4 February 1969
Muddy Muddy Waters ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 11 February 1969
Transcending the Blues ...
The Beatles: Too Big For The Band?
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 25 February 1969
MARY HOPKIN, the film music for Yellow Submarine and Wonderwall, and the Two Virgins album, were all made by Beatles. But they have no other ...
Blood Sweat & Tears: Blood, Sweat and Tears: Blood, Sweat and Tears (CBS)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 4 March 1969
BOUND WITH BLOOD AND SWEAT ...
Family: The Original Family Way
Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 18 March 1969
FAMILY IS the most original and ambitious of the British bands that have not fully emerged from' the club circuit. I first heard them a ...
The Rolling Stones: Rolling Stone Magazine: Ripples from the Stone
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 25 March 1969
FEW REVIEWS can make a first-rank artist doubt his ability at the height of his success. At this level, critics can rarely do more than ...
Bob Dylan: Nashville Skyline (CBS)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 22 April 1969
Nashville Skyline man to tell the time by ...
Janis Joplin: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 29 April 1969
CRYING FOR US ...
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Village Voice, 22 May 1969
Update, 2019: WHO PLAYS concept albums now? With a couple of exceptions, not me. I don't mean albums whose separate numbers have a common approach, ...
Country Joe & The Fish, Dr. John, Flying Burrito Brothers, The Fugs: Rocking into religion
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 27 May 1969
Gods, bishops, priests and worshippers ...
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 12 June 1969
Update, 2019. FRANK ZAPPA was always friendly when he and I met, between 1968 and 1970. This may have been because I took him seriously, ...
Steve Miller Band: Brave New World (Capitol)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 17 June 1969
Update, 2019. THE ARE three omissions and one serious mistake in the piece below on the Steve Miller Band's Sailor (October 1968) and Brave New ...
Blind Faith, Donovan, Richie Havens: Blind Faith: A Fine Day
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Village Voice, 19 June 1969
LONDON — take a sheet of thin cardboard. Sprinkle iron filings on top. Place a magnet underneath. All the filings will start and shift, and ...
Giorgio Gomelsky: The Pop Paragon
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 22 June 1969
Author's note, 2018. Georgio died in New York in January 2014, aged 81. Everybody with even a passing interest knows that Georgio, whose dark bearded ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 24 June 1969
JONI MITCHELL has written songs for Tom Rush, and the Fairport Convention have used her songs on both their albums. ...
Family, The Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park: Out of the Way
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, 10 July 1969
A world turned upside down ...
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, 10 July 1969
2018 author's introduction: This was the third rock concert filmed by Granada Television for the UK national network in 1968 and 1969, the first two ...
Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band: Joe Boyd: Freaky Galahad
Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 29 July 1969
"WELL, YOU'D put your arm round its neck, y'know, like this" (demonstrating) "and hold it on the seat next to you, like another person." ...
The Kinks, Barbara Lewis, The Who: Styles of the City
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 19 August 1969
GEOFFREY CANNON ON POP MUSIC ...
Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, Harper's Bazaar, September 1969
Author's note, 2019. The first thing to know about Nic Cohn is that his 1969 book AWopBopaLooBopLopBamBoom: Pop from the Beginning was chosen in 2016 ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan, The Band: Isle of Wight Festival
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 2 September 1969
The gospel according to Dylan ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Dylan at Wight: A New Voice and a New Style
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 14 September 1969
THE TRAIN carrying us from Waterloo station in London to Portsmouth and the ferry across to the Isle of Wight Festival was full of newly ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 16 September 1969
Finding a new faith: GEOFFREY CANNON reviews pop music ...
The Beatles: Abbey Road (Apple)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 8 October 1969
Abbey Road backtrack ...
The Rolling Stones: Jumping Jack Jagger
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 14 October 1969
THE WIDENING gap between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones has been labelled as the contrast between aesthetics and politics. The difference between the two ...
Cream, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall: Union Jack Blues
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 21 October 1969
MEETING JANIS Joplin a few months ago, before her Albert Hall concert, I was staggered to feel how nervous she was. Then she explained. She ...
