Robert Sandall
For some years the chief rock critic for the London SUNDAY TIMES, Sandall also contributed to Q, MOJO, ROLLING STONE, GQ and WORD. He was also Director of Publicity at Virgin Records in London, and co-host of the groundbreaking BBC Radio 3 show "Mixing It". Tragically, Robert succumbed to cancer in July 2010.
David Sinclair remembers Robert
Mark Russell's Guardian obituary
207 articles
List of articles in the library
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, December 1987
ANDY POWELL AND Ted Turner's duelling guitars made this a band to be reckoned with 15 years ago – and gave Miles Copeland his first ...
Robert Palmer: Any Time, Any Place, Anywhere...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, August 1988
He's coasted – apparently unperspiring – through 15 years of shifting fashion while somehow remaining knuckle – gnawingly modern. All it took was a shrewd ...
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, December 1988
Hers was the face that graced a thousand magazine covers, the sound that became a fashion accessory, the image that seemed to encapsulate effortless video-age ...
Jonathan Richman: Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, 1989
BESERKLEY HAVE re-issued their entire catalogue of Jonathan Richman albums but they should have stopped with this one, a brilliant piece of East Coast proto-punk ...
Roy Orbison: It's Over: Roy Orbison
Obituary by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1989
Roy Orbison died on the crest of sudden universal acclaim for his soaring and deliciously mournful ballads, ending a 30-year recording career in which life ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1989
72,000 sunny Californians go monkey-poo to the pitch-perfect sound of Depeche Mode. ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1989
XTC’s Andy Partridge is from that eccentric, uniquely English school of songwriters that brought you Ray Davies and Vivian Stanshall. His problem has been his ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, May 1989
He denies any grasp of promotional ploys, yet The Cure have built up a vast international following. Is there, behind all that lipstick and conspicuous ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, June 1989
Sans Heartbreakers, Tom Petty revives the Golden Age of Pop. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1989
Earthy but out of this world: at last on CD, Van Morrison's swinging '70s. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1989
NOW ON to their tenth album and with sales of the previous nine topping 25 million in the States, Aerosmith are still just about unknown ...
Aerosmith: A Quiet Word In Your Ear
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1989
Aerosmith? Mere jumpers on the heavy metal bandwagon? Struggling Stones-meet-Zeppelin copyists? Run-DMC’s backing band? For years they’ve been one of the America’s biggest, most influential ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1989
ROMPING HOME a close second to the Blue Nile in the increasingly competitive Studio Marathon stakes, Kate Bush's sixth album has finally arrived almost exactly ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1990
POP STARDOM, AND all the tabloid accolades which followed his unofficial award "Most Beautiful Man in Britain" 1981, did not agree with David Sylvian. ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1990
Quietly reinvented, curiously coiffeured, steadfastly single, and with an unprecedented 18 sold-out shows at the Albert Hall, Eric Clapton enters the '90s more a battered ...
Tanita Tikaram: Do Not Disturb: Tanita Tikaram
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1990
Bookish, Studious, unsurprisingly naïve, Tanita Tikaram sidestepped university at the age of 18 when her darkly sonorous vocals and "sixth-form poetry" suddenly found an international ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, March 1990
THE GOOD NEWS is that The Mission's third album is easily their best. ...
Sinead O'Connor: I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1990
ON THE FACE of it, Sinead O'Connor is an unlikely person to be setting such a cracking pace into the new decade. ...
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Rolling Stone, 31 May 1990
WHILE THE black south African leader Nelson Mandela was still in jail, his seventieth birthday, in June 1988, inspired the starriest gathering of rockers since ...
Soul II Soul: Two London club DJs redefine classic soul with a new approach to making music
Interview by Robert Sandall, Rolling Stone, 12 July 1990
BERESFORD ROMEO, the twenty-seven-year-old black British rapper and entrepreneur better known as Jazzie B. is sprawled comfortably across the end of a sofa in a ...
David Lindley, Ry Cooder: Ry Cooder & David Lindley: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 15 July 1990
A backroom Stone slides into town ...
The Rolling Stones: A Game of Two Halves
Report by Robert Sandall, Q, August 1990
There are 287 workers on the Day Shift, ensuring the impeccable construction of the Stones' three gigantic stages as they "leapfrog" around the European stadium ...
Joni Mitchell: A Joni Mitchell Interview
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 September 1990
"WHAT DO I THINK of the new Joni Mitchells?" Joni Mitchell grins, sucks appreciatively on another cigarette and thinks hard, as she often does, before ...
Elton John, Eric Clapton: Ray Cooper: Who Are Those Blokes Up There With Ray?
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1990
Wherever stellar rockular personages gather together he's there at the back, shiny of pate and blurred of hand. But who is this Bongo Basher By ...
Brian Eno: Back to the Future: Brian Eno
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1990
The teenage keyboard pioneer with the left-field dress sense evolved into the amiable egghead in the "gardening clothes". And in between – via the avant-garde, ...
The Beatles, Ringo Starr: Ringo Starr
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1991
"LAST YEAR," says the man with more rings in his ears than on his fingers, "I was sittin' round wondering what I was gonna do ...
