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Susan Whitall

Susan Whitall
Susan Whitall has been writing about music since she joined Creem in 1975. She became editor of Creem in 1978 and left in 1983 to become a feature writer for the Detroit News. Her book Women of Motown was published by Avon in 1998. Susan's most recent book is Fever: Little Willie John's Fast Life, Mysterious Death and the Birth of Soul (Titan Books, 2011)

37 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

David Bowie: Marvel-ous Angie, David's Black Widow

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, November 1975

NEW YORK, N.Y. — While hubby David was slinking around Albuquerque filming The Man Who Fell To Earth Angela Bowie hasn't exactly been lollygagging around ...

Peter Frampton: Once More With Feeling

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, March 1976

"ROLL OVER, darling. Pass me a Marlboro," Peter murmured. ...

Peter Frampton: Frampton Comes Alive (A&M)

Review by Susan Whitall, Creem, May 1976

WHAY, AFTER four moderately successful solo albums – not to mention a tempestuous and musically prolific stint with Steve Marriott in Humble Pie – has ...

Wayne County & The Electric Chairs, The Dictators: Wayne County and Handsome Dick Manitoba: War of the Gargantuas

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, June 1976

NEW YORK — One early spring evening at CBGB's Wayne County was wrapping up his parody of Patti Smith when a disturbance erupted. All that ...

Peter Frampton: Frampton Goes Motown... Maybe

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, July 1976

DETROIT — No, this is not a gay bar, this is the Motown studio in Detroit — Hitsville to us — and Peter Frampton is ...

Robin Trower: Prince of the Power Wah

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, July 1976

"ROBIN TROWER? He's very moody," I was warned before embarking on the road with the 31-year-old English axe ace. "And whatever you do, don't ask ...

Cliff Richard: Old Greasers, Read This And Weep!

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, October 1976

DETROIT — Think of someone you know who's within five years of 40. Got it in your mind? The old geezer next door with the ...

Montrose: This Monster Thinks He's Mellow

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, January 1977

DETROIT — "Ah, so you're from the trash magazine," Ronnie Montrose grinned as we shook hands over his electric guitar-encased body. "Let me see if ...

Thin Lizzy: Johnny The Fox (Mercury)

Review by Susan Whitall, Creem, January 1977

ALL RIGHT, let's deal with the "this guy's a black Irish Springsteen" ho-hum right at the start. ...

Nils Lofgren Sucks Eggs

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, February 1977

Not really, but you read this far, didn't you? ...

Aerosmith, Blondie, Boston, Alice Cooper, Charlie Daniels, Rick Derringer, The Eagles, Flo & Eddie, Rory Gallagher, Janis Ian, Jefferson Starship, Jethro Tull, KISS, Al Kooper, Lou Reed, The Runaways, Todd Rundgren, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits: Rock Stars Talk Back

Comment by Susan Whitall, Creem, May 1977

Dozens listen. ...

Frankie Miller: High Life and Times

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, September 1977

THE LAST time I was in London Cass Elliott deep-sixed on a ham sandwich in a Mayfair hotel. Spring 1977, and Sylvia of the Three ...

Ted Nugent: Dancing With Mr D-O-G

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, September 1977

THE PHONE jangled and I jumped a foot in the St. Paul Holiday Inn. Horrible, holes in the carpet...rotten hungover weekend and what am I ...

J. Geils Band: At The Zoo With The J Geils Band

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, October 1977

IT WAS time for a big Rock Show at the monolith just outside of Detroit, Pontiac Stadium, and this wasn't no rock 'n' roll at ...

Robin Trower to Rock: Get Back To Where You Once Belonged

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, December 1977

LINDA, ONE of my co-editors here at Globotron – uh, CREEM – came back from lunch with Detroit disco producer extraordinaire Don Davis, waving an ...

The Sex Pistols: Johnny On The Split: "I'm A Free Man!"

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, April 1978

JUST AS we were going to press, pasting up pictures of Messrs. Rotten, Vicious, Jones and Cook, the news broke. The band had broken up ...

Neil Young And Crazy Horse: Clarkston, Michigan

Live Review by Susan Whitall, Creem, December 1978

CLARKSTON, MI (Outside Detroit, MI): The sign outside the open air theatre said "RUST NEVER SLEEPS... AN EVENING WITH NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE". ...

Led Zeppelin: A Psychobiograph

Memoir by Susan Whitall, Creem, February 1979

I COULD BEGIN this psychobiograph by letting you in on the incredibly orgasmic Yardbirds-featuring-Jimmy Page-gig I caught at the Grande in Detroit in the late ...