Davey Graham, Quintessence: Island in Basing Street
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 26 November 1969
Update, 2019. In the piece below I mention that Basing Street, where Island Records was established in 1969 in what had been an abandoned chapel, ...
Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie: Delaney & Bonnie: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 3 December 1969
Update, 2019. IN THEIR short time between 1969 and 1972, Delaney and Bonnie were glorious, for their quality, knowledge, and expressed love and joy of ...
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones: The Age Of Aquarius
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Partisan Review, Spring 1969
Update, 2020: Here is how I came to write the essay below on the Beatles and the Stones for the US intellectual quarterly Partisan Review ...
The Kinks: Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
Sleeve notes by Geoffrey Cannon, Pye Records, Fall 1969
Update 2019. Arthur (the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), the Kinks's second song-cycle, was released half a century ago, in October 1969. It ...
Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Are We in Tune? No
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 10 January 1970
Author's note, 2018: The review below was cut by the Guardian. What's here is uncut. Who plays Crosby Stills Nash (and Young) albums now or, ...
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 13 January 1970
Update, 2019. SOME FACTS from Wikipedia, practically half century after my negative review below."Led Zeppelin are one of the best-selling music artists in the history of audio ...
Nico: I Always Become The Songs That I Sing
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 7 March 1970
Author's note, 2018: I took Nico to Julie's in Portland Road in 1970. Its style was inspired by Biba. Magnetic people sat around on sofas ...
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 10 April 1970
I WAS ON that New York trip last weekend, too. My brief was to listen to the music. I have to report that as soon ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival, Quintessence: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 17 April 1970
2019 Update: I was crazy for Creedence. For The Guardian I reviewed Bayou Country in February 1969, saying "I rate John Fogarty as high for ...
The Flock, It's a Beautiful Day, Quintessence, Johnny Winter: Sounds of the '70s at Montreux
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 1 May 1970
UP THE ROAD from where I'm sitting now, senior television executives from ail over Europe, and from America and Japan, have been descending into a ...
The Who: Live at Leeds (Track)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 15 May 1970
Update, 2019. Below is the complete piece on The Who Live at Leeds written for The Guardian that published a slashed version, and also for ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Hollywood Festival, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 29 May 1970
Disgracing The Grateful Dead ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 17 July 1970
Update, 2020. Woodstock. The name has many meanings. There's Woodstock the town where Bob Dylan and the Band lived once. But the main resonance is ...
Joni Mitchell: Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 5 September 1970
Update, 2019. LIKE SO many who were there, my sense of life's possibilities was changed forever by the Isle of Wight five-day open-air festivals created ...
The Isle of Wight Festival: Three Shades Of Wight
Overview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 5 September 1970
APART FROM the music, what went on at the Isle of Wight last weekend? Here are the most popular theories. ...
Stoneground: The Electric Rum-And-Butter Ice-Cream And Melon Slices Test
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, 10 September 1970
Update, 2020. Wavy Gravy (born 1936 as Hugh Romney) featured in my piece below, does not just dream dreams and see visions. He lives them. ...
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Rebel – An Appreciation
Obituary by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 19 September 1970
"THANKS FOR being so patient. Next time we will really try and get it together." Spoken two hours before a cold Sunday dawn, three weeks ...
The Rolling Stones: Stones and the Street Fighting Men
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 3 October 1970
Update, 2019. The Rolling Stones were never just entertainers. They are the world's leading creators and performers of Dionysian rock theatre. They are flamboyant, perverse, ...
Janis Joplin: An Appreciation by Geoffrey Cannon
Memoir by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 6 October 1970
AN EVENING at the Royal Garden Hotel in April, 18 months ago. I was meeting Janis Joplin. I fished around for a while, trying to ...
The Band: Listening to The Band
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 10 October 1970
A NUMBER OF rock music bands have been celebrated, in the past three years, not just as "supergroups," but as bands composed of superlative musicians, ...
The Band: Supergroups: A Matter of Context
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 10 October 1970
A NUMBER OF ROCK music bands have been celebrated, in the past three years, not just as "supergroups" but as bands composed of superlative musicians. ...