Cowboy Junkies: The Cowboy Junkies: Chill out
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, March 1991
THERE IS something about 547 Crawford Street with its beer crate-strewn hallway, ashtray-scented kitchen (replete with moist, green furry organisms in the unlikeliest of places) ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1991
Whenever he makes an album nowadays, it duly finds its way inside a million houses. The biggest of budgets are his to command. And yet ...
Lenny Kravitz: Fancy Seeing You Here!
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1991
"OH MAN, people are always hitting me with this retro thing. And they're all missing the point. A lot of bands now are being psychedelic ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, May 1991
"NOBODY SETS OUT TO BAFFLE PEOPLE; at least, I don't think they do." As general observations go, this sounds sensible enough, and it causes no ...
The Psychedelic Furs: Come In, Sit Down And Take The Weight Off Your Cheekbones
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, July 1991
SOME BRITISH ROCK musicians move to America to make their fortunes; others go to avoid sharing them with the Inland Revenue. Quite what the Psychedelic ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, August 1991
IF A BAND’S success could be measured simply in terms of gold, silver and platinum discs earned, then Deacon Blue have clearly had a lot ...
Prince: The Little Prince Grows Up
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 24 August 1991
A MILE OR so down Highway 5 from the Paisley Park studio complex, where Prince and his band New Power Generation are currently rehearsing the ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
"We're playing the same halls as before, we just get to go on a few hours later." ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
Fresh out of jail, James Brown got back on the good foot with a couple of UK shows last month. Backstage afterwards, Robert Sandall met ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
THE FACT THAT HE is considerably more famous now than at any point in his previous 30 years has come as no particular surprise to ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, September 1991
AS PROVIDERS OF the best rock single of the year, the entrancingly tuneful, head-to-toe tapper 'Can You Dig It?', the Mock Turtles find themselves now ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1991
THE REASONS FOR the six-year absence are well known: Brothers In Arms – the 15-million-selling album and 250-date world tour – banished an unassuming bloke ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1991
THESE ARE TESTING times for little PR Nelson. His Graffiti Bridge movie, due out last autumn, has never been publicly shown, and the accompanying double ...
Morrissey: "A gentle adoration"
Report by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1992
Morrissey's US shows have been the scenes of riotous affection. And nobody can figure it out. "It's the intensity of the reverence..." ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1992
SINCE POWERING HIS WAY BACK info everybody's good books three years ago with the New York album, Lou Reed has become more creatively focused than ...
Madonna, Roger Waters: Pat Leonard: The Song And Dance Debate
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1992
"MY BACKGROUND and my real musical desires lean far more toward Roger Waters than they do toward Madonna," Miss Ciccone's principal songwriter, keyboardist and MD, ...
Little Village, Ry Cooder: Ry Cooder: At Home In The Village
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 16 February 1992
Robert Sandall talks to Ry Cooder about the band that has given his guitar-playing a new sense of pleasure and purpose ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: Ian McCulloch: Mustn’t Grumble
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, March 1992
Ian McCulloch’s commercial appeal may be "more selective" than it was in the glory days of Echo And Bunnymen, but at least he’s found a ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, May 1992
IT'S LATE AT NIGHT; a couple of echoey electric guitars are plinking and howling at each other across a doom-laden backbeat; a frail and young-sounding ...
U2: Flying High With a Jet Set
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 31 May 1992
HAVING, BY his own account, spent most of the 1980s "trying to dodge being a rock star," Bono aka Paul Hewson, the singer and most ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash: My, How You've Grown!
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, June 1992
On the physique front at least, Crosby, Stills & Nash have paid top whack for the years of drug abuse, gunplay and prison visits, but ...
Sisters of Mercy: Some Girls Wander By Mistake
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, June 1992
"I LIKE to think it was the songs that made this band," Andrew Eldritch writes in the sleevenotes, "I know it wasn't." And as this ...
Elton John, Bernie Taupin: Bernie Taupin: Him Indoors
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, July 1992
The 25-year You-wash-I'll-dry relationship between Elton John and lyric-writing househusband Bernie Taupin has never been happier. ...
Prefab Sprout: A Life Of Surprises: The Best Of
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, August 1992
Prefab Sprout: whatever happened to great songs? ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, October 1992
"I HATE IT, I hate it, I hate it," says Nuno Bettencourt, nodding at the 48-track mixing console of the New River Studio, Fort Lauderdale, ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1992
THE '80S BOOM IN world music generated much tourism but comparatively few settlers: quick excursions into Township jive, brief flirtations with hot Latin rhythms, the ...
Peter Gabriel: Gawp Factor Ten
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, July 1993
NOBODY LIKES being stuck inside one of those old red telephone boxes with a suspect handset and Peter Gabriel is clearly not a happy man. ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 1994
Adopt Murray Walker voice: "Aaahnd aaas Nigel Mansell attempts radical chassis reshaping at Starkey's Bridge, whooo's this bringing up the rear?" It's Chris Rea, actually, ...
