Mitchell Cohen
Grew up in the Bronx, NY, fixated as a child on NYC top 40 radio in the early '60s: the WMCA Good Guys, the WABC All-Americans, and Murray the K's Swingin' Soiree on WINS. Fast-forward to NYU grad school (Cinema Studies); began writing about music and film for various publications, including Creem, Film Comment, Take One, Fusion, Phonograph Record Magazine. Wrote books on Carole King and Simon & Garfunkel for Sire/Chappell Books. While still writing regularly on music (for Creem, mostly, but also frequently for High Fidelity, Let It Rock, Who Put The Bomp, Country Music, Musician etc.), got a job in the publicity department at Arista Records, writing artist bios, press releases, that sort of thing. Which led to a position in the Creative Services department, writing print ads, producing radio spots (won a Clio Award for a Monty Python radio ad). Then made transition into Arista A&R, signed The Church, The Jeff Healey Band, made a pop-rock "comeback" album with Dion (‘Yo, Frankie’). Compiled and/or annotated reissues for Arista (The Monkees, Lee Dorsey, The Kinks, The Everly Brothers, lots of others) and Rhino (The Shirelles, Gene Pitney). Moved over to Columbia Records in 1993 and became Senior VP of A&R. Among Columbia projects: Maxwell, Nellie McKay, The Raveonettes, Savage Garden. Nominated for a Grammy Award as one of the producers of Sony 100 years multi-CD set. Voting member of NARAS and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
181 articles
List of articles in the library
The Beau Brummels: Beau Brummels: Stellar Studio Band
Overview by Mitchell Cohen, Fusion, November 1973
ONCE THE all-engulfing wave that was the British Invasion of 1964 had begun to subside, it began to be possible for some home-grown talent to ...
The Doors, Jim Morrison: Jim Morrison: Remembering Morrison
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Fusion, June 1974
THE rock world was still staggering from the back-to-back deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin when they were suddenly and mysteriously joined in pop ...
The Shangri-Las: Shangri Las: A Teenage Melodrama
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Let It Rock, December 1974
SHALL WE DANCE? ...
Bonnie Bramlett: The Bottom Line, NYC
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, March 1975
THE PRESSURE is on Bonnie Bramlett now, in a way that it's never been before. As part of a group that served as a way-station ...
Average White Band: Winterland, San Francisco
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, June 1975
THERE ARE THOSE who have had Average White Band pegged from the start as the best blue-eyed soul band since the Young Rascals, and these ...
Jefferson Starship: Central Park, NYC
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, June 1975
THEY MAY HAVE changed their surname, but Jefferson Starship have arrived at a conciliatory relationship with their past, and with mixed results. With Marty Balin ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Wollman Skating Rink, New York NY
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, July 1975
IT WAS THE first one of those muggy nights this season, when the air is so close it cuts down your breathing, that Bob Marley ...
Emmylou Harris, Maria Muldaur: Maria Muldaur & Emmylou Harris Live
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, July 1975
Maria Muldaur: Carnegie Hall, New York Emmylou Harris: Schaefer Music Festival, Central park, New York ...
Comment by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, July 1975
"THIS IS A SERIOUS surfing song," Mike Love announces from the stage of Madison Square Garden and the Beach Boys launch into a lively rendition ...
The Rolling Stones: Metamorphosis
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, July 1975
THE FASCINATION of Metamorphosis, basically a collection of outtakes, oddities and alternate versions, lies in what it adds to our experience and knowledge of the ...
The Bay City Rollers: Bay City Rollers: Once Upon A Star
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, September 1975
THE BAY CITY Rollers campaign is underway, and its components are familiar: screaming female fans in Great Britain, Sid Bernstein masterminding tour plans, back-to-back appearances ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley et al: Jamaica
Overview by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, October 1975
FIRST DAY, RAIN. Thick clouds and then more rain. It is, I'm told, the wetter of Jamaica's two wet seasons. ...
Kokomo: Wollman Rink, New York NY
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, October 1975
IF THERE'S ONE thing we don't need it's a group composed of exiles from second-line British boogie bands that has a tendency toward disco-oriented soul. ...
Carole King: On This Side Of Goodbye
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, January 1976
HE COMES HOME from a night of petting heavily in the back row of the RKO Fordham. Aching from the pains of halted passion, he ...
Queen: The New British Invasion
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, March 1976
"YOU'RE NOT going to ask me to interpret ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, are you?" ...
Aerosmith: "We're the Hottest Band in America"
Profile by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, April 1976
NEW YORK — Photo sessions are a pain in the ass. 8 x 10 glossies are made, not born; press kits aren't built in a ...
