Indice dei contenuti per Issue 573 in Record Collector

The last time this happened – a major artist dying just as we were going to press, prompting a last-minute change of cover – I was Features Editor at Melody Maker. It was a Friday early evening towards the end of March 1994, and we were about to put the latest issue “to bed”. You won’t have seen the issue, but I can tell you it featured subversive electronicist Aphex Twin on the front – his first such accolade from a major mainstream music publication. The late phone call at the office as we were starting to pack up for the weekend and head to the pub, informing us that Kurt Cobain had taken his life, meant that there was only ever going to be one star on the front…

Tony Burke is the longtime editor of the specialist Blues & Rhythm magazine. He discovered Canned Heat (p58) in 1968, and was intrigued by their record collecting exploits, especially those of frontman Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite – a real blues and R&B aficionado. Chris Wheatley is a writer and journalist with too many records, too many instruments, and not enough cats. For this month’s RC, he spoke to Dave Stewart and Richard Sinclair about legendary Canterbury scene band Hatfield And The North (p54). Josef K biographer Johnnie Johnstone saw The Go-Betweens (p64) play a stunning show at the QMU in Glasgow in October 1988. It would be over a decade before he saw them play again. In this issue he talks to Robert Forster about his and the band’s key…

Steve Barton of Translator on the US new wavers’ latest outing How come you’re back now? Liberation Hall heard about the recording of a Translator show from San Francisco in 1986. It felt like enough time had passed since then, so we said ‘yes’ to releasing it. The show served as a catalyst to writing songs from a new vantage point. Were there any amusing episodes during the live album’s creation? When listening to a cassette master, we found that part of the tape ran too fast. We sounded like high-pitched cartoon versions of ourselves! The engineer, Michael Smith, performed some magic. The recording was from our longtime sound person, who’d documented the ‘final show’. Longtime fans will dig Puzzles, which we never got round to recording. It’s one of…

The Live Aid 40: Music, Power And Unity exhibition is at the British Music Experience, Cunard Building, Liverpool, to 4 January 2026. ■ The Born To Run At 50 exhibition/symposium/academic conference is at Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center For American Music, West Long Branch, Monmouth, New Jersey, 4-7 September. Events include the screening of unaired 1975 album making-of video footage, and guests include members of the E Street Band. The Center’s revamp, with a 250-capacity venue, is unveiled in spring 2026. ■ A free Ozzy Osbourne Working Class Heroes exhibition, with record awards, videos, photos, is at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery to 28 September. ■ The Blitz: The Club That Shaped The 80s exhibition, including artwork, design sketches, flyers, magazines, records, photos, audio-visual installations, instruments, clothing, is at the Design…

UK country artist Rob Wheeler grew up under the northern skies of Cheshire, learning the songs of Hank Williams and Eagles as a means of escape, while also finding an obsession closer to home in The Beatles. His mother worked in Terry Blood’s famous record shop in Crewe while pregnant with Rob, which is where he reckons his obsession with music and vinyl began. Rob’s record collection reflects his obsession with nostalgia and taking things a little slower, along with a wide range of tastes; including a rare piece of vinyl art and more than a few copies of the ‘White Album’. What do you collect, and why? I have a few different avenues that I like to walk down depending on my mood; one week I’m after Tom Waits’…

Lou Christie 1943 - 2025 The American singer-songwriter was behind songs like Lightnin’ Strikes. Known for his elastic falsetto, he rose to fame in the early 60s as a teen idol, eclipsing the norm by penning much of his own material alongside Twyla Herbert. After early hits The Gypsy Cried and Two Faces Have I (which reached US No 6), his career was temporarily derailed by enlistment into the army. Discharged after two years, he returned to a US pop landscape transformed by the success of British invasion groups, yet his career thrived. 1966’s Lightnin’ Strikes, an energetic swinger written with Herbert, saw his distinctive vocals backed with lush arrangements and girl group backing vocals, topping the US charts and reaching UK No 11. More success followed with 1966’s Rhapsody…

Inside his house in the North Yorkshire coastal village of Robin Hood’s Bay, Martin Carthy’s walls bear witness to an extraordinary career. There are framed photographs of the great and the good everywhere you look. A young Bob Dylan and Richard Fariña at London’s Troubadour during the early 60s; Carthy and Davy Graham in the studio; Anne Briggs and companion; Carthy and Dave Swarbrick jamming; family portraits of the Watersons. As we settle into the kitchen, where Carthy prepares two mugs of tea, there’s still a birthday card on the table. He recently turned 84, marking the occasion with a wonderful new album, Transform Me Then Into A Fish, his first in over a decade. It’s a record that brings him full circle, reworking (among other things) eight songs from 1965’s…