Tori Amos: The Keys to Success
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 16 January 1994
Tori Amos, the piano's Nigel Kennedy with a prettier face, has swapped America and her classical training for Britain and its pop. ROBERT SANDALL meets ...
Snoop (Doggy) Dogg: Snoop Doggy Dogg: A Pussycat?
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, April 1994
Who's a busy homeboy then? His CV already bulges with a prison sentence, a US Number 1 LP and a still-fresh murder charge. Now, gangster ...
The Rolling Stones, Charlie Watts: Charlie Watts: The Rock
Interview by Robert Sandall, MOJO, May 1994
INTERVIEWS WITH CHARLIE WATTS were once memorably described as being "as rare as rocking horse shit". Like many of the jazz players he admires so ...
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, MOJO, May 1994
Three decades and 140 million albums later, the sheer familiarity of the Pink Floyd phenomenon obscures the strangeness of it all. Unlike any of their ...
The Q New Year Summit 1995: Where Are We Now?
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, February 1995
We teeter on the lip of a New Year, and, let's not flagellate around the shrub-like foliage here, The Future. In an attempt at stocktaking ...
Elvis Costello: Rebuilt to Last: Elvis Costello's Meltdown
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Times, 11 June 1995
Music cannot be divided into the old artificial groups. Elvis Costello has always known this, and now he is paving the way to a more ...
Lenny Kravitz's Record Collection
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1995
LENNY KRAVITZ'S record collection is, mostly, in his new house in New Orleans, not far from the pair of Jimi Hendrix's purple flares which he ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 February 1997
WHILE NOBODY questions his status as one of rock's great originals, Captain Beefheart's madcap variations on the blues are an acquired taste. Armed with a ...
Country Joe & The Fish: Country Joe McDonald: No Ordinary Joe
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Independent, 13 December 2002
THERE'S LITTLE ABOUT the small, stocky frame of the 60-year-old Country Joe McDonald that would lead one to pinpoint him as a firebrand political activist ...
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 23 February 2003
WE SEEM TO BE in for a heavily-annotated favourites list, rather like the ones that the narrator in Hornby's novel High Fidelity fills his life ...
Nick Cave: Makes Darkly Melodic Records of Rare Beauty
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Word, March 2003
He gets up at five a.m. and works. He leads an ordered domestic life. Bob Dylan likes him. He is clean and sober. ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 17 August 2003
TO MOST VISITORS and residents, Santa Monica is Los Angeles-on-sea, a breezy, oceanside reprieve from the bad air, nose-to-tail buildings and car-choked "boulevards" that sprawl ...
The Rolling Stones: Alive and Kicking
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 17 August 2003
According To The Rolling Stones edited by Dora Loewenstein, Philip Dodd and Charlie Watts (Weidenfeld £30 pp359) ...
David Bowie: The star looks very different today
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 31 August 2003
David Bowie, widely considered the most influential pop icon ever, was once written off by his record label, reveals Robert Sandall. ...
Randy Newman: He Shoots From The Lip
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, September 2003
Randy Newman’s barbed-wire lyrics and arch social commentary are bang on today – and his new album proves it, says Robert Sandall ...
Robert Wyatt: Triumph Of A Late Bloomer: Robert Wyatt
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 2 October 2003
CONTRARY TO THE impression given by the list of cool, metropolitan mates who play on his latest album - Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Paul Weller, ...
George Harrison: Jolly George – The Unsung Story
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 12 October 2003
In a rare interview, George Harrison's widow Olivia tells Robert Sandall of his hidden circle of friends and fun, and that attack. ...
Liz Phair's slick new sound has shocked her fans
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 26 October 2003
IMAGINE PJ HARVEY recording with Pete Waterman, or Bjork co-writing songs with one of Simon Fuller's stable of top pop tunesmiths. Weird, and not in ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Word, November 2003
IF YOU'VE NEVER heard her earlier records — which, if you've been resident in the UK for the past 10years, you probably haven't — Liz ...
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 16 November 2003
AROUND THE TIME he won his scholarship to Newcastle grammar school, Sting – or Gordon Sumner as he was then known – witnessed his mother ...
Lou Reed: Walk On The Mild Side
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 Fall 2003
These days, he's more addicted to herbal tea than drink and drugs. So how, at 60, has Lou Reed remained on of the most enigmatic ...
Candi Staton: Candi Staton (Capitol)
Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2004
ONCE UPON a time, before Beyoncé Knowles was conceived and Whitney Houston ordered up her first re-mix, R&B divas were valued for their grit rather ...
Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz: Howling at the Moon (Little, Brown)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 22 February 2004
DURING WALTER Yetnikoff's reign as president of CBS Records (later Sony Music), the music industry generated unprecedented profits, and commensurately large corporate egos. ...
David Byrne: How the Talking Head learnt to Sing from the Heart
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 28 February 2004
David Byrne, former leader of the Talking Heads and a man whose life's work has been wrapped in irony and knowingness, has made an album ...