Rory Gallagher: The Return Of The World's Best Normal Guitarist

Report by Susan Whitall, Creem, March 1979

THE BROTHER-(AND SISTER-) HOOD ...

Kiss: Bat Lizard Rocks The Boat

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, April 1979

There was an appointed place: a hotel room in the gleaming steel rod Henry the Deuce built on the Detroit River to atone for the ...

Elvis Costello: He'd Rather Be Anywhere Else But Here Today...

Report by Susan Whitall, Creem, July 1979

NEW YORK — By now, everybody but Bonnie Bramlett's dog have given their side of the Columbus, Ohio brawl between the forces of Stills and ...

Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Rockpile: The Basher Tapes: Nick Lowe Achieves Verbal Dominance of the Free World

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, July 1979

I GUESS I WAS almost prepared. The stories in the English papers portraying him as a garrulous kinda guv, the bashful puppydog picture sleeves on ...

The Police: Police Report: Message From Three Bottle Blonds...

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, February 1980

JANUARY 1979: We started receiving phone calls here at BH Central of some urgency from John Pidgeon, one of our English writers who also toils ...

The Clash Clamp Down on Detroit

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, June 1980

Or: Give 'Em Enough Wisniowka ...

The Pretenders Stop Our Sobbing

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, August 1980

AS LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER"There's something I dread about talking to female musicians," my co-editor DiMartino sighed as we drank beer and worried in the ...

The B-52s, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, Rockpile, Talking Heads: Heatwave Festival: Crouching Towards Bowmanville Or Elvis: What Happened?

Report by Susan Whitall, Creem, November 1980

I MUST confess to hating "rock festivals" with some passion. My response to the rhetorical "Would you have gone to Woodstock?" question has always been ...

Rick Nelson: Lonesome Town Cheers Up

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, June 1981

Rick Nelson Goes Back On The Boards ...

Hank Williams: Chet Flippo: Your Cheatin' Heart — A Biography Of Hank Williams (Simon and Schuster)

Book Review by Susan Whitall, Creem, September 1981

ROSANNE CASH, Johnny's first-born and as I write, No. 1 on the country charts, was quoted in Esquire: "A lot has happened in country music ...

Daryl Hall & John Oates: Hall & Oates: Laugh All The Way To The Synth Bank

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, June 1982

"Now no one will be able to accuse us of being fags that sing like the Spinners."Daryl Hall, to Jaan Uhelszki, August 1977. ...

Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant: Robert Plant Takes Root in the '80s

Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, October 1982

MOBY GRAPE INTO THE VOID ...

The Go-Go's: Go-Go's Of Your Dreams

Report and Interview by Susan Whitall, Creem, December 1982

DEEP IN THE soul of every writer lies a secret: what does the writer do to avoid writing? I'll empty my brain pan now: I ...

Rory Gallagher: In The Midst Of A Blues Boom, Rory Gallagher Roars Back

Interview by Susan Whitall, Detroit News, March 1991

WHEN RORY Gallagher decides to take a flyer, he doesn't mess around. After years of soul-numbing touring up and down the American continent, the Irish ...

Bob Seger: Still The Same

Interview by Susan Whitall, MOJO, March 1995

High in the US charts with his Greatest Hits album, leather-lunged god of heartland AOR Bob Seger talks to Susan Whittall about punk rock, "ferocious" ...

Paul Westerberg

Interview by Susan Whitall, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 May 1996

AS FORMER LEAD singer and songwriter of the Replacements, Paul Westerberg labors under particularly burdensome expectations. His second solo album, Eventually, released last month on ...

Joni Mitchell: Hits and Misses

Review by Susan Whitall, Houston Press, 26 December 1996

IN A POP WORLD where female musicians are designed, micromanaged and as carefully positioned in the marketplace as a new brand of air freshener, how ...

Van Morrison: The Healing Game

Review by Susan Whitall, Houston Press, 27 February 1997

THE NEWS THAT there's a new Van Morrison CD out should be thrilling. But for some of us, there have been so many Morrison discs ...

Lush: Britpop Bondgirls Bash Bonehead Badboys

Profile and Interview by Susan Whitall, Yahoo! Internet Life, 26 August 1997

WHILE MUCH IS made of such supposed role models for young girls as Alanis Morissette, a young woman whose deeply personal songs are co-written by ...

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