Hatfield And The North (Virgin V2008, laminated gatefold, 1974) £80 Hatfield’s debut is a rich stew of melodic and highly inventive prog. Stewart’s glittering keyboards add a classy sheen, Phil Miller’s distinctive guitar is beautifully surprising, Sinclair’s vocals shine and Pyle’s kinetic drumming propels the whole. By turns jazzy, rocking, ambient and meditative. And always beguiling. The Rotters’ Club (Virgin V 2030, red Virgin inner, 1975) £50 The band’s second effort is a little more structured, but no less fascinating. The addition of brass and backing vocals (partly supplied by Barbara Gaskin) widen out the sonic palette across songs which take in melodramatic rock, electric jazz, quirky pop and cinematic soundtracks. Hatwise Choice: Archive Recordings 1973-1975, Volume 1 (Hatco/Burning Shed HATCOCD 737501, digipak, booklet, 2005) £30 Burning Shed’s first collection of…

Few New York eras are as romanticised as the late-70s. Pre-gentrification rents, a fertile arts scene, punk and disco explosions, the emboldening of the gay rights movement and a pre-AIDS, anything-goes day-and-nightlife. Even the negatives – the danger, the shaky state of public finances, the decaying infrastructure – can seem glamorous to those of us who weren’t there. Four-piece group, Desmond Child & Rouge, were right in the middle of it. Rouge vocalist Maria Vidal calls it a “Brigadoon moment… a time that only comes along every 100 years or so, but you don’t realise it when you’re living it.” Desmond Child & Rouge were living it. They weren’t part of the burgeoning CBGBs scene, but neither were they strictly a cabaret act. Instead, they bridged those two Manhattan microcosms, with…

“Brian Wilson wasn’t just the heart of The Beach Boys – he was the soul of our sound. From the first time we sang together as kids in my living room, I knew there was something otherworldly in him. His musical gifts were unmatched. The melodies he dreamed up, the emotions he poured into every note – Brian changed the course of music forever.” MIKE LOVE “Sorry to hear of the passing of two giants of musical innovation, Sly Stone and Brian Wilson. Without Pet Sounds, my first single would never have sounded the same. Mike Hurst, my producer, was infatuated with that album, and tried his best to replicate the innovative use of classical instruments to complement the sonics.” YUSUF/CAT STEVENS “Brian Wilson created the best songs, the best sounds and…

The Journey – Part 3 covers a period when The Kinks were one of the biggest concert draws in the US. How much did not being permitted to tour America for four years in the 60s harm the band’s success? We missed out big time by not being able to play the likes of Monterey Pop [in 1967] or Woodstock – we were actually asked to play Monterey. I regret that we weren’t able to return until 1969 when we opened for The Who in Chicago, but luckily we still had a good following in America, and a good PR to help us when we came back. Sleepwalker was clearly a shift away from what many thought of as your theatrical/ conceptual albums from earlier in the ‘70s. Did anything specific…

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE’s The First Family Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967 High Moon) has got to be a contender for reissue of the year. A compelling snapshot of the group in their infancy, but already on their way to being fully formed, it captures them in joyous mood at the Redwood City venue on 26 March 1967, seven months before the release of debut album A Whole New Thing, with a set of soul covers made their own. In their hands, Lou Courtney’s Skate Now becomes a blueprint for Dance To The Music, a collision of heart-palpitating groove and syncopation, fervid gospel voices and wild organ. Then there’s Baby I Need Your Loving, their rendition of The Four Tops’ hit which takes Motown back to the church, throws in a…

Who’s going to fill the void now Black Sabbath have called it a day? Another Birmingham band, obviously. Doomy types tend to worship Sabbath’s initial run of albums. MARAGARITA WITCH CULT seem to be open-minded about the later material too, including the Ronnie Dio era and beyond. As if to Hammer Horror this point home, Strung Out In Hell Heavy Psych Sounds) starts with a slowish slab in the key of Master Of Reality. Its second song then zips forward to more 80s style of metal, with a higher tempo and soaring chorus. In a way, that opening double punch sums up the rest of the material. Expect plenty of riffs, occasional solos and lyrics about candles and worms. There’s a cover of Billy Idol’s White Wedding about halfway through. If…