Patti Smith: Avery Fisher Hall, NYC
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, May 1976
FOR SOME OF US, Patti Smith is the girl of our rock and roll dreams. As a performer she doesn't merely flirt with danger, she ...
The Beatles, Wings: Wings: The Band On The Road
Report by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, May 1976
THE WINGS LIVE show has been evolving over the past three years, and McCartney deliberately kept a low profile during its earliest stages, a university ...
Rick Derringer, Cynthia Weil: The New Derringer: Rick Derringer & Cynthia Weil
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, June 1976
DERRINGER: ANOTHER PUNK INCORPORATES ...
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, November 1976
JACKSON BROWNE sat in a locker room beneath a domed hall at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. It had been a particularly successful college ...
Alex Chilton: The Big Star of New York's Underground
Report by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, June 1977
CHAPTER THREE in the adventures of a bona-fide, under-acknowledged rock hero is currently in progress. At the moment, the story is mostly taking place in ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1977
MAYBE NILS LOFGREN always was sort of a dummy. But his heart was in the right place (on his sleeve), he was capable of inventing ...
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes: This Time It's For Real
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1977
The songs of Miami Steve Van Zandt are like found objects; he zeroes in on particular species of East Coast rhythm and blues, mixes together ...
The Beach Boys: The Beach Boys Love You
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, July 1977
There is no TM song, no music-is-swell song, or "unfolding enveloping missiles of soul," or political/ecological commentary. Instead, what we have here is a collection ...
Dennis Wilson: Pacific Ocean Blue (Caribou)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, August 1977
"WE DO SOLO projects for ourselves," Dennis Wilson said during an interview eighteen months ago. "There are hundreds of tunes that we've recorded, a tremendous ...
The Small Faces: Small Faces: Playmates
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1977
ONE SOLO CAREER going nowhere, two sidemen left in the, lurch, and a convenient reconciliation. The Faces have gotten Small again, with their original lead ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1978
THIS BANDIT SUMMER, this snatcher of heroes, loved ones and possibilities, will be remembered also for leaving behind intoxicating rock and roll, with this album ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1978
First off, I'm only Canadian on my mother's side. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1978
TUFF DARTS ARE closer to the eleven-year old (male) state of mind than Shaun Cassidy. Pre-teen boys say things like, "Fran-ceen? I'd rather chew bubble ...
Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings: Waylon & Willie (RCA)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1978
'PICK UP The Tempo' again. 'It's Not Supposed To Be That Way' again. Tracking these guys separately or in tandem means a hell of a ...
Muddy Waters: I'm Ready (Blue Sky)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1978
IT ISN'T JUST the natural process of attribution and the creative stagnation afflicting his competitors that have made Muddy Waters the premier master of his ...
David Johansen: David Johansen (Blue Sky)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1978
A TRUE GEM... NOT A GEMETTE ...
Cheap Trick: Heaven Tonight (Epic)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1978
DANIEL AND GLORIA met at a rock flea market when their hands reached for the one over-priced copy of Hackamore Brick's One Kiss ...
Bruce Springsteen: Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Columbia)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1978
If I walk away from this, he thought, I'll be an old man – all ghosts and hangovers and mellow recollections. Fuck it, he thought, ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1978
WHAT'S MISSING on these LPs is the quality of delight. Nobody would consider the early records of The Zombies or The Hollies particularly well-crafted, but ...
Boston: Don't Look Back (Epic)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1978
SHE'S THE ONE dreams were invented for, and you've had her. The pursuit was long and arduous, the affair sudden and turbulent. You've gone madly ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1978
THIS IS some trap. Can a writer for this magazine retain some credibility and still say kind things about Shaun and Debby, without fixing one's ...
The Ramones: Ramones: Road To Ruin (Sire)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1978
"Sometimes timing is everything, you know?""How do you mean?" ...
Greg Kihn: Kihn-Esthetic Responses
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, January 1979
GREG KIHN is up for this one. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1979
FOR A FEW weeks in 1978, an FM radio station in New York City was trying, earnestly and imaginatively, to create rock 'n' roll counter-programming. ...
McGuinn, Clark & Hillman: McGuinn, Clark & Hillman
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1979
HAD RECORDS LIKE 'The World Turns All Around Her', 'She Don't Care About Time', and 'I Feel A Whole Lot Better' been products of your ...
Donna Summer: Bad Girls (Casablanca)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1979
‘HOT STUFF’ just isn't that terrific a record, no matter what the charts or current critical backlash dogma say, and it doesn't do any good ...
