Richard Cook
Richard Cook was one of the major feature writers for NME in the early and mid-'80s. He subsequently edited The Wire for seven years, before becoming editor of Jazz Review. He was the co-author of the highly-regarded The Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD, and in 2001 published Blue Note: The Biography. Tragically, Richard's life was cut short by cancer in August 2007.
Former colleagues pay tribute to Richard in 2007
214 articles
List of articles in the library
Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim: Dollar Brand: Camden Town Hall, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 March 1980
A LITTLE South African night music; Dollar Brand — or Abdullah Ibrahim as he now prefers — and two 50 minute sets of solo piano, ...
Robert Wyatt: Rock Bottom / Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 April 1981
THE REAPPEARANCE of Robert Wyatt's two Virgin albums (1974-5 vintage), now in a double package, is as welcome as a spring day after a relentless ...
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 September 1981
Taj Mahal, Desperadoes: Hammersmith Odeon, London WITH VIV Stanshall confining himself to introductions, we were given two personalisations of black music, and an expected ...
The Hollies: Cheap Hollidaze in Your Own Back Catalogue
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 September 1981
THE 'CARRIE-ANNE' BOYS CARRY ON ...
Grateful Dead: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 10 October 1981
IT MUST be a resurrection year if the San Franciscan pensioners come over twice to play. No danger of saturation for the faithful, though. Saturday ...
The Slits: Return Of The Giant Slits (CBS)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 October 1981
SO SOMEONE else gives up their all to the beat of the drum. Bongos clump, shakers rattle and roll, the bright ching of bells and ...
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 24 October 1981
THESE BIENNIAL all-night Rockpalast bloat-ons are comically close to the idea of a festival mentality geared to Germanic efficiency: You vill be entertained! The groups ...
Mink DeVille: A Son-of-a-bitch Interview with Willy DeVillle
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 31 October 1981
Richard Cook gets threatened by a real life American rock 'n' roll star. "oh, there ain't nothing that I wouldn't doJust to walk that ...
Louis Moholo, Archie Shepp: Archie Shepp, Louis Moholo: Camden Jazz Week, the Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 November 1981
GET DOWN, SHEPP! ...
Carla Bley Band: Camden Jazz Week, the Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 November 1981
PERCHED AT the organ and squinting through her big spectacles at the music, Carla Bley faced the horn players in her group like some loopy ...
23 Skidoo, Defunkt: Defunkt, 23 Skidoo: The Venue, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 November 1981
Closer to the Bone ...
The Beat: Beat Drowning in Confusion
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 21 November 1981
A SHAKY YEAR for The Beat so far was compounded last week by a mix-up over their new single, 'Hit It'. The twelve-inch copy that ...
The Stray Cats: Gonna Ball (Arista)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 21 November 1981
FOR A trio so preoccupied with a style summed up in a quiff. The Stray Cats can make a pretty mean music. With tough-baby roller ...
James Blood Ulmer: Jazz Gets a Blood Transfusion: James Blood Ulmer
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 28 November 1981
JAMES BLOOD ULMER seemed faintly bemused by it all. Sat square in his little hotel chair like some Great Panjandrum surprised by a person of ...
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 2 January 1982
THE LAST night of a residency can be many things: a blow-out, a piss-up, a tired release, a last lunge for the heights. I don't ...
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 January 1982
UNLIMITED COMPANY ...
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 6 February 1982
The Stranglers: Hemel Hempstead PavilionAS A LIVE proposition, The Stranglers have eluded me until now. The exceptional crunch of this show made me wonder why. ...
The B-52s: Mesopotamia (Island)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 February 1982
A BRIEF encounter between two of the most deceptively insidious forces in new American music – David Byrne's irresistible art scalpel and The B-52's immovable ...
Can, Holger Czukay: Holger Czukay: Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 February 1982
AN AMBIENT tape is burring in the background. "I made a special cassette for a new kind of radio programme," explains Holger Czukay as we ...
Thelonious Monk: Round Midnight: Thelonious Monk 1920-1982
Obituary by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 February 1982
AFTER BEING in a coma following a stroke Thelonious Monk died last week, and jazz lost one of the most timeless giants, a pianist and ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 February 1982
"THEY WENT right through it. Took out every sock. Squeezed every tube of toothpaste. Then this guy says to me 'You – come with me. ...
The Fall: These Fallish Things: Hex Enduction Hour (Kamera)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 March 1982
"Everyone gets too serious about The Fall."Mark E Smith, November 1981 ...
Spandau Ballet: Last Dance Of The New Romance: Spandau Ballet’s Diamond
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 March 1982
IT SEEMS like Spandau Ballet are having trouble, and they're not sure how to face up to it. The concept of Spandau has grown ...
Pigbag: Snouts 'n' Snails 'n'Pigbag Tales
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 March 1982
"WELL, I BEGAN with alto sax. Then I started playing more and more guitar and less sax; then I did more percussion because we ...
Boomtown Rats: V Deep (Mercury)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 March 1982
I HAVEN'T bothered with this group since the awful 'I Don't Like Mondays', which made me douse most of the fonder memories for minor excellences ...