Nick Drake: Brighter Very Much Later: Nick Drake
Retrospective by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 20 May 2004
POSTHUMOUS ACCLAIM is not uncommon in rock - "death sells" and all that - but the clamour surrounding the English singer-songwriter Nick Drake gets more ...
Morrissey: Meltdown Festival at Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 14 June 2004
WITH MORRISSEY booking the acts on this year's programme – as well as performing three shows himself, including this, the opening night – the Meltdown ...
Craig Armstrong: Why I turned Tom Cruise down
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 29 July 2004
He's worked with Madonna, U2 and Massive Attack, as well as scoring the blockbuster movies Moulin Rouge and Love Actually. Craig Armstrong, the hardest-working man ...
Björk: "This Time It's Intuition Only – No Brain, Please"
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 14 August 2004
Icelandic singer Björk has made a compelling new album that contains not a single musical instrument and is named after the Latin for 'marrow'. Robert ...
Duran Duran: The Old Romantics
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Independent, 17 September 2004
IN A POP WORLD full of ageing Peter Pans with expensive habits to service, ex-wives to maintain and children to educate, attempted comebacks are common, ...
The Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson: SMiLE: How We Created Pop's Lost Legend
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 23 September 2004
For decades, Beach Boy Brian Wilson's unreleased album SMiLE has been shrouded in myth. Now, at last, the songs can be heard on a CD ...
Lhasa de Sela , Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Kid Koala: Montreal, mon amour
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 24 October 2004
Why is Canada's second city No. 1 for so many musicians? ...
John Peel: When Robert Sandall met John Peel
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 31 October 2004
Last words of middle England's accidental hero. ...
Woody Allen's New Orleans Jazz Band: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 21 December 2004
ON THE FACE of it, Woody Allen and old New Orleans-style jazz have slightly less in common than chalk and cheese. Knowing Allen, he has ...
Gang of Four: The Gang's All Here – Again
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 13 January 2005
LIKE THE VELVET Underground a decade before them, Gang of Four were one of those bands who never had a proper hit but who created ...
Rilo Kiley: Dark and interesting corners: Rilo Kiley
Interview by Robert Sandall, Sunday Telegraph, 22 January 2005
MEETING HALF of the LA quartet Rilo Kiley in a London hotel, my first thought is how much nicer this pair are - as in ...
Michael Bublé: Why I gave up drugs and womanising
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 24 March 2005
Michael Bublé's rise to worldwide fame has been swift. But, as his second album is released, "the new Sinatra" tells Robert Sandall how he has ...
Billie Holiday: Julia Blackburn: With Billie (Cape)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 27 March 2005
BILLIE HOLIDAY famously led a chaotic, dissolute life that has attracted biographers like rubberneckers to a car crash. ...
Joanna Newsom: Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 5 April 2005
STRIDING PURPOSEFULLY past her Celtic harp and adjacent grand piano, Joanna Newsom opened her concert in typically forthright fashion. You either love her vocal mannerism ...
Paolo Conte: The Italian way to swing
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 5 May 2005
DESPITE THE FACT that he has sold out a week of shows in a plush theatre in central Milan where rival attractions such as Crosby ...
Kathryn Williams: Over Fly Over
Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 7 May 2005
KATHRYN WILLIAMS is one of those artists for whom a Mercury nomination – for her 2000 debut Little Black Numbers – brought a level of ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 8 May 2005
Since Geri Halliwell launched her solo career she's drifted in and out of our orbit. Now she's having another shot at re-entry. She's a woman ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2005
AS 36TH ALBUMS go, Van Morrison's latest is a laid-back marvel. ...
Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins: Beyond The Nightmares: Billy Corgan
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 4 June 2005
THE YOUNGER ONES recognise him and stop to say hello, but heaven knows what the older visitors make of Billy Corgan as we wander around ...
Ry Cooder: Ode to a lost shangri-la
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 11 June 2005
After the Buena Vista phenomenon, Ry Cooder has made an album about his home town of LA. He talks to Robert Sandall. ...
Brian Eno: The Quiet Man Of Pop Rocks Out
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 16 June 2005
Brian Eno, pioneer of gentle, ambient music, tells Robert Sandall why living in the country has made him want to get noisy. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 19 June 2005
A SAINTLY IF elusive figure on the indie scene, Pajo has used a number of aliases – Papa M and Aerial M among them – ...
Pink Floyd reunion proves that pigs can fly
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2005
ROGER WATERS, whose first phone call to Dave Gilmour in over 20 years sealed the Live8 deal, has said nothing. Gilmour has muttered off-the-record that ...
Peter Shapiro: Turn the Beat Around
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 17 July 2005
GIVEN ITS frivolous image and naff rituals – fright wigs and flares, revolving glitterballs and girls dancing around their handbags – a serious book about ...
Eric Clapton: From Sex and Drugs to Domestic Bliss
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 20 August 2005
IT'S DAY FOUR of Eric Clapton's week off from paternal duties, and the born-again family man doesn't know what to do with himself. On Monday ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 28 August 2005
SIGUR ROS aren't big on putting what they do into words: this, after all, is the band who called their most recent album ( ), ...