The Rubinoos: Rubinoos: Theoretical Boys In Search Of The Summer Single
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1979
IT IS A PERFECT world: the date is anywhere between May 15 and June 28; you are fourteen years old, and the days are getting ...
Wings: Back To The Egg (Columbia)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1979
FOR ME, the most pertinent phrase on Back To The Egg comes in the second half of ‘The Broadcast’, a piece near the end of ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1979
Candy-O Is Peggy Sue's daughter. Candy-O is this year's model. (Is the band furious that such an obvious title for their second had already been ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1979
MEMORANDUMFrom: Carraway LP Analysts, Inc.To: CREEM MagazineRe: THE RECORDS ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1979
AFTER FIVE ALBUMS and almost ten years of intermittent brilliance, Randy Newman achieves a number one single with a nastily amusing ditty. ...
The B-52s: Climate Control In The Land Of 16 Dances
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1979
MOST PEOPLE, when discussing/remembering the beach party movies, don't take Jody McCrea into account. There was a nerd in the surf. This relates to The ...
Fleetwood Mac: Tusk: From Shining Platinum To Dull Ivory
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, January 1980
WHITE ELEPHANT is more like it, heffalumping into the thick four-sided forest, stomping on moby grapes, swatting at the metaphysical graffiti carved into the tree ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Damn the Torpedoes (Backstreet/MCA)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1980
DAMN THE TORPEDOES takes the American Stand: "Don't tread on me" When you've been ‘raised on promises’ like the heroine of Tom Petty's bicentennial debut, ...
Marianne Faithfull: Broken English
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1980
"I never lied to my lover/But if I did I would admit it/If I could get away with murder/I'd take my gun and I'd commit ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1980
I CAN'T ACCEPT Shelley Hack as a Charlie's Angel (Spelling-Goldberg should burn in Nielsen purgatory for rejecting Claudia Jennings, who proceeded to smash up her ...
Warren Zevon: Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School (Asylum)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1980
IT'S EASY to see why the music of Warren Zevon — make that the idea of the music of Warren Zevon — has the more ...
The Ramones: What Price Glory? The Ramones Soldier On
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1980
"Survival of the fittest. And besides, it's fun." – Daffy Duck, helping a wabbit-hunting Elmer corner Bugs in Rabbit Fire ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1980
"Heroin" does not rhyme with "mellowing." ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1980
Voices: "NBC, proud as a peacock!"Announcer: "Fred Silverman presents The Roxy Music Flesh and Blood Comedy Hour starring Bryan Ferry. With The Doomdiggers, Brian Eno ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1980
YOU DON'T HEAR much about "personality crises" any more. But people still have them. People like Peter Blair Dennis Bernard Noone. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1980
ANYONE WHO CAN make the phrase "William Blake and the eternals" sound like the evocation of a metaphysical doo-wop group, as Van Morrison did on ...
Talking Heads: Remain In Light (Sire)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, January 1981
Play That Funky Music White Boy ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1981
FOR A FEW YEARS, roughly coinciding with the campaign and administration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, rock 'n' roll was the music of an era on ...
John Lennon, Yoko Ono: John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (Geffen GHS 2001)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, February 1981
John Lennon's Last ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1981
SHE STOMPED into the living room, as much as one can stomp in pink slippers and an extra-large Close Encounters t-shirt, and conspicuously clicked the ...
Dexys Midnight Runners: Dexy's Midnight Runners: Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1981
WHAT A GASEOUS hoot this album is. Such a conglomeration of goofy pretentions, cornball horn charts and blowsy singing hasn't been heard since the pre-War ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1981
THESE ALBUMS are blueprints for romantic strategies. Hearing them together is like eavesdropping on both halves of a double date, comparing style of seduction. ...
Squeeze: East Side Story (A&M)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1981
CONSIDER. A band with decidedly bent pop bearings (and more than a light touch merseybeat croon-a-toon McCartneyatrics), associated with John Cale in the founding phase ...
George Harrison: Somewhere In England
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1981
"SHE'S A DRAG. A well-known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things." – George Harrison, A Hard Day's Night, 1964. ...
Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive: Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1981
JUMPIN' JIVE IS about a musician with an attitude messing with music that is about style. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1981
BOB DYLAN AND Lenny Bruce once shared a taxi for about a mile and a half. According to Dylan, the ride felt as though it ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1981
MEAT 'ANYWHERE he wants to' Loaf is waxing rhapsodic once more. Who among us has not missed the grandiloquent sound of the corpuscles in his ...