Janis Joplin: The Agony of Janis
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 10 October 1970
Update, 2020. Yes, the deaths of Brian Jones in July 1969, then of Jimi Hendrix in September 1970, then of Janis Joplin a couple of ...
Bob Dylan: New Morning (CBS KC 30290)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 23 October 1970
Update, 2019. EMERGING FROM Hibbing to New York's Village. His pilgrimage to Woody Guthrie. The protest songs sung like a crow that are now a national ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 30 October 1970
"'SINFUL MUSIC,' the townsfolk in Memphis said it was. Which never bothered me, I guess." Elvis Presley, interviewed in 1957. In the early 1950s, the ...
Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Graham Nash: Graham Nash: Song of a Simple Man
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 9 November 1970
Update, 2020. I paid no attention to Graham Nash or to his band the Hollies, the close-harmony Manchester band formed in 1962 inspired by the ...
The Byrds: Untitled (CBS 66253); Preflyte (Together Records ST-T-1001)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 13 November 1970
FEW MUSICIANS have mastered the 16-track recording machine. The abstract discipline it imposes on anyone faced with reducing all its available tracks to two, too ...
The Rolling Stones: Rolling Stones and a Rocky Night in Paris
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 15 November 1970
PARIS — "Funny," said Philippe Paringaux (chief writer for Rock 'n' Folk), "how English freaks refer to pop festivals in Britain as psychedelic concentration camps." ...
Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Stephen Stills: Stills Life
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 28 November 1970
A portrait of a rock giant... at work on his solo LP and at home in his English country house ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 19 December 1970
Ringo Starr: Beaucoups of Blues; Paul McCartney: McCartney; John Lennon: John Lennon Plastic Ono Band; George Harrison: All Things Must Pass ...
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Charles Manson: The Maggot in the Rose
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 1971
Author's note, 2018: Nobody talked about flower power or summers of love or fun, fun, fun after the Manson and the Altamont murders, followed by ...
Overview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 8 January 1971
Update, 2020: Judging by what I play most as I work at home, the Velvet Underground and also Lou Reed are tops, together with Them ...
Little Richard: Electric Circus, New York NY
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 21 January 1971
ST MARK'S PLACE, the high street of New York's East Village, hums with memories these days. Among them, at the new year, was little Richard, ...
Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground: That Shock Of Recognition Tells You Where He's Been
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Chicago Sun-Times, 7 February 1971
Author's note, 2018: I met and interviewed Lou Reed twice, in early 1971 and mid-1972, in New York. He gained a reputation for being horrible ...
Tom Donahue: Clean Up Your Face And Mess Up Your Mind
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 17 March 1971
Author's note, 2018. This piece on Tom Donahue was one of a number I wrote for The Guardian that was not published. Bah! Nor ...
Van Morrison: What's So Special About Van Morrison?
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 20 March 1971
Update, 2019. BELOW THIS update is the first of two pieces on Van's early albums. They were commissioned by Richard Williams as my Melody Maker editor, ...
Van Morrison, Them: Van — Them and now
Discography by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 27 March 1971
Update, 2019: This piece continues that on "What's so special about Van Morrison", also here in the RBP archive, commissioned by Richard Williams as my ...
John Cale, The Velvet Underground: John Cale: Welsh Underground
Profile and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 12 April 1971
Author's note, 2018. The Velvet Underground and Nico and to a lesser extent White Light/White Heat are the albums that above all others up to ...
The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers (COC 5910O)
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 23 April 1971
Sticky fingers gather no moss ...
The Rolling Stones: The Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 2 May 1971
Getting Lots of Satisfaction From Mick, Stones ...
The Rolling Stones: No Dead Flowers
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, Fusion, 14 May 1971
For all their irrelevance to politics, ecology and third-world revolution, they continue to be a special kind of fun. ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 21 May 1971
THERE IS NO way to make great rock music from retirement. Paul McCartney may have been seduced — by reading that he's equalled Schubert — ...
Ike & Tina Turner: Ike and Tina Turner: Olympia, Paris
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 30 May 1971
Author's note, 2018. The piece below describes the Ike and Tina Turner concert at the Olympia, Paris, in May 1971. I prefer Ike and Tina ...