The dB's: Sophisticated Jukebox Music
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 March 1982
THE APPEARANCE OF The Great American Pop Band on these shores hasn't exactly caused a stampede to the nation's box offices. But the dB's are ...
Tom Browne: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 10 April 1982
SWEET THUNDER OF A JIVE JAZZ CAT ...
Robert Palmer: Maybe It's Live (Island)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 April 1982
ROBERT PALMER'S roguish dilettantism will get the better of him one of these days. It might have been anticipated that the pre-set routines of a ...
Squeeze: The Crackerjack Days Are Over
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 April 1982
Squeeze's new LP is ready — and if last year's East Side Story is any indication, Sweets From A Stranger will be the best collection ...
The Residents: Mark Of The Mole and The Tunes Of Two Cities (Ralph)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 24 April 1982
The Residents Going Underground ...
Killing Joke: Revelations (EG)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1 May 1982
SO WHERE'S THE PUNCH LINE? ...
Miles Davis: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1 May 1982
I HADN'T EXPECTED too much. These are Miles Davis' Twilight years. There are younger and cooler cats to torch the way: Miles took the major ...
Ornette Coleman: Of Human Feelings (Antilles)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 8 May 1982
JUST ONE ORNETTO! ...
Robyn Hitchcock: Phantom of Psychedelia
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 8 May 1982
RICHARD COOK follows the Robyn Hitchcock guide to transport — physical, mechanical, mental and musical. ...
Nick Lowe: The Man Who Tuned Up While The Falklands Burned
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 May 1982
RICHARD COOK hears how Nick Lowe's "turned into Zager and Evans — busy making misses". ...
Thomas Dolby: The Golden Age Of Wireless (Venice In Peril)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 May 1982
THE NOISE REDUCER ...
Art Ensemble Of Chicago: Urban Bushmen (ECM)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 May 1982
BURNING BUSHMEN ...
Defunkt: The Life and Death of Romance
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 May 1982
Neo-realist funkt, anyone? Joe Bowie describes his big city reggae to Richard Cook. ...
Tom Verlaine: Words From the Front (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 May 1982
TOM VERLAINE is one of the last great rock musicians to come out of America; and the neglect he's suffered, after two brilliant records, is ...
Cabaret Voltaire: 2X45 (Rough Trade)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 5 June 1982
WHAT IS least novel – and perhaps least satisfying – about the ascendancy of synthi-pop is its dependence on romantic humanist elements. Kraftwerk's love of ...
Todd Rundgren: The Venue, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 5 June 1982
EVERYTHING YOU remember about rock music is secreted somewhere on some Todd Rundgren record. The synthetic flash, the bullet-browed machismo, the candywisp sentimentality, the filibuster's ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 6 June 1982
I miss Wire. I was always partial to the austere subversiveness, their brittle sense of editing, their hybrid of ghoulish chants and Byrdsy chiming. Though ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 12 June 1982
ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS. ...
Rip Rig and Panic: Rip Rig & Panic
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 12 June 1982
"OH NOOOO! Look at this one! Look at Springer's head!" ...
Herbie Hancock: Herbie Goes Lite-weight
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 19 June 1982
NOW LOOK — I am not a purist. it doesn’t bother me that Herbie Hancock effectively quit the most testing areas of jazz for fusion, ...
Obituary by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 June 1982
ART PEPPER, one of the true greats of modern jazz saxophone, died from a cerebral haemorrhage last week, three months short of his 57th birthday. ...
Retrospective by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 June 1982
Proto-punk, pure pop and other bites and scratches. Richard Cook assesses the career and impact of "the world’s first modern pop group". 1 April ...
Joe Jackson: Night And Day (A&M)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 June 1982
JACKSON IS the kind of nice guy people admire rather than warm to. He has the right sort of moves and an unimpeachable humanitarian streak; ...
Randy Crawford, Roberta Flack: Randy Crawford: Windsong (WEA)/Roberta Flack: I’m The One (Atlantic)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 June 1982
ALAS FOR these voices: they are neither souls crying in a wilderness of sorrow, nor the sensuous claimants of a pathway to the inner sanctum ...
Elvis Costello: Imperial Bedroom (F-Beat)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 3 July 1982
ONE THING Elvis Costello has never learnt is good manners. I don't want to go to Chelsea! I don't want to be a goody-goody ! ...
Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club: Quiet Americans in Paris
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 July 1982
Will Talking Heads survive? Is the family in jeopardy? What is this bastard offspring Tom Tom Club? ...
The Clash: Three Convictions on the Road From Hell
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 July 1982
The Clash: Fair Deal, Brixton, London ...
Jackson Browne: Ramblin’ on Empty
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 31 July 1982
RICHARD COOK meets JACKSON BROWNE, the California dreamer who spends his time being sensitive — especially when he gets heckled. Post-Woodstock ...
Wynton Marsalis: Darting Into the Stratosphere
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 28 August 1982
Teenage trumpet major WYNTON MARSALIS lights up another admirer ...