Merle Haggard: Big City (Epic FE 37593)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, January 1982
THERE ISN'T much on Big City that's unfamiliar to the contemporary country milieu: yearning to break away from urban life and flee to "the middle ...
Prince: Controversy (Warner Bros. BSK 3601)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, January 1982
CONTROVERSY IS a presumptuous title for an album, but it's in keeping with Prince's tactics of provocation. Prince, in his early twenties, is a musician ...
The Police: Ghost In The Machine
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, January 1982
GARRY AHRENBERG couldn't get into the Police, an esthetic predeliction that caused him no small amount of derisive peer pressure. ...
Marianne Faithfull: Ses Liaisons Dangereuses
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1982
"I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN who I was," she says in a raspy, Bette Davis voice. "Whether I could achieve to express that to everyone else was ...
Joan Jett: I Love Rock 'N' Roll (Boardwalk)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1982
IF ANY OF rock's male marauders (say Triumph, or Rush) opened up an LP with a stop 'n' start thumper about spotting a 17-year-old number ...
Huey Lewis and the News: Huey Lewis: Picture This
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1982
HO HUM, you might say. One more slick-surfaced pop rock band with hooks to spare (many made out of spare parts), sax breaks, high-pitched harmonies ...
Del Shannon: Fugitive Kind of Love: Del Shannon
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1982
"THERE WAS A girl I thought was really in love with me. I mean, my heart would pound when she came around. She gave me ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1982
IF THE GUY who built a pinochle-playing computer for his Science Techniques Lab in high school married the gal who wrote poems called "alien/nation" for ...
Laurie Anderson: Big Science (Warner Bros.)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1982
‘I NO LONGER love the way you hold your pens and pencils’ is a line that any one of a thousand writers might write. But ...
Indeep: Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life (Sound of New York SNY 1201)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, September 1982
THE IDEA behind Indeep is that in matters sexual, women have all the leverage. "You'd be a fool for a kiss," Rose Marie Ramsey says ...
Rick James: Throwin' Down (Gordy)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1982
HE HAS A VOICE that's like a Looney Tunes imitation of Edward G. Robinson. His priorities (or those of the character he's created) are getting ...
Rosanne Cash: Somewhere In The Stars (Columbia)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1982
MOST OF the songs on Somewhere In The Stars, the third album by Rosanne Cash, are about the pitfalls of contemporary liaisons, the moments when ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1982
SAY YOU AND these other guys used to hang out in this neighborhood, and you all had pretty much the same goals, the same diversions, ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1982
DESIRE SOMETIMES goes unreciprocated. Sad, but it happens. Martin Fry, the leader of ABC, does not accept this with equanimity. He stares at his blueprint ...
David Johansen: Position Of A Vagabond Missionary
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1982
IN AN OFFICE that overlooks Central Park, David Johansen finds the videotape he's looking for, a recording of his New Year's morning show at the ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, January 1983
CLARE GROGAN has this itsy little boop-be-doop of a voice, and she twists phrases into odd curlicues while her four-piece band plays zesty, danceable (mustn't ...
Darlene Love: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Musician, January 1983
WHATEVER INCONGRUITY exists in the idea of a mature woman getting onstage and protesting that she's not too young to get married, or defiantly proclaiming ...
Michael Jackson: Thriller (Epic QE 38112)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, March 1983
A Thriller with a Difference ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1983
THERE'S A NEW furrowed-brow earnestness now emerging in American rock 'n' roll, a grainy neo-realism that depicts workaday lives in ways that were once the ...
Def Leppard: Pyromania (Mercury)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, May 1983
IT ALL COMES down to how many ways there are to conjugate the regular verb "to rock" in a context that suggests endurance of a ...
Nile Rodgers: Adventures In The Land Of The Good Groove
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, July 1983
SINCE NILE RODGERS (A) is democratic enough to include Wall Street within the borders of good-groove land (see the map on the album cover), and ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble: Texas Flood (Epic AL 38734)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, August 1983
STEVIE RAY Vaughan's guitar playing is designed to elicit gasps: Every cluster of notes is an invitation to amazement. This multiple-climax approach could easily prove ...
The Belle Stars: The Belle Stars
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1983
THERE'S NO LACK of traumatic incident on The Belle Stars' first album: lovers treat each other abominably, separate, commit crimes of passion. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1983
MARSHALL CRENSHAW'S first album was like a tuneful adaptation of an ad from the Voice's personal/classified columns: Lookin' for a brand new lover, a cynical ...