How did this album come about after so long? Alice Cooper: We grew up together in high school and everything so it wasn’t a divorce after we broke up, it was more a separation as we stayed in touch all that time. I knew all three of them were still great players so I said, “Why don’t we write a new album and see what happens?” The funny thing is we weren’t trying to sound like 1975 but it sounds like the one that should’ve come after Billion Dollar Babies. It was like not a day had gone by. We just got in the studio, started writing and started laughing. Of course, Bob Ezrin is the glue and when we listened back we just went, “Wow!” I wasn’t expecting anything…

It’s a star-packed set! How did it evolve? The Partners album in 2014, with people like Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, was very successful. It’s been my dream to pair Barbra with Paul McCartney but he was always making a record, or on tour. I sent another note and I’m at home and the phone goes, “Jay, it’s Paul.” My Valentine is in the style of standards, the equal of some of his greatest songs. He made modifications to the tense, gender, to make it a duet. That gave us the encouragement to find other partners. Who chose the Afanasieff-Asher production team? Barbra is an extraordinarily intuitive musician but cannot play an instrument or read music, although she can speak to an arranger in abstractions that allow her to reach the…

Looking For The Perfect Beat Arthur Baker Faber, £25 ISBN 139780571387427 Born in Boston to a good Jewish family in 1955, Arthur Baker’s move to New York in the 80s helped precipitate an exciting new wave in pop and hip hop; indeed, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest Baker is the man who invented electro. For the next 20 years or so, he had the Midas Touch, working with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and Al Green, among many others. Baker forged a symbiotic working relationship with New Order and pulled together the anti-apartheid charity single I Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City with chutzpah, assembling a cast that makes Band Aid look like St Winifred’s School Choir. Most famously, he produced Planet Rock for Afrika Bambaataa & The…

Sell Vinyl/CDs direct to RC readers, call us on 0208 752 8172 or email listings@recordcollectormag.com. Rates: recordcollectormag.com/advertise NEXT ISSUE: SEPTEMBER 2025 (on sale 7 AUGUST) Deadline for submitting adverts (Listings & Classified): Monday 14 JULY Please email your advert (Word doc/Excel file/plain text) to: listings@recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Listings, Diamond Publishing Limited 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP Following issue: OCTOBER 2025 (on sale 4 SEPTEMBER) Deadline: Monday 11 AUGUST Rubbersoulrecords@hotmail.co.uk infor@tiscali.co.uk…

The Dead Daisies August (13) Belfast Limelight (14) Edinburgh O2 Academy (16) Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill (19) Cardiff Tramshed (20) London Islington Assembly Hall (21) Holmfirth Picturedrome Sharon Van Etten August (20) Belfast Mandela Hall (27) Cardiff Depot (29) Leeds O2 Academy (30) Newcastle Boiler Shop Instigators August (8) Blackpool Rebellion Festival (15) Huddersfield Parish (16) London Camden Underworld The Lemonheads August (14) Northampton Roadmender (16) Manchester O2 Ritz (17) Glasgow Garage (19) Belfast Limelight (26) Sheffield Foundry (27) London Camden Electric Ballroom Mercury Rev August (13) Southend Chinnery’s (14) Bedford Esquires (27) Leeds Brudenell (29) Edinburgh La Belle Angele Now Booking Cast October (30) Belfast Telegraph Building November (6) Nottingham Rock City (7) Oxford O2 Academy (8) Torquay Arena (13) Birmingham O2 Institute (14) Cardiff Uni Y Plas (15)…

This month: The Peddlers In 1966, three out-of-work musicians who had travelled down from Manchester happened to be passing The Pickwick Club on Great Newport Street, London. On the off-chance there might be some work, they went in to see if there was any possibility of a gig/audition. Cyril Smith, part-owner of the club, offered them a week’s work, and that spell turned into a six-month residency. The trio known as The Peddlers were on their way, as the late Roy Phillips, keyboards/vocalist with the group (far left in group pic, above right) explained to me when he spoke to RC from his home in Christchurch, New Zealand, before he passed away aged 83 on 24 April 2025. “It opened the world to us, from royalty to Vegas and so…