Richard Thompson: Lyric, Hammersmith, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 29 August 2005
ALTHOUGH ONLY one of them was named on the ticket, there were two beard-y Thompsons on stage at the Lyric Hammersmith. ...
Earth Wind and Fire: Earth, Wind and Fire: Relighting the Fire
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2005
MAYBE IT'S AN effect of the baking late-August heat, but the concert scene in Houston, Texas has gone all topsy-turvy. ...
Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock
Film/DVD/TV Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 22 September 2005
FOR ONCE, "legendary" really is the word. The performance by Jimi Hendrix and his band that closed Woodstock in 1969 has been cited as one ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, GQ, October 2005
ON THE DAY that GQ meets up with Bob Geldof, the man looks as though he's just finished fighting off a gang of ineffectual stylists. ...
Laura Veirs: The DIY Queen of Quirk
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 6 October 2005
Laura Veirs is bringing her irresistibly oddball folk-rock to Europe. And, Robert Sandall finds, she's doing it the hard way. ...
Neil Young: Rebel without a pause
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 30 October 2005
Neil Young famously wrote that it was "better to burn out than to fade away". Now, approaching his 60th birthday and confronted by his own ...
Santana: Carlos Santana: Many hippie returns
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 6 November 2005
He played at Woodstock while out of his brain on LSD. But at 58, Carlos Santana isn't just a 1960s relic: stars like Beyoncé and ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times Magazine, 6 November 2005
HIS COMPLEXION is perhaps a little ruddier than we're used to but otherwise Neil Young is looking pretty good for a man who turns 60 ...
Rachid Taha: Raucous rocking in the casbah
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 29 November 2005
SIGHTINGS OF BRIAN Eno playing music in public in Britain have been rare enough these past 30 years, and as for jigging excitedly around the ...
Tony Christie: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 7 December 2005
ON THE FACE of it, the '70s power crooner Tony Christie is presently enjoying a second coming. ...
Robert Fripp: "If you love music, become a plumber"
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 8 December 2005
CRADLING A NICE cup of tea in the kitchen of his home on the River Avon in Worcestershire, Robert Fripp looks more like a kindly ...
Sam Cooke: Peter Guralnick: Dream Boogie – The Triumph of Sam Cooke (Little, Brown)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 January 2006
SAM COOKE WAS the first black American pop superstar. By 1962, the year of his biggest British hit, 'Twistin' the Night Away', he was the ...
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2006
Can a musical based on the group's cheesy '70s pop really attract new fans? Robert Sandall meets the men who believe it can. ...
Nick Drake: Trevor Dann: Darker Than The Deepest Sea – The Search for Nick Drake (Portrait)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 5 February 2006
THIS BOOK IS surprisingly topical, and not just because of the deepening spell cast by Nick Drake, the English singer-songwriter, 31 years after his death. ...
Steve Marriott: The Mod That Time Forgot
Retrospective by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2006
Steve Marriott kick-started a uniquely British style of rock. Robert Sandall remembers an unsung hero. ...
Donald Fagen: The Cat Will See You Now
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2006
First there was The Nightfly. Then Kamakiriad. And now, a mere 24 years on, the trilogy is complete. Robert Sandall meets Steely Dan's Donald Fagen ...
Nancy Sinatra: Her Boots Are Walkin' On Back
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 12 March 2006
Ol' Blue Eyes' daughter, Nancy Sinatra, is mixing with the cool crowd now, says Robert Sandall ...
John Robb: Punk Rock – An Oral History (Ebury Press)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 19 March 2006
WHAT IS THERE still to say, really, about the British punk rock movement? As this year marks the 30th anniversary of its uproarious debut in ...
Bob Dylan: Dylan's deadpan debut as a DJ
Report by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 4 May 2006
Robert Sandall reports on Bob Dylan's first turn at the decks spinning his favourite tunes. ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rick Rubin: Rick Rubin: The Man Who Made The Chilis Hot
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 4 May 2006
As the Red Hot Chili Peppers release a monumental new album, their producer Rick Rubin tells Robert Sandall how he tamed one of pop's most ...
The Beatles: Bob Spitz: The Beatles – The Biography (Aurum Press)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 May 2006
WITH ITS BIBLICAL length and its epigraph from that underused pop pundit, Plato — "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the ...
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 14 May 2006
THIS PROTEIN-PACKED memoir entwines a number of stories that reach well beyond the subtitle's modest brief. At one level it's a boy's own adventure. Joe ...
David Gilmour: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 31 May 2006
"LIKE SLEEPING with your ex-wife" was how David Gilmour dismissively described Pink Floyd's reunion for Live 8. Given that Gilmour has since insisted that his ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Interview by Robert Sandall, GQ, June 2006
Sex, drugs and a fatal overdose: the history of Red Hot Chili Peppers reads like a crash course in overindulgence. Here, in their own words, ...
Ronnie Scott's says goodbye to sticky carpets, hello to decent food and air conditioning
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 24 June 2006
The legendary Soho jazz club has had a long overdue revamp. Robert Sandall reports. ...