Report by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 September 1982
The New African Music, part one: "More difficult to cage than reggae. It leaps and sprawls... It can go on and on because nobody wants ...
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band: Ice Cream For Crow (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 September 1982
THE TIME has come and gone for Captain Beefheart to evade the confines of 'criticism'. If we posit Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals ...
John Cale: Music For A New Society (Island)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 September 1982
A STRONGER, loving world... The fulcrum of John Cale's work is its granite paradox, a loathsome ugliness garbed in the colours of rhapsody. Cale's abiding ...
Report by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 September 1982
The New African Music: part two. Continuing our musical trek... to Mombassa, where we meet Mazembe — the voice of Kenya, and discover the talk ...
Steve Beresford: Everywhere Man: Steve Beresford
Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 September 1982
You name it, Beresford had done it. He'd played bass, played piano, played trumpet...he'd composed music, improvised music, organised music, he'd written about the damn ...
Pere Ubu: Song Of The Bailing Man (Rough Trade)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 September 1982
SONGS OF THE BORING MEN ...
Genesis, Peter Gabriel: Rhythm Of The Pete
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 2 October 1982
After the ambitious WOMAD Festival, the bailiffs cometh and PETER GABRIEL has decided to get himself out of hock – even if it means a ...
Ronald Shannon Jackson & the Decoding Society: Mandance (Antilles)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 2 October 1982
LOOKING FOR CLUES ...
DAF: Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft: Fur Immer (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 October 1982
ONCE AGAIN we're suspended in that intangible vacuum, between idea and realisation, between the bursting theory and grey actuality of DAF. ...
Neil Young: When Does a Dinosaur Cut Off Its Tail?
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 October 1982
"I don't know if I can be classed as a contemporary songwriter. I'm like a dinosaur with a large tail – I'm so big I ...
Kid Creole & The Coconuts: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 16 October 1982
God's a Creole – No Kidding! ...
The Gun Club: The Venue, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 16 October 1982
IF YOU'VE ever heard Charley Patton's 'Mississippi Boll Weavil Blues' then you'll be aware of the kind of high lonesome wail that blows through the ...
Buzzcocks: Flag Of Convenience: a C.H.A.I.N. R.E.A.C.T.I.O.N.
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 23 October 1982
Is there life after Buzzcocks? Steve Diggle and John Maher are trying again. After the passive disintegration of Buzzcocks in the spring of 1981, the ...
Kate Bush: "My music sophisticated? I'd rather you said that than turdlike!"
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 23 October 1982
A modern, multi-media, adult-orientated entertainer or a wild and wuthering heroine who's been dreaming since a brilliant start to her career......Richard Cook plays Heathcliff to ...
John Martyn: Sunday's Child Tame 'n' Tired
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 October 1982
John Martyn: Hammersmith Odeon, London ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie and the Banshees: A Kiss in The Dreamhouse (Polydor)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 6 November 1982
IT'S RARE for a group to make their fourth LP and still be provocative, still be interested in themselves, let alone break any substantially new ...
Daryl Hall & John Oates: Hall & Oates: Bedroom Politics — the Acceptable Sound of Young America
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 November 1982
THEY DON'T get up when I come in, but then despite their slight physical stature Daryl Hall and John Oates are big men now. After ...
James Blood Ulmer: Black Rock (CBS)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 November 1982
BLACK AND BLOOD! ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 November 1982
I JUST played Buddy Holly's version of 'Rip It Up' to remind me, although Edwyn Collins gives the impression he is unfamiliar with such iconography. ...
Jah Wobble: Invader of the Lost Art
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 November 1982
Richard Cook meets the musical Nomad Jah Wobble who has now found the Arab in himself but not stardom. "I'll never be a big pop ...
Can, Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, Neu!: A Trance In Tatters: Krautrock und Beyond
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 November 1982
Can: Delay 1968 (Spoon); Holger Czukay: Canaxis (Spoon); Irmin Schmidt: Filmmusik Vol 2 (Spoon); Neu!: Black Forest Gateau (Cherry Red) ...
Joni Mitchell: Wild Things Run Fast
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 November 1982
A YEAR before her 40th birthday, the great romantic of rock music undoes her locket once more. Three years have passed since Mingus and ...
Abba: The Singles, The First Ten Years (Epic)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 December 1982
HOW TO do everything, and how to do nearly everything right. In the rack of Christmas compilations everything else is a non-starter beside this one. ...
Marshall Crenshaw: Marshall's Law
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 December 1982
ELVIS COSTELLO LOVES HIM... BUT NOBODY ELSE HAS EVER HEARD OF HIM! WE BRING YOU MARSHALL CRENSHAW – THE MOST ANONYMOUS NAME IN POP. SNAP: ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 December 1982
THAT THERE is no appreciable difference between 'We're Gonna Groove' from 1969 and 'Wearing And Tearing' from 1978 – the opening and closing tracks in ...
John Hiatt: Riding With The King
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1983
SOMETIMES I think nuthin iz new in this old rock music, and every time it seems I have to turn to John Hiatt to shake ...