New Edition: Candy Girl (Streetwise SWRL 3301)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, October 1983
NEW EDITION'S hit 'Candy Girl' is an uncanny re-creation of the early Jackson 5's pop-soul effervescence, down to the last vocal inflection. But it's not ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Girl At Her Volcano
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1983
IT SEEMS APT that Rickie Lee Jones's Girl At Her Volcano begins at a point near the end of her live set ("We love you!" ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1983
WE'VE HEARD THIS before, and the Fleshtones know it: "Your scene isn't really so strange/Some things never really change." Hornet-nest guitar. Gnarly vocals. Lyrics that ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1983
EVERYTHING'S AN "ANTHEM" these days, every song that asserts the simplest preference, celebrates any individual or social identity or activity (oh, "Flashdance...What A Feeling," or ...
NRBQ: Grillin' At The Roadside
Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1983
THINK OF NRBQ as a diner somewhere off the main highway, serving up Tex-Mex chili, Kansas City barbeque, Philadelphia cheese steaks, New England clam chowder, ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, January 1984
WHAT WAS that he said? "No time to wallow in the mire." Tell that to the folks who have somehow managed to turn a band ...
Peech Boys: N.Y.C. Peech Boys: Life Is Something Special (Island 7 900941)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, February 1984
THERE ARE too many dance records that, like werewolves, lose their power in the glare of daylight. They may he frisky enough to get club ...
Paul McCartney: Pipes of Peace (Columbia QC 39149)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, February 1984
PAUL McCARTNEY just wants everyone to play nice. When he addresses any topic pertaining to the outside world, he takes on the wheedling tone of ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1984
ON HEARTS AND BONES, Paul Simon turns the basic philosophical pop question inside out. Instead of "Why do fools fall in love?" (or its variation, ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1984
MITCH EASTER is like a kid who only has a box of eight Crayolas – the basic set, no burnt sienna, no vermillion, no cornflower ...
Womack and Womack: Womack & Womack: Love Wars (Elektra 60293)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, High Fidelity, May 1984
THE MEN and women that Cecil and Linda Womack portray on Love Wars almost never want the same thing at the same time which makes ...
Slade: Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1984
HERE IS NODDY HOLDER, raspy lead singer of Slade, putting a move on a member of the opposite sex: "You want equality/You won't get none ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, July 1984
JOE ELY'S Hi-Res has a feverish, jittery seediness, a buzz you can't shake off. Remember the first episode of Cheers, where the guys argued about ...
Bananarama: Bananarama (London)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, August 1984
BANANARAMA CAN'T BE bothered to raise their voices; it's just not worth it. The attitude is cool deadpan, the image is ye'-ye' girls with a ...
Elvis Costello and the Attractions: Goodbye Cruel World (Columbia)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1984
IT'S ALMOST Elvis Costello and the Distractions this time out. Goodbye Cruel World, LP #10 (here in America, at least), has such a desperate busyness ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1984
IT'S BEEN ONE Old Timers Day after another for Hall of Fame axe-handler Jeff Beck over the past year or so. ...
Patty Smyth, Scandal featuring Patty Smyth: Scandal Featuring Patty Smyth: Warrior
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1984
THIS RECORD SHOULD come in a plain white package, like generic elbow macaroni; it has every 1984 mainstream (AORMTV) rock mannerism so down pat that ...
Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra: Frank Sinatra with Quincy Jones and Orchestra: L.A. Is My Lady (Quest)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, December 1984
FRANKIE RUNS OVER HOLLYWOOD ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, February 1985
CENSUS-TAKERS have determined that there is a core audience of 19,422 citizens with a susceptibility toward charmingly weird, clever, and sensitive pop-rock with a foundation ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, March 1985
GIVE MY REGARDS To Broad Street, a motion picture written by, and starring, Paul McCartney, opens across America in October, closes across America by November. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, April 1985
I have a better title, except Malamud already claimed it: The Natural. John Fogerty's sound could never be pinned down to time or ...
Van Morrison: A Sense Of Wonder
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1985
ONE OF THE SMARTEST things Martin Scorsese did in The King Of Comedy was bracket it with songs by Ray Charles and Van Morrison. The ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Southern Accents
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, July 1985
PRETTY SOON, it will be an established practice for earnest rockers to start off albums by announcing the circumstances of their birth. ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, September 1985
LONE JUSTICE'S Maria McKee is one tough cookie. Barely out of her teens, she comes on with a spitfire defiance and a repertoire of yelps, ...
The Beach Boys: The Beach Boys
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, October 1985
SAY YOU'RE AT your high school reunion – a far-fetched thought, but bear with me for a moment – and some creep corners you by ...