Anohni (Antony & the Johnsons), Scritti Politti, Patti Smith: Latitude: Henham Park, Suffolk
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 17 July 2006
FESTIVALS HAVE a way of sorting out the truly great from the merely watchable, and so it proved at the weekend's Latitude event. ...
Cerys Matthews: Ballad of the born-again pop star
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2006
Things got so bad for Cerys Matthews in the '90s that she broke down on stage. But a new life in rural Nashville has revitalised ...
Inara George: I just had to follow in Dad's footsteps
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2006
Inara George talks to Robert Sandall about forging a career in the shadow of her late father, Lowell, leader of legendary rockers Little Feat. ...
John Martyn: There's mystery in the air as John Martyn revives a classic
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 7 September 2006
FOR AN ALBUM that had no noticeable commercial impact here when it first appeared in February 1973, John Martyn's Solid Air has enjoyed a remarkable ...
CSS: Cansei de Ser Sexy: Stealth 2, Nottingham
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 10 September 2006
WATCHING THE Brazilian band Cansei de Ser Sexy in action in Europe for the first time last week was oddly nostalgic. ...
Lloyd Cole: Singing for Grown-Ups in 3D
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 7 October 2006
WHEN LLOYD COLE says that a lot of the things he enjoys "don't sit very well with youth culture", you can see his point. Today's ...
Juliette Lewis and the Licks: Juliette Lewis & the Licks: Astoria, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 8 October 2006
IT'S HARD NOT to admire a woman who abandoned a thriving career as a Hollywood actress to front a rock band, and who has stuck ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, February 2007
ELO's founder, he has also played inside a spaceship and gripped George Harrison with his bum. ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: Last Wild Man Of Rock 'N Roll Standing
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 4 February 2007
The six wives, the shootings, the arrests, the addictions – Jerry Lee Lewis was the original wild man of rock'n'roll. And at 71, he still ...
Joss Stone: The Undoctored Ms Stone, I Presume: Joss Stone
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 4 February 2007
MEETING JOSS STONE in the Electric Lady recording suite in downtown Manhattan feels curiously appropriate. Set up in 1968 by Jimi Hendrix, who named his ...
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 18 February 2007
IT CAN'T have been easy choosing the alliterative lineup for the sub-title of this rock'n'roll memoir. After Phil Spector, Tony Visconti is probably the most ...
Phil Spector: Mick Brown: Tearing Down the Wall of Sound/Mark Ribowsky: He's A Rebel
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 April 2007
Mick Brown reminds us of Spector's greatness as a music man, in what would otherwise be an unremittingly grim story. ...
Elvis Costello, Robert Wyatt: The lasting legacy of 'Shipbuilding'
Retrospective by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 5 April 2007
During the Falklands war, Elvis Costello wrote a passionate elegy for a lost way of life that still resonates today, says Robert Sandall. ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 8 April 2007
Nearly 30 years ago, Patti Smith turned her back on rock'n'roll. The woman they called the female Bob Dylan quit, choosing obscurity and her family ...
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 31 May 2007
The Beatles' monumental album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is being re-recorded by some of the biggest names in pop. Robert Sandall reports. ...
Paul McCartney: Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 8 June 2007
IT WAS SUPPOSED to be a "secret" gig; but the cat was out of the bag – and all over the internet and the papers ...
Lou Reed: Berlin live at Forest National, Brussels
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 24 June 2007
THE BRUSSELS equivalent of Wembley Arena was nearly full for what had been billed as a "European premiere": Lou Reed performing his 1973 album Berlin ...
Report by Robert Sandall, Prospect, August 2007
In recent years, the economics of pop music have been upended. The market for CDs has collapsed, and not even the rise of legal downloading ...
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 12 August 2007
The former Dome plays host to Prince: a fitting venue to reflect on past glories. ...
Doc Pomus: Alex Halberstadt: Lonely Avenue – The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus (Cape)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 19 August 2007
On the face of it, pop treated Pomus abysmally. A harder look at how and why would have given a lively biography a bit more ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, September 2007
RECOGNISING HIM is not a problem. As he strides purposefully across the concourse of Waterloo station it's easy to figure why Paul Weller is referred ...
Obituary by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 2 September 2007
IF WRITING ABOUT music is like dancing about architecture, then Richard Cook, who died of cancer last week at 49, was the Norman Foster of ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 September 2007
THE MEDIA joust in America pitting Kanye West against 50 Cent – both releasing albums on the same day – is reminiscent of the 1995 ...
The Police: National Indoor Arena, Birmingham
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 September 2007
THE LAST TIME the Police played Birmingham, Sting told the audience at the city's National Indoor Arena last week, was in 1983, "when I had ...
KT Tunstall: Wilton's Music Hall, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 23 September 2007
ON THE DAY that her second album, Drastic Fantastic, went on sale, KT Tunstall played a semi-secret pre-tour warm-up gig at Wilton's, in east London. ...
PJ Harvey steps into the light
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 23 September 2007
PJ Harvey's previous albums have embraced the dark side of life, but White Chalk's upbeat originality wipes the slate clean. ...