The Fall: The Curse Of The Fall
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 January 1983
THIS IS SPLENDID Fall country. From the bricked ugliness of the Victorian railway buildings the crawl of streets pitters up slopes, entwines a town centre ...
Donald Fagen: A Nightfly Up Against The Wall
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 22 January 1983
RICHARD COOK meets the urbane spokesman of cool, DONALD FAGEN who, for 14 years, partnered Walter Becker in Steely Dan. A celebrated eccentric, Fagen is ...
Randy Newman: Laughter in Paradise
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 January 1983
Punk, people, performing and parenthood – Randy Newman talked about his life, work and hates to Richard Cook ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: Echo and Bunnymen: Per Omnia Scallia Scalliorum
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 5 February 1983
Echo and Bunnymen: Hammersmith Odeon, London ...
The Belle Stars: The Belle Stars (Stiff)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 5 February 1983
WOMEN IN ROCK – a further note. It must be hard being a Belle Star. Not only do you have to squeeze your soles inside ...
23 Skidoo, Pigbag: Pigbag: Lend An Ear (Y)/23 Skidoo: The Culling Is Coming (Operating Twilight)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 12 February 1983
BOTH OF these docile records stand or fall as assemblages: their creators propose to be organisers of sound, something more than itinerant pop musicians. ...
Linda Ronstadt: Confessions of an LA Bunnywoman
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 19 February 1983
IN THE MOUNTAIN of scorn heaped on the Los Angeles musical community, nobody has been maligned more than Linda Ronstadt. The vapid esteem she was ...
Weather Report: High Wind In Birdland: Weather Report's Procession
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 19 March 1983
I DON'T BELIEVE IT, but they've done it again. Just when it seemed that the tuneless roar of last year's Weather Report had permanently iced ...
Pink Floyd: Over The Wall And Into The Dumper: Pink Floyd's The Final Cut
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 19 March 1983
LIKE THE poor damned Tommies that haunt his mind, Roger Waters' writing has been blown to hell. Although The Final Cut is "performed by Pink ...
Ronald Shannon Jackson: Breaking the Dance Code
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 19 March 1983
Richard Cook unscrambles the music of Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society — a muzak so mean it could make an everyday breakfast in America quake... ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: The Altar'd Boys: Echo and the Bunnymen
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 19 March 1983
The beleagured King Rock is on its discredited throne again, and Echo And The Bunnymen rule supreme. RICHARD COOK finds them holding court in ...
Gil Evans: Still Smiling After All These Years
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 March 1983
Gil Evans is 71-years-old and a prominent jazz arranger who during his 35 year career has worked with Miles Davis and Hendrix. Richard Cook meets ...
Dolly Parton: In Gloss We Trust: Dolly Parton at the Dominion, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 2 April 1983
HOWEVER MUCH YOU take righteous liberal umbrage at the mass of contradictions Dolly Parton presents, you lose. As surely as the lonely waifs and ...
Joan Armatrading: Front Door Woman
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 April 1983
DO YOU believe in romance? ...
Pete Shelley: Let Your Fingers Do The Talking
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 16 April 1983
PETE SHELLEY STRIKES UP A DIALOGUE OF HIS OWN ON THE LINE TO MARTIN RUSHENT'S COUNTRY STUDIOS. RICHARD COOK PLAYS TELEPHONE OPERATOR AND LISTENS IN. ...
The Gun Club: For Hire: The Gun Club
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 May 1983
Last year Jeffery Lee Pierce was a chronic depressive and a shithead full of venom. But since then he's sorted out his personal life, and ...
Miles Davis: London, Hammersmith Odeon
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 May 1983
MILES RUNS the voodoo down down down ... and here I am, somewhere way up in the high heights of the Odeon (gee I hate ...
The Creatures: All Creatures Great and Small
Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 14 May 1983
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE BANSHEES AND WHO ARE THE CREATURES? WELL, THE WATERMARKS ARE SIMILAR WITH IMAGES OF THE DIABOLIC, THE FANTASTIC AND THE ...
The Police: Junger than Stingtime: The Police's Synchronicity
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, June 1983
THE POLICE are much like Gods to their pop universe, not only in their worship rating but in their omnipotent attitude to their work. They ...
Motorhead: Another Perfect Day (Bronze)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 June 1983
THE SPIRIT of this group was probably born in a flop single made Screaming Lord Sutch in 1964. It was called ‘Jack The Ripper’, and ...
Robert Wyatt: When The Boat Comes In
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 June 1983
Well, Robert Wyatt's boat has certainly come in with the surprise success of his single 'Shipbuilding' on its re-release. In this interview Richard Cook talks ...
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Synchro System (Island)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 June 1983
IN A THREADBARE year for outstanding pop records, Synchro System is something to set excitement aflame – a torch song for the powers of rhythm. ...