Phil Spector: The Agony Of Phil Spector
Comment by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, 8 July 2010
I CAN LISTEN to six hours of Phil Spector recording sessions, some of which amount to take after take of Spector instructing the lead singer ...
Adele, Whitney Houston, Taylor Swift: The Girls Most Likely
Comment by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, February 2012
SHE WAS ANOINTED, for sure. Behind the curtain, all the machinery was being cranked up for her debut, all the fanfare that was possible back ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, 21 June 2012
THE AUDACITY of the new Fiona Apple album makes me so happy, because I can imagine what went on over at her record company when ...
The Beatles, Buddy Holly: The Day the Music Died? Feb. 3, 1959 – Feb. 7, 1964
Comment by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, 4 February 2013
THE WHOLE "Day The Music Died" mythology is a crackpot idea of rock history. Buddy Holly died for somebody's sins, but not to become a ...
Burt Bacharach: "He writes in hat sizes. Seven and three-fourths." Frank Sinatra on Burt Bacharach
Comment by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, 27 April 2013
IF THE DETAILS of Burt Bacharach's romantic escapades — and there were many, since as Sammy Cahn once said, Burt was the only songwriter who ...
The Rolling Stones: No Expectations: The Stones at the Staples Center
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, 5 May 2013
PEOPLE AT THE Staples Center in L.A. this week spent a considerable chunk of cash to be in the same room as the Rolling Stones. ...
Merry Clayton: That Background Sound: Merry Clayton
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, 30 June 2013
BY THE TIME Merry Clayton got the call one night that got her out of bed and into the studio to unleash her window-rattling voice ...
It's in the Mud: Muscle Shoals
Film/DVD/TV Review by Mitchell Cohen, Rock's Backpages, 2 August 2013
MUSCLE SHOALS, directed by Greg "Freddy" Camalier, is one of the latest in a loosely-linked series of music documentaries – Standing In The Shadows of Motown, The ...
Rockpile: How Rockpile Tried (and Failed) to Save Rock and Roll
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2016
THERE WAS technically only one album released by the band Rockpile, a jaunty, good-natured collection called Seconds of Pleasure that came out in its original ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2016
THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL were NYC's Beatles. Lillian Roxon, in her indispensable Rock Encyclopedia, called them "our own little moptops, born, bred and raised right here ...
Jan & Dean & the Rise of L.A. Pop
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2016
AS MUCH AS anyone else, including the Beach Boys, Jan & Dean helped establish the mythology of Los Angeles. When the city was still in ...
Janis Joplin: Janis Breaks the Chain
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2016
NOT COUNTING outtakes and alternates, songs on which she didn't sing lead, and the instrumental she never got around to adding her vocal to for ...
The Rolling Stones, Bobby Troup: 'Route 66' is the Quintessential American Tune
Essay by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2016
FOR SIX DECADES, Bobby Troup's '(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66' has been a musical guidebook, transcending styles and fashion, recognizing no boundaries. ...
Bert Berns, The McCoys: 'Sloopy' Hangs On: How a Latin-R&B Song Became a Pop-Rock Anthem
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2016
'HANG ON SLOOPY' is one of the dozen or so songs (along with 'Wild Thing,' 'Gloria,' 'Louie Louie,' 'Twist and Shout,' 'Hey Joe') that make ...
The Beau Brummels: Were The Beau Brummels America's Unluckiest Band?
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2016
EVERYTHING BEGAN so well. Almost a year after the all-consuming British Invasion began, the Beau Brummels were one of the first new homegrown bands to ...
Paul Revere & The Raiders: Loud on the Ledge: The Bumpy Ride of Paul Revere & the Raiders
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, August 2016
EVERYTHING ABOUT Paul Revere and the Raiders was contrived and corny, except their music. There's no rational excuse for why they shouldn't be routinely counted ...
Donovan: Tripping Out: How Two Donovan Songs Defined the '60s
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, August 2016
'SUNSHINE SUPERMAN' and 'Season of the Witch' each kicked off a side of Donovan's 1966 Epic Records debut, an album that he's celebrating next month ...
Bert Berns: The Ecstatic Agony of a Producer/Songwriter
Report and Interview by Mitchell Cohen, Best Classic Bands, 7 August 2016
The Rock Hall member behind such classics as 'Brown Eyed Girl,' 'Twist and Shout' and more. ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, September 2016
SO MANY artists in the tsunami of music from the U.K. that flooded America in the mid-'60s went on to make extraordinary albums over a ...
Rick Nelson: Restless Kid: Rick Nelson at the Cusp of Country-Rock
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, September 2016
IT'S TOO BAD Rick Nelson recorded a top 5 single called 'Teen Age Idol', not just because the song is dreary fan-pandering, but because it ...