Jools Holland: Barefaced Lies and Boogie Woogie Boasts (Michael Joseph)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 October 2007
FOR JOOLS Holland, autobiography is a rigorously selective business. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 9 October 2007
NOT SINCE 1998 when Oasis delivered Be Here Now, their feverishly anticipated sequel to What's The Story (Morning Glory), has a rock album generated as ...
Eric Clapton: The Autobiography (Century)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 14 October 2007
IT IS HARD to believe that the first book to spill the beans on Eric Clapton should arrive more than 40 years after the graffitied ...
José Gonzalez: Union Chapel, London
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 28 October 2007
THERE ARE several misconceptions about José González floating around, most of which he emphatically corrected at Tuesday night's show in Islington. ...
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, January 2008
The return of was the music event of the year. On the eve of their comeback show at London's O2 arena, here for the first ...
Joe Jackson: "Actually, I quite like landmines"
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 5 January 2008
Joe Jackson, songwriter and contrarian, talks to Robert Sandall about smoking, Berlin, and his new album. ...
Bill Wyman: "I can't live off the Stones royalties"
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2008
BILL WYMAN IS sitting in a booth at the back of his Sticky Fingers restaurant cuddling a beautiful young girl called Matilda. ...
k.d. lang: The Second Coming of k.d. lang
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 13 January 2008
When she came out 15 years ago, she became the poster girl of lesbian chic. Even Madonna courted her. Then the spotlight dimmed — until ...
EMI: A Giant at War with itself
Report by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 17 January 2008
As EMI faces painful restructuring, Robert Sandall, a former employee, recalls the confusion and rivalries that once bedevilled the company. ...
Michael Jackson: Thriller 25th Anniversary Edition
Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 9 February 2008
WHAT A TOPSY-TURVY career Michael Jackson has had. ...
Salif Keita: "I prefer Céline Dion these days"
Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2008
Singer Salif Keita tells Robert Sandall about his new UK tour – and why he's weary of rock. ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 24 February 2008
DREAM POP doesn't come much dreamier than this. For their second outing, the Baltimore-based duo of Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand have concocted an even ...
Queen: Fifty Years of Great British Music: The '70s
Interview by Robert Sandall, Q, March 2008
It wasn't all operatic rock and theatrical excess. As guitarist Brian May recalls, transsexual strippers played a part, too. ...
The B-52s: B-52s: The Love Shack Shakes Again
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 3 April 2008
It's 30 years since the hairdos and harmonies of the B-52s propelled them to stardom. With their new album, as Robert Sandall discovers, the party ...
Overview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 25 May 2008
It's business time for pop comedy again – but why now? ...
Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons: The Ballad of Emmylou Harris
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 June 2008
At 61, Emmylou Harris is still the drop-dead-gorgeous queen of country rock. But behind closed doors the singer has sad secrets to reveal. ...
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 8 June 2008
Lou Reed's live version of Berlin, now a film, is hailed as his masterpiece. So, is he any easier to interview? Not really... ...
Leonard Cohen: Manchester Opera House
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 22 June 2008
ARRIVING ON the stage at the Manchester Opera House for his first British dates in 15 years, Leonard Cohen immediately apologised for "putting some of ...
Amy Winehouse: Can Amy Winehouse be saved?
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 27 July 2008
Her phenomenal talent has been eclipsed by her terrifying ability to self-destruct. Can anything save Amy from herself? ...
Guide by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 27 July 2008
ONE OF BRITISH rock's most enduring hippie institutions, Hawkwind formed in 1969 and staked their claim as heroes of the counterculture by playing a free ...
Profile by Robert Sandall, GQ, August 2008
ROCK STARS were never supposed to be regular guys, though that's the way most of the ones who stick around usually end up. It's hard ...
Bill Drummond: Pop's prankster heads for destruction
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 19 August 2008
WITH BILL Drummond now, you feel, it's very much a case of "cometh the time, cometh the man". ...
Nightmares in Wax: Nightmares On Wax: Thought So...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 24 August 2008
FOR HIS SIXTH album, N.O.W.'s prime mover and sample-meister, George Evelyn, decamped to the new family home in Ibiza, invited over his band in their ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 September 2008
METRONOMY ARE A TRIO from Totnes, now resident in Brighton, whose second album looks set to win them a serious reputation as indie mavericks. ...
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 September 2008
SUSAN, OR SUZE, Rotolo was Bob Dylan's first serious girlfriend, and unlike many other characters from his pre-iconic phase she has, up until now, revealed ...
Massive Attack: Song of the year: 1991 – Massive Attack's 'Unfinished Sympathy'
Retrospective by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 12 October 2008
IT WAS CLEAR by the end of the 1980s that dance music was here to stay. Following the "rave" explosion of 1987, clubs all over ...
Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 23 October 2008
IT'S A MYSTERY how the Move have missed out on the fame and reputation enjoyed by contemporaries such as the Kinks, the Who and the ...