Kajagoogoo: Puppy Love In The Plasma-Glow: Kajagoogoo at Hammersmith Odeon
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 June 1983
AS PHENOMENA GO, Kajagoogoo seem like the nastiest end of a train that starts in Boy George's inspirational and self-sufficient glamour and ends in the ...
Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues (Sire)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 June 1983
DAVID BYRNE is a man with a moon in his throat, is an intellect nervously filling out a fool's cap and greasepaint, is the writer ...
Rickie Lee Jones: American Pirate On The Rocks: Rickie Lee Jones
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
On a rare visit from her new home in France, Rickie Lee Jones lays down her cutlass and beret to discuss the songwriter's art, dissect ...
Stephen Stills: Crazy After All These Years
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
MR STILLS and I are watching a video of some playing by Crosby, Stills And Nash. The composer leans back in his chair, a whisky ...
The Isley Brothers: Between the Sheets (Epic)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
SOME SOUL groups have their own continuum. If a senior vocal unit like The Temptations has to suffer a producer's — and hence a popular ...
George Benson: Kingsize Benson
Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 16 July 1983
So just how did this work a day guitarist called GEORGE BENSON sidestep the critical vitriol of the jazz and soul purists to become one ...
Richard Thompson: Hand Of Kindness
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 July 1983
From a maker of acclaimed albums, something that is more of the same, as dependable as any itching in the heart, toothache, telephone bill: it ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 30 July 1983
25 years on the dancefloor, Tamla Motown is still the black music label. In the '60s, their motto was 'The Sound Of Young America' — then hard ...
Bad Brains: Rock For Light (Abstract)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 August 1983
BAD BRAINS are an idea bursting full-tilt from a terminally fevered cortex. Rock For Light is the attempted rationalising of the notion, and it so ...
Jackson Browne: Lawyers In Love (Asylum)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 August 1983
JACKSON BROWNE is beginning to remind me of Jack Lemmon in The China Syndrome or Missing: a secure and successful man provoked into action traitorous ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 3 September 1983
I DON'T THINK "England" means very much to me any more, although I do have some sympathy with Andy Partridge's particular affection for a country, ...
John Hiatt: Half Moon, Putney, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 September 1983
FOR THE SECOND time in a matter of weeks this body-choked backroom played host to a mislaid American master. In John Hiatt’s territory he has ...
UB40: Labour Of Love (DEP International)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 September 1983
DREAD DREAD WHINE... ...
Paul Young: How to Make a Mint by Being Ordinary
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1 October 1983
Just six months ago Paul Young was a struggling British soul boy, hacking out a living. But with the sudden success of 'Wherever I Lay ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 8 October 1983
MOTOWN HAPPENING AGAIN ...
Lionel Richie: Can't Slow Down (Motown)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 22 October 1983
LIONISING LIONEL ...
Was (Not Was): Was Not Was: Born To Laugh At Tornadoes (Geffen)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 6 November 1983
AMERICA HAS been dressed by improper minds. Corralling the year's important American records – Swordfishtrombones, Girl At Her Volcano, Burlap And Satin and Born To ...
The Police: Princes of the City
Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, December 1983
PRINCES OF THE City. There's nothing like an American stadium show to make you feel small and alone. ...
Otis Redding: Otis Blue (Atco)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1984
AS WITH SUCH iconic records as Forever Changes and Anthem Of The Sun, time has eroded the stature of Otis Blue. ...
T Bone Burnett: Trap Door and Behind The Trap Door
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1984
THIS LONG TALL TEXAN is a perplexing, sometimes infuriating contributor to the annals of rockin' psychology. As a maverick composer and player to various courts ...
John Hiatt: Riding With The King (Geffen)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
KING JOHN, ASSUREDLY ...
James Blood Ulmer: Odyssey (CBS)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 21 January 1984
WITH THE unprecedented challenges of his earlier records taken up by nobody, and with his own position of fringe acclaim at a nebulous standstill, Blood ...
Millie Jackson: How To Talk Dirty and Influence People
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 February 1984
WHAT'S HAPPENED to the great soul singers? ...
John Lennon, Yoko Ono: Yoko Ono: We Are Only One
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 February 1984
How does the widow of John Lennon face up to a world that won't leave her husband's memory alone, three years after his death? In ...
Kool and the Gang: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 February 1984
KOOL AND his men personify the exhilarated and bloodless heart of pop-soul. For some reason they are always celebrating: they stand us up for the ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 February 1984
I'M TOLD Madness are in decline, and for someone who found 'Grey Day' and 'House Of Fun, to be the only tracks he wanted to ...
The Clash: Pop Will Die... And Rebel Rock Will Rule
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 February 1984
"YOU DON'T TREAT your enemies better than you treat your friends." ...
Scritti Politti: Say A Little Prayer For Green
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 10 March 1984
DEEP END, feet first. Is it true you're Mr Paranoid? ...
Scott Walker: The Original God-Like Genius
Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 March 1984
"I LIKE to watch people throw darts." ...
Bobby Womack: The Poet II (Beverly Glen import)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 24 March 1984
AN OLD-FASHIONED man in the midst of a booming, disordered black music, Bobby Womack's journeyman career comes to a glorious peak with The Poet II. ...
Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw: Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones: Identikit Pop
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 7 April 1984
And the mediocre shall inherit the earth... Or at least the charts. RICHARD COOK fits out the faceless folk of pop. ...
Charlie Parker: Bird on Verve Vols 1-8
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 21 April 1984
RETURNING TO Parker, after any kind of sabbatical, is electrifying. The memory always recalls the timbre of that cutting wall, that matchless tone; what can ...
Obituary by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 5 May 1984
Richard Cook pays tribute to the man whose Kansas City swing band conquered the world – a jazz aristocrat for 50 years. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Legend
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 12 May 1984
ONE STRANGE THING. Naturally, we group Bob Marley with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Dennis Brown, Michael Jackson: black music-makers with the stature of giants. Yet ...
The Blue Nile: I Can See For Niles
Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 12 May 1984
BECAUSE DELICACY and good manners are so disgustingly commonplace in today's pop, it's hard to spot something deeper and more diverse when it comes cloaked ...
Alison Moyet: Ode To An Invisible Man
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
ALISON IS waiting for me outside her publicist's office. ...
David Sylvian: Brilliant Trees (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
ANY WHO expect David Sylvian's sheaf of essays to present wafery, neutral music must be confounded by the diversity and strength of Brilliant Trees. This ...
Miles Davis: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
BLOWIN' HOT AND COOL ...
Peter Hammill: Bloomsbury Theatre, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 August 1984
A SCHOLAR comes out of his cell. Peter Hammill's art has been obsessively documented by records but less so by performance. This solo show looked ...
The Waterboys: Scott Yet Another God Like Genius
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 11 August 1984
"I SOMETIMES thought that in the old days the young men of the tribe would want to grow up to be great warriors. In our ...
Evan Parker: Riverside Studios, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 August 1984
I'VE WITNESSED dozens of Parker's improvisations and learned something on each occasion from this complex work. The singular applies, for every time he plays alone ...
Heaven 17: Three Steps To Heaven
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 August 1984
INITIATION ...
James "Blood" Ulmer: James Blood Ulmer: the Venue, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 August 1984
HIGHLY STRUNG ...
Test Dept.: Beating The Retreat (Some Bizzare)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 18 August 1984
THE WORK of Test Dept – and this is work, for sure, not playing – is inextricably cabled to a rhetoric of 'action'. ...
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 August 1984
FOR THE way she sang words and music, the way she interposed herself in the lyric, the way she could swing a line and stay ...
Tom Verlaine: The Foolish Heart of Tom Verlaine
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1 September 1984
TALKING WITH Tom Verlaine, as legend has it, is one of the less entertaining or productive options available to the interested party. A teeth-pulling exercise. ...
Frank Sinatra: Songs For Young Lovers and other Capitol reissues
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 22 September 1984
BECAUSE SINATRA has lasted so long, has outlived his own legend – to the point where he can make a record with Quincy Jones and ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 September 1984
IT MIGHT be foolish to conjecture on which are David Bowie's public and which are his private records. ...
Derek Bailey: The Guy Who Found The Lost Chord
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 October 1984
The guitarist DEREK BAILEY has been one of the leaders of improvised music for 20 years. As a generation of guitar heroes has come and ...
The Cars, Ric Ocasek: The Cars that ate America
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 October 1984
AND NOW THEY'RE GAS-GUZZLING UP OUR OWN CHARTS. BUT TOP DRIVER RIC OCASEK IS MORE THAN JUST THE CARS' MAN IN THE FRONT SEAT — ...
Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Welcome to the Pleasure Dome
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 3 November 1984
IT IS, of course, brilliant. And nothing more so than the last glittering shards, the final breaths taken in this pleasure dome. ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Rock With The Digital Cavemen
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 November 1984
AS ONE Voltaire remarks, it's good weather for journalism: weary skies stuffed with rainclouds over Sheffield and its hills. After London the gentle pace of ...
Japan: Exorcising Ghosts (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1 December 1984
THIS WAS, after all, one of the stranger groups of musicians who went the route of pop's long march. ...
Essay by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 22 December 1984
TO ANYONE who wasn't born in the USA, America is still defined by the clutter of images it sends us: television, cinema, music, cars, fast ...
Evan Parker: The Magnificent Evan
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 February 1985
The siren song of the saxophone — Evan Parker's been looking into this mystery for 20 years. The master of free music talks to Richard ...
Leonard Cohen: Various Positions (CBS)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 February 1985
VATICAN 69 ...
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 23 February 1985
"No, I don't have any sensational stories to tell. And I don't have anything to say about drugs." ...
James, The Smiths: Meaty Marr-Might Sandwich: The Smiths/James: Brixton Ace, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 9 March 1985
JAMES ARE POISED on the cusp of something that might be new, that's certainly afloat with ideas. It was too short a set to say, ...