NRBQ: The Best American Band You Might Not Know About
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, November 2016
FOR DECADES, critics, musicians, and a slew of civilian devotees have testified to the idiosyncratic brilliance of NRBQ, and yet they've had to endure endless ...
Guide by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, December 2016
JAMES BROWN invented the modern live soul album with the release of Live at the Apollo in 1963, and Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, and Etta ...
Van Morrison, Patti Smith, Them: How 'Gloria' Became the Ultimate Rock Anthem
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
'GLORIA', WRITTEN more than fifty years ago by Van Morrison for his band Them, is the simplest song. Just three chords – my musician friends ...
Phil Ochs: How Phil Ochs Went from Folk Hero to Rock & Roll Revolutionary
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
PHIL OCHS had been on the stage of Carnegie Hall before. He first headlined there in January 1966, armed with incendiary topical material and witty ...
The Troggs: How 'Wild Thing' Became the Ultimate Rock Anthem
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
'WILD THING', as performed by the Troggs, is a perfect distillation of rock 'n' roll's primitive impulses, and became so central to the basic cultural ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
WITH THEIR EXUBERANT three-part harmony, chiming guitar riffs, and keen sense of what makes a memorable hook, the Hollies created a signature sound. At first, ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
IF HE'D DONE nothing before or after he dropped by a Bob Dylan recording session in June 1965, sat down at the Hammond organ – ...
Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels: Mitch Ryder's Bumpy Ride
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
FOR TWO YEARS in the middle of the '60s, Mitch Ryder couldn't have been any hotter: the frenetic, soul-inspired frat-rock that he and the Detroit ...
Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson: The Girls of Rhythm Nation
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
THEY COULD have been rivals in a pop soap opera. Whitney Houston prim and buttoned-up, Janet Jackson frisky and up for anything. Whitney was a ...
The Mamas and The Papas: The Strange Vibrations of the Mamas & the Papas
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
THERE WAS a melancholy guitar, and then the voices came in: "All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey." That was the beginning ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2017
GOING SOLO IS an ancient musical tradition. Probably there was a Gregorian monk whose yearning for the spotlight made him think, "I can do this ...
Manfred Mann: Why Manfred Mann Is the Most Underappreciated Group of the British Invasion
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, January 2017
MANFRED MANN were one of only two British groups to have a #1 single in 1964 without a Lennon-McCartney song. They were endorsed by Bob ...
Kris Kristofferson: How Kris Kristofferson saved Nashville
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, February 2017
THERE ARE SO many reasons to be in awe of Kris Kristofferson. He survived Barbra Streisand's A Star Is Born, Heaven's Gate, and the movie ...
When Jazz Started Feelin' Groovy
Guide by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, July 2017
IT WAS SO SIMPLE: pop music was for kids, and kids bought 45s. Jazz fans were older, hipper, and collected LPs. Two different constituencies, and ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2018
THE IMAGE OF Los Angeles rock in the '80s is imprinted like a tacky tattoo: bands with poofed-up hair and eyeliner, girls with poofed-up hair ...
Eric Carmen, Raspberries: Why (the) Raspberries Mattered
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2018
THEY HAD TO be kidding, right? "Raspberries"? That's only a few degrees removed from "1910 Fruitgum Company." And then there were the poufy hair, the ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, January 2018
GRAM PARSONS didn't care much for the term "country-rock". And he wasn't thrilled by some of the more candy-coated bands who were able to capitalize ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Tom Petty Was the Ultimate Rock Fan
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, February 2018
EVERY NIGHT, on what was never supposed to be their last tour, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers opened the show with side one, track one ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2019
THE COUNTRY MUSIC situation in 1985 was so dire that The New York Times published an article that, if not quite an obituary, was a ...
Grin, Nils Lofgren: How Nils Lofgren Almost Became the Next Big Thing
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2019
THE ADVERTISEMENT for Grin, the first album that positioned Nils Lofgren front-and-center in his own band, said "until recently, only insiders could be absolutely certain ...
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2019
SESSION PLAYERS are usually unheralded, often uncredited. If you bought the albums The Who Sing My Generation or the Kinks' Face to Face, or the ...
Tom Jones Deserves Your Respect
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, 2019
TO OPEN HIS 2012 album Spirit in the Room, Tom Jones dug into the Leonard Cohen songbook. "I was born like this, I had no ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis Faces His Final Curtain
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, June 2019
THE ANNOUNCEMENT of Elvis Presley's shows at Madison Square Garden was startling. It was as though the media were reporting that aliens were about to ...