Van Morrison, Lou Reed, Brian Wilson, The Zombies: Recycling Albums
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 26 October 2008
Van Morrison's revival of Astral Weeks is the latest example of yesterday's cult LPs being turned into today's sell-out concerts. ...
Damon Albarn: From Pop to Opera
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 2 November 2008
He's indifferent to money and drugs. He hates the celebrity circus. And he famously said no to Tony Blair — but yes to getting drunk ...
Blur, Gorillaz: Damon Albarn: From Pop to Opera
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 2 November 2008
He's indifferent to money and drugs. He hates the celebrity circus. And he famously said no to Tony Blair – but yes to getting drunk ...
Live Review by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, 14 November 2008
IN LINE WITH his progress from '60s teen heartthrob to reclusive disciple of the avant garde, Scott Walker has long since given up performing in ...
Jarvis Cocker: Sheffield Academy
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 30 November 2008
THE IDEA OF Jarvis Cocker headlining a five-date UK tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his current label, the indie kings Rough Trade, made ...
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Word, January 2009
The cold wind of recession is already freezing record companies — but what will it mean for the kind of music that artists want to ...
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 4 January 2009
ROCK HISTORY, like other sorts, tends to get told from the point of view of victors rather than losers. By popular acclaim, the big winners ...
Lily Allen: Talented, Troubled and Wallowing in Her Father's Footsteps
Profile by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 25 January 2009
WHATEVER AMOROUS tale they really told, the ostensibly loved-up paparazzi shots that flashed around the world in early January telegraphed the fact that Lily Allen ...
The Only Ones: Academy 2, Sheffield
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 February 2009
IN THEIR on and (mainly) off 33-year existence, the Only Ones have never paid much heed to career management, and the Sheffield leg of their ...
The Only Ones: Academy 2, Sheffield
Live Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 February 2009
IN THEIR ON AND (mainly) off 33-year existence, the Only Ones have never paid much heed to career management, and the Sheffield leg of their ...
Fatboy Slim, Paul Oakenfold: Superstar DJs: Here We Go! by Dom Phillips
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 March 2009
They're mostly gone now, but back in the 1990s Britain's superjocks could coin thousands for a single night. A lucid history charts their excesses ...
Madonna: Why Madonna's Still A Material Girl
Profile by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 5 April 2009
Turning 50 and divorcing Guy Ritchie doesn’t seem to have dented Madonna’s fortune – or her bankability. Robert Sandall investigates the business of being a ...
New York Dolls Release Fourth Studio Album
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 26 April 2009
Only David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain remain from 1970s line-up for mix of classic rock and roll and reggae-style 'Trash' ...
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 28 June 2009
The biggest names in music have been enjoying a nice little earner – getting paid millions to perform for the super-rich. ...
Beyoncé, Jay-Z: Beyoncé and Jay-Z: America's other first couple
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 August 2009
Beyoncé and Jay-Z are black America’s second most famous couple: young, rich and with a direct line to the White House. ...
Mott the Hoople: All the Old Dudes
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 9 August 2009
They just weren’t cool, so 35 years on why has Ian Hunter's band managed to sell-out three nights at Hammersmith Apollo? ...
Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 6 September 2009
GEMMA RAY sounds like a character from an imaginary 1950s sci-fi flick – possibly titled Lights out Zoltar! – and the songs on her second ...
Spandau Ballet: The return of Spandau Ballet
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 27 September 2009
The band behind 'Gold', 'True' and 'Chant No 1', Tony Hadley and the Kemp brothers put their differences aside for reunion. ...
Louis Armstrong: Terry Teachout: Pops – The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong (JR Books)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 22 November 2009
AS TERRY Teachout makes clear in this terrific biography, the world that Louis Armstrong inhabited was anything but wonderful. It was, for most of his ...
Peter Gabriel is back in the habit
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 31 January 2010
Lately more a technology guru than a singer, he now has a new CD – Scratch My Back is a covers album with a difference. ...
Sade Emerges From Her Country Retreat
Interview by Robert Sandall, The Times, 31 January 2010
She's Britain's most successful female solo artist but has remained a glamorous enigma — until now. Sade emerges from her country retreat to tell how ...
Nick Kent, The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols: Nick Kent: Apathy for the Devil – A 1970s Memoir
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 21 February 2010
AS AN EYEWITNESS account of the dangerous excesses of the 1970s rock scene, Apathy for the Devil is in a compulsively readable class of its ...
Natalie Merchant is Lady Goo Goo
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 26 March 2010
Natalie Merchant sold her house in Hawaii to fund an album of nonsense verse involving 130 musicians. It's the most ambitious project of her career. ...
Stevie Wonder: Mark Ribowsky: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered – The Soulful Journey of Stevie Wonder
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 2 May 2010
His charisma is beyond doubt but, as this valiant life reveals, Stevie Wonder is on a different wavelength from everybody else. ...
Van Morrison: Greil Marcus: Listening to Van Morrison
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 6 June 2010
An appreciation of the best bits of Van the Man's career wisely concentrates on the sublime music, not the grouch who made it. ...
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