Bobby Day, Larry Williams, Little Richard: Little Richard/Larry Williams/Bobby Day albums
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 16 March 1985
Little Richard, Here’s Little Richard (Ace)Little Richard: Little Richard Volume 2 (Ace)Little Richard: The Fabulous Little Richard (Ace)Larry Williams: Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Ace)Bobby Day: The ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 16 March 1985
Has he let the bouquet slip through his fingers? Richard Cook sees Marilyn's stage debut turn into disaster in New York and talks to the ...
Eddie Cochran: The 25th Anniversary Album
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 20 April 1985
He was a tough-looking man, hefty square shoulders above turned-up sleeves and keg fists; the voice was an Oklahoman baritone that could hiccough with determination ...
Husker Dü: Camden Palace, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 May 1985
If they played like they looked, Husker Du’s music would be a slobbering mastodon rock without grace or curves or beauty. But from these angry ...
R.E.M.: Fables Of The Reconstruction/Reconstruction Of The Fables (MCA)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 June 1985
SOPPY FABLES ...
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 15 June 1985
Sonny Rollins: Dominion Theatre, London ...
Grace Jones: Bond Age Woman: Grace Jones
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 22 June 1985
First only a face, then an image, a singer and now a film actress, GRACE JONES has always been A Star. RICHARD COOK interviews her ...
Live Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 22 June 1985
TWICE I see this group in a couple of weeks and both times I wind up more exhausted than exhilarated. Lone Justice are trying so ...
Miles Davis: Miles Runs The Voodoo Down
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 13 July 1985
The man with the horn, MILES DAVIS, whose silvery trumpet lines have embellished jazz for 40 years, is back in action with a new band ...
Duke Ellington: Duke 56/62 Volume One ; Duke 56/62 Volume Two ; Featuring Paul Gonsalves and more
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 July 1985
...
Miles Davis: Still Miles, Time After Time
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 July 1985
Richard Cook takes two Davis records, a quarter-century apart, into custody. ...
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 26 October 1985
I'VE GIVEN THIS some thought. Let's suppose – and it's not a weak notion – that four groups bond together the one significant play in ...
Madonna: 'Bruce Springsteen Was Born To Run, I Was Born To Flirt...'
Essay by Richard Cook, Sounds, 15 February 1986
RICHARD COOK takes a manly look at the pop tart goddess, MADONNA, who has put sleaze and safety back into pop stardom ...
Elvis Costello: The Costello Show And Tell
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 1 March 1986
The self-proclaimed 'King of America' talks to RICHARD COOK about his new LP, his uncomfortable relationship with the music press, and the mediocrity of today's ...
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 19 April 1986
It's payola time for country's latest lone star Rosanne Cash. Richard Cook tries to separate the hit from the myth. ...
Peter Gabriel: So (Charisma PG 5) ***½
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 24 May 1986
JUST SO STORY ...
Kate Bush: The Girl With The Stars In Her Eyes
Comment by Richard Cook, Sounds, 7 June 1986
KATE BUSH remains a mystical if not mythical creature, even after the latest surge in her ten year career. RICHARD COOK peers through the looking ...
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 14 June 1986
HAVE THEY paid enough? Have their sins been atoned for? Are the misdemeanors of that Genesis far enough past for the big-chap sophistipop of this ...
Red Guitars: The North Will Rise Again! And Conquer America
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 21 June 1986
Hull comes to your house as THE RED GUITARS launch an all out strike against the American Dream. Our war correspondent RICHARD COOK heads for ...
Anita Baker: The Deep Dark Soul
Interview by Richard Cook, The Wire, September 1986
THE BAND PLAYS a slow, rough-textured groove, flesh laid on the dark bones of the bass. Three women set up a vocal counterpoint, rich with ...
Dave Brubeck: The Unsquare Dance
Retrospective by Richard Cook, The Wire, November 1986
DAVE BRUBECK looked the part. The face that stared out from a Time magazine cover 30-odd years ago had the sober, shaven outline of a ...
Killing Joke: Brighter Than A Thousand Suns (EG)***
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 15 November 1986
THEY USED to be real hard men once. Now, though, Killing Joke sound as noble and sterling as St George. The gigantic mug shots that ...
A-ha: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 3 January 1987
TEENYBOP'S REDEEMERS ...
Adult Net, The , The Fall: Brix Smith: A Spider's Web
Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 21 February 1987
BRIX SMITH is the girl who can't really help it: she has rich-baby eyes, heavy blonde hair, a voice that comes in giggles. It's the ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 22 August 1987
BON JOVI give RICHARD COOK the key to their kingdom (well, a laminated ID card actually) where minders are built like trees, young girls wear ...
Michael Jackson: Welcome To The Bad Boy's Island: Michael Jackson: Bad (Epic) ****
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 12 September 1987
WESTLAKE AUDIO is a nondescript building from without, a simple whitewashed Los Angeles block. ...
Eric Dolphy: Naima (Jazzway); Vintage Dolphy (ENJA)
Review by Richard Cook, The Wire, November 1987
Naima (Jazzway MUTT-1502) ...
Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 14 November 1987
JAPANESE TOURISTS frantically snapping photographs of each other is a recurring scenario common to the lobbies of Europe's grandest hotels. Today is different. Stepping from ...
