Paul Yamada
Independent scholar and cultural critic Paul Yamada has spent thirty years in different areas of the music business, in the midwest and the east. A founding editor of the pioneering rock zine Terminal Zone (1976-78), Paul has written on blues, rock, soul, jazz, and avant garde music. In addition, Yamada has written on cinema, art, and theater for a wide variety of local publications in Chicago, St. Louis and Washington DC. He has consulted for National Public Radio, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the Washington DC Performing Arts Society and Chicago area (name of theater). His current projects include a Chicago project, Wholesome, which will include music revues, essays, visual arts and streamed radio.
17 articles
List of articles in the library
Live Review by Paul Yamada, Concert News, July 1984
10 C.C. IS A band with quite a past. The four members have had a lot of experience playing in English pop-rock groups; they are ...
David Bowie: From Low to Lodger
Retrospective by Paul Yamada, New York Rocker, July 1979
THE LAST TWO studio LPs by David Bowie seem to make up some sort of unit. The release of a third album in collaboration with ...
Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, Man, Rockpile: Pub Rock
Overview by Paul Yamada, Terminal Zone, 1978
TO THOSE OF US here in the states, the period of so called 'Pub Rock' in the UK, which lasted at least 6 years, and ...
John Cage: Tributes to John Cage: The Kennedy Center Concert and Ninth Street Crossings
Report by Paul Yamada, Washington Review, June 1983
WHAT CAN you say about a 70-year-old wiseacre, whose public persona exudes sensitivity and dogma, insight and fatuousness? And what can you say when that ...
Rhys Chatham: 9:30 Club, Washington DC
Live Review by Paul Yamada, Washington City Paper, 2 October 1981
TWO SETS in one night is sometimes too much for a band, and sometimes it's not enough. For Rhys Chatham and R.E.M. it was just ...
Grand Funk Railroad: Kiel Center, St Louis
Live Review by Paul Yamada, Concert News, July 1984
IT WAS OBVIOUS that this was what the crowd was waiting for; they had tried to be totally oblivious to the first band, Wet Willie, ...
Ronald Shannon Jackson, Material, Prince, James Blood Ulmer: 1982 Black Music Report
Overview by Paul Yamada, Coolest Retard, March 1983
THE PAST FEW years have brought much that is new or at least different to contemporary black music, and though both white and black tastes ...
Mahalia Jackson: A Centennial Celebration Of Mahalia Jackson
Comment by Paul Yamada, JazzGram, July 2011
THE CHICAGO JAZZ ENSEMBLE wound down its season paying tribute to Mahalia Jackson, who was born October 26, 1911 in New Orleans, and who came ...
Bill Nelson: Beauty And The Beat: Bill Nelson Keeps a Diary
Review by Paul Yamada, Washington Tribune, September 1982
A DOOR OPENS to reveal a long hall, splendidly lit by candelabra, clenched by almost human hands, attached to the wall at the elbow. The ...
NRBQ: Desperados, Washington DC
Live Review by Paul Yamada, New York Rocker, January 1980
AFTER A quarter-century of rock 'n' roll, it should be obvious that the idiom (if it can be classed as such) must be maintained by ...
Prince: Purple Drain: Is It Time to Give Up on the Prince We All Want?
Comment by Paul Yamada, Rock's Backpages, April 2009
ON THE FINAL Sunday of March 2009, Prince released a 3-CD set. Two of the albums are his music with his band; the other is ...
Steve Reich: 9th Street Crossing Festival, Pension Building, Washington DC
Live Review by Paul Yamada, Washington Review, February 1983
FOR SEVERAL years now Steve Reich has been labeled one of the three "minimalists" to name drop, listen to, and even to take seriously. ...
The Sex Pistols: In Defence of the Sex Pistols
Essay by Paul Yamada, unpublished, 1985
ANY SERIOUS study of rock music should sift through the history to discover outbreaks, accidents and ruptures in and, of rock, that offer themselves as ...
Report and Interview by Paul Yamada, Concert News, July 1984
I'VE SEEN SLADE three times; this time makes the fourth. I went out of my way to see them the other times, and each trip ...
Robin Trower: Kiel Center, St Louis
Live Review by Paul Yamada, Concert News, July 1984
ROBIN TROWER is one of several guitarists who survived the experimentalism of the middle to late 60's; providing the non-rhythmic thrust to Procul Harum, he ...
Wet Willie: Kiel Center, St Louis
Live Review by Paul Yamada, Concert News, July 1984
DURING THE 60's, there was a huge flood of "local colour" bands, which had national hits, one national album, and then, disappeared from the face ...
List of genre pieces
Essaying The Sound of the City: Gillett and After
Essay by Paul Yamada, Terminal Zone, Spring 1977
ANYONE WELL acquainted with the pop and R&B charts from 1948-1954 knows a few odd things about rock. ...
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