Paul Simon and the Road to Redemption
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, June 2019
YOU COULD ARGUE whether Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years deserved its trophy for Album of the Year when the Grammys were handed out in ...
Guy Clark's Triumphant Last Act
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, July 2019
IF YOU WERE watching television after midnight on July 21, 1998, you may have witnessed a musical performance that belongs in the history books. David ...
Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves: Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and the Politics of Joy
Comment by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, July 2019
NOT MANY people in the audience at Irving Plaza in New York knew who Kacey Musgraves was when she opened there for Little Big Town ...
The Dave Clark Five: Who Put the Thump?: The Deep Footprints of the Dave Clark 5
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, July 2019
THE SONGS OF the Dave Clark 5 were louder, denser, and more raucous than anything else on Top 40 radio, so echo-and-reverb-laden that even a ...
Smokey Robinson, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Smokey Robinson and the Art of Pop
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, August 2019
"I DON'T LIKE you, but I love you." Those eight words, the ones that start off 'You've Really Got a Hold on Me', were the ...
Eric Church: How Eric Church Is Keeping Classic Rock Alive
Essay by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, September 2019
ERIC CHURCH was born too late, and no one knows that better than he does. His music is nostalgic for an era he wasn't alive ...
Neil Diamond Is Not (Just) Who You Think He Is
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, September 2019
THERE'S A SCENE in Ted Demme's 1996 film Beautiful Girls where Uma Thurman strolls into a bar, turns heads, and has all the local guys ...
Linda Ronstadt: Why Linda Ronstadt is the Quintessential "Girl Singer"
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, September 2019
I FIRST SAW her at the Bitter End on Bleecker Street in the early '70s; I was in the second row, sipping on an ice ...
The Mavericks: Why the Mavericks are the Bar Band of Your Dreams
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, September 2019
IT FELT LIKE some kind of a trick, the way the Mavericks seduced the world of country music when they came on the scene in ...
Chet Atkins, Dolly Parton: How Dolly Parton Became America's Sweetheart
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, October 2019
THE LAST SONG on Dolly Parton's My Tennessee Mountain Home, her autobiographical concept album from 1973, is a three-minute story about how she arrived in ...
The Rascals and the Rock-Soul Explosion
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, October 2019
THE SEPTEMBER 2014 event at NYU's Provincetown Playhouse was formally billed as a Songwriters Hall of Fame Master Session, but when it concluded with John ...
The Beatles, Bert Berns, The Isley Brothers: How 'Twist and Shout' Shook the World
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, November 2019
UNLIKE MOST stories, this one begins with a twist. "Come on, baby," Hank Ballard commanded, "let's do the Twist," immortalizing a dance that was catching ...
Johnny Rivers: When Everything Went a Go-Go
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, November 2019
IT WAS EARLY 1964, a couple of months after JFK was killed, and everyone just wanted the heavy clouds of mourning to lift. A new ...
Tim Hardin: The Haunted Saga of Tim Hardin
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, November 2019
TIM HARDIN DIED in December 1980, not quite a week after his 39th birthday, and to the extent that his passing was felt in the ...
Herman's Hermits: OK, Let's Talk a Bit About Herman's Hermits, Really
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, December 2019
THE POP MOMENT that made Herman's Hermits possible, the British Invasion of the mid-'60s, was anything but monolithic. Some of it was surly and aggressive, ...
Burt Bacharach and the Invention of Modern Cosmopolitan Pop
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, March 2020
GENERALLY, SONGWRITERS who aren't also performers don't become celebrities. They don't get to host television specials, or appear in commercials alongside their glamorous wives, or ...
How West Side Story Taught Broadway How to Rumble
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, March 2020
THE FIRST PEOPLE we meet after the curtain goes up on Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story are the members of a street ...
Count Basie: How Count Basie Brought Big Band Jazz Into the Atomic Age
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, April 2020
POST-WORLD WAR II America was a bleak period for the big-band business. It was the sound that accompanied the country during the Depression and through ...
Clive Davis and Arista Records
Book Excerpt by Mitchell Cohen, 'Looking for the Magic' (Trouser Press Books), Summer 2022
This is the second of two excerpts on RBP from Mitchell Cohen's book Looking for the Magic: New York City, the '70s and the Rise ...
Book Excerpt by Mitchell Cohen, 'Looking for the Magic' (Trouser Press Books), Summer 2022
This is the first of two excerpts on RBP from Mitchell Cohen's book Looking for the Magic: New York City, the '70s and the Rise ...
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