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 5 June 1971
NO DIFFICULTY KNOWING when you've just finished hearing a great rock concert. Because you'll be in the middle of a great crowd of people standing ...
Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash: Joni Mitchell: Blue/Graham Nash: Songs for Beginners
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 29 June 1971
JONI MITCHELL'S new album, Blue, is about to be released here by Warner Brothers (K 44128). A large proportion of Joni's most notable songs, to date, ...
Carole King, James Taylor: Carole King — Secret Star on the James Taylor Tour
Report and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 15 August 1971
Author's note, 2018: A transcendent moment in Carole King's life was during the evening of 7 December 2015 in Washington. She is sitting next to ...
Nesuhi Ertegun: The World Is His Manor
Profile and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 19 October 1971
GEOFFREY CANNON talks to "the most powerful man in the record business outside America" ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 29 October 1971
Out of the city ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Ambassador's Son to Recording Biz Mogul
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 14 November 1971
...
Overview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 26 November 1971
Update, 2020. "Perverted, outrageous, violent, repulsive, ugly, tasteless. A travesty. That's what's good about them". This was a quote about the Rolling Stones, recorded around ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 4 January 1972
Update, 2019: The first time I met George Harrison was in the late 1960s, when he was still a Beatle. I quite often went to ...
Alan Lomax: Making a Science of Man's Music
Profile and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, Los Angeles Times, 23 January 1972
Alan Lomax, the man who went into the fields of the southern states in the 1930s and brought the glory of the blues to the attention ...
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, Melody Maker, 29 January 1972
Harvest is surely come: Geoffrey Cannon previews NEIL YOUNG's new album Harvest, released next month ...
The Doors: "Out here on the perimeter there are no stars"
Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 20 March 1972
Update, 2019. Yes, folks are still listening to the Doors. An extract from their album LA Woman, mentioned in the review of Jim Morrison's lyrics ...
The Beatles, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, The Supremes: Motown Making Millions
Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 1 May 1972
Author's update, 2019. "The Manchester Guardian? That's the best fuckin' newspaper in the world!" So David Crosby told me in early 1969. He had answered ...
The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main Street (Rolling Stones Records, COC 2-900)
Review and Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 20 May 1972
MICK JAGGER on record ...
The Rolling Stones' 1972 US Tour: Winterland, San Francisco
Report by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, June 1972
The Rolling Stones. The last boogie 2019 Update: IN MY sixth year of regular rock writing, I was given a great boost by Jo Bergman ...
Elvis Presley: Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 17 June 1972
Author's note, 2018: Yes, it started for me with Elvis, when in 1956 I heard a demo of his first RCA record 'Don't be cruel'/ ...
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 28 June 1972
THE ROLLING STONES are on their first US tour since, the wild acclaim of their 1969 trip. In America, GEOFFREY CANNON describes the impact of ...
Lou Reed Talking About His First Solo Album
Interview by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, July 1972
Author's note, 2018. This was my scoop. New York, June 1972. Lou discusses all the tracks, one by one, in detail and with diversions, on ...
Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 7 July 1972
Author's note, 2018. WHEN I interviewed Lou Reed in New York in June 1972 he implored me to listen to David Bowie, and especially to ...
Johnny Cash at San Quentin was my idea
Memoir by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 2004
2018 note: Steve Turner emailed me in 2004 and said he was working on the official biography of Johnny Cash, and had been told that ...
The Doors: Out there in Golden Square, there were plenty of stars
Memoir by Geoffrey Cannon, Rock's Backpages, March 2014
ALL COUPS have a context. Here is the story of The Doors are Open, and how this Granada Television hour-long show came to be made ...
Memoir by Geoffrey Cannon, Rock's Backpages, February 2019
"THE PAST is never dead. It is not even past" rightly said William Faulkner. My time as a regular writer on rock music was half ...
The Kinks' Arthur: Its genius and its fate
Retrospective by Geoffrey Cannon, Rock's Backpages, October 2019
Arthur (the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), the Kinks's second song-cycle, was released half a century ago, in October 1969. It is now ...
back to LIBRARY