Interview by Richard Cook, The Wire, January 1988
In this rare interview, Europe's leading label boss explains exactly what ECM stands for. ...
Albert Ayler: My Name is Albert Ayler
Retrospective by Richard Cook, The Wire, January 1988
Still misunderstood and neglected, the man who took jazz saxophone to its furthest limits awaits a new appreciation. Richard Cook offers a personal view. ...
Ennio Morricone: Film Music 1966-1987 (Virgin)****
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 6 February 1988
FILM SOUNDTRACKS are wretched records to keep because there's only a couple of minutes you want to remember on each one – the lavish sweep ...
Mantronix: In Full Effect (10 Records) ****1/2
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 26 March 1988
THE WAY Mantronix put their music together, you'd think this sort of thing was easy. It just falls into place, fluent, fresh, each lick set ...
Anita Baker: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 29 October 1988
THE VOICE that makes strong men tremble, that melts the stoniest heart — but something's just out of reach for Anita Baker. ...
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 28 January 1989
"I THINK IT sounds like me," said Roy Orbison, and it does. The trembling but never quite breaking falsetto of ‘In The Real World’ is ...
Aerosmith: Pump (Geffen 924 254/CD) *****
Review by Richard Cook, Sounds, 16 September 1989
Signed, sealed and delivered ...
David Sylvian: Life in the Beehive
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, The Wire, November 1989
DAVID SYLVIAN sits back and thinks about the work. "There are evident failures and occasional successes, but my opinion of the work doesn't change much. ...
Katydids: Doing The Right Thing
Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, Sounds, 23 June 1990
Katydids' eponymous LP is one of the year's most striking debuts. Richard Cook applauds the virtues of another fine English pop band and wonders just ...
Review by Richard Cook, Select, July 1990
KATYDIDS sound at first like they're mining a vintage seam of British pop craft, winsome and shy one moment, vigorous the next. ...
The Neville Brothers: Brother's Keeper
Review by Richard Cook, Select, September 1990
NEW ORLEANS is a difficult place to characterise, at least as far as its music is concerned. Ernie K-Doe, the veteran R&B singer and one ...
David Sanborn: Blowing out of hand
Interview by Richard Cook, The Wire, August 1991
David Sanborn — is he or isn't he? Richard Cook is on the spot as the wild man of funk-pop goes (almost) straight-ahead! ...
Obituary by Richard Cook, The Wire, November 1991
Richard Cook reflects on the great trumpeter's passing. ...
Barbara Thompson: Major Barbara: saxophonist and bandleader
Interview by Richard Cook, The Wire, March 1992
Barbara Thompson reflects on life at the top of British jazz. ...
Robert Wyatt: Going Back A Bit – A Little History of Robert Wyatt (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, August 1994
HE IS A GREAT ENGLISHMAN, a pragmatic jazz buff, a witty and wise lyricist, an ingenious instrumentalist; but it's by his singing that Robert Wyatt ...
Retrospective by Richard Cook, MOJO, April 1995
Four decades on from the premature death of Charlie Parker in March 1955 the world remains split between the dazzled – including fans as disparate ...
Interview by Richard Cook, The Wire, May 1995
Scott Walker, perhaps the most enigmatic singer in recent times, has returned with his first recording since 1984. But is it a work of experimental ...
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, December 1995
Hit compilations from ‘80s-into-’90s soul megastars. ...
Roxy Music: The Thrill Of It All (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, January 1996
THERE WERE GROUPS OTHER THAN THE Beatles back long ago, and one of them was Roxy Music. Their awkward early steps in 1972 were almost ...
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, March 1996
CLOSE TO a quarter-century after his debut, Jackson Browne still can't settle down. His love life might not bother him the way it once did ...
Waiting For The Sun by Barney Hoskyns (Viking)
Book Review by Richard Cook, The Wire, July 1996
The darkside of LA music ...
Sonny Rollins: Ten Questions for Sonny Rollins
Interview by Richard Cook, MOJO, January 1997
On Milestones, Rolling Stones and Maintaining Mystique ...
Review and Interview by Richard Cook, MOJO, June 1997
Head boy's follow-up to 1994's David Byrne finds him working with a variety of producers, including DJ Hahn Rowe, The Black Cat Orchestra and Morcheeba. ...
Herbie Hancock: The Complete Blue Note '60s Sessions
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, January 1999
THESE DAYS he's an avatar of jazz-funk, but Hancock's salad days offered a lot more than apprentice-work. Only 24 when he composed and recorded the ...
Can, Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt: The Can Founders: Columbiahalle, Berlin
Live Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, May 1999
Running order: Holger Czukay/Michael Karoli's Sofortkontakt/Irmin Schmidt & Kumo/Jaki Liebezeit's Club Off Chaos ...
Memoir by Richard Cook, The Wire, November 2002
Well, there are worse ways of making a living. Richard Cook tells how a compulsive jones for collecting records — only partly sated by music ...
back to LIBRARY