Michael Jackson Thriller (Epic EPC 85930, LP, UK, 1982) £20 I grew up in Bishopbriggs [on the northern outskirts of Glasgow]. My dad had a guitar that he played occasionally, and sometimes, he sang. I was three or four when I got given my first record: Thriller. My sister and I loved Michael Jackson. He was the biggest star in the world, and we naturally gravitated to him. My mum took me to see him at Wembley. It was my first gig. Bruce Springsteen Born In The USA (CBS 86304, LP, UK, 1984) £20 There used to be an amazing HMV that did a deal where you could get three LPs for a tenner and every time I got Christmas or birthday money I would be there and sift through…

Change The Glow Of Love (WEA K 99107, LP, UK, 1980) £15 After toughening their signature sound in the post-disco backlash to dwindling sales, it must have been surreal for Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards (who turned down the opportunity to produce) to hear classic Chic so exquisitely replicated by Italian musicians, before vocals were recorded in NYC with their backing singers, including Luther Vandross. Produced by Jacques Fred Petrus, initial singles A Lover’s Holiday and Searching broke dance chart-topping records before their debut album ignited a successful five-year run that added R&B and quiet storm elements. Change’s elegantly joyous celebrations rescued disco by updating it irresistibly for the new decade. Taana Gardner Heartbeat (West End WES 22132, 12”, US, 1981) £20 Championed by Paradise Garage legend Larry Levan, teen…

SEND YOUR PRAISE, MISSIVES AND CALLS FOR THE DEIFICATION OF SIMON PRICE TO: rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk, or to Record Collector, 4th Floor, Harmsworth House, 13-15 Bouverie Street, London EC4Y 8DP, or via social media rc.editorial@metropolis.co.uk www.recordcollectormag.com Record Collector Magazine @RecCollmag RecordCollectormag @recordcollectormag SIMON IS A PUNK ROCKER! Super, super, super month’s issue – no need to add any more to that statement. Apart from… Regards to Team RC and… Gabba-gabba, Hey-hey, RC 572! A punk-tastic opus by Kris Needs, a 14-page rumble on da bruddahs Ramone, instantaneously took me back to 1977 when my mate Syd and I wrote separately to Sire Records. We cheekily petitioned their A&R department for group photos and a free copy of the Sheena 12” single, apparently worth a cool £40 now! 1-2-3-4 we promptly received them…

Acoustic Van Morrison Lit Up Inside & Keep ’Er Lit – The Collected Lyrics book, Faber, 11 September. ■ Margo Price Hard Headed Woman 180g 2LP, coloured 2LP, black-white 2LP, CD with bonus, bandcamp.com, 29 August. ■ Waylon Jennings’ unissued Songbird CD, orange LP, with Ashley Monroe, 3 October via waylonshop.com, followed by two more unissued sets in 2026. Due: August (22) Baden Powell/Joao Gilberto/Luiz Bonfa Brazil On Guitar 3CD, El, Asleep At The Wheel Riding High In Texas, Bismeaux. Biz On 3 June, the Hobgoblin Music retail chain of music instrument shops announced that it’s seeking £190,000 to keep afloat its nine UK stores before its upcoming 50th anniversary. Subscribers are offered, inter alia, CDs on the Hobgoblin label via crowdcube.com. ■ The London Twickenham Eel Pie Island Museum hosts 30 volunteers from…

Recent limited-run vinyl releases to look out for A superb live band, who managed to sell out an entire UK headline tour, without so much as a record deal to their name! Keo are a four-piece who’ve been turning plenty of heads in their short career so far, with their soulful, expansive take on 90s-era grunge. This limited edition vinyl EP is available to order now, featuring a bonus track called Young which won’t be available on any digital formats. This Irish rock outfit from Wicklow have been gaining fans and generating some decent music industry buzz, ever since an impressive tour with The Academic in 2023 and then signing to Warner late last year. This 7-track release is getting a limited physical pressing, all hand-numbered and signed by the…

SYNDICATED FREAKBEAT I recently picked up a small box of records at a village hall jumble sale. This was late afternoon and I was not expecting much as I imagined that they’d already been gone through by other collectors looking for hidden gems. I only took the entire box as the lady was packing up and said I could have them and the box for a fiver. So, deal done. When I got them home the period of this little collection was revealed by a couple of Cliff Richard records as well as a battered copy of The Beatles’ Please Please Me. So I was surprised to find at the back a copy of The Artwoods’ Oh My Love/Big City which is a nice slab of UK R&B. And right…

Definitions are important. Some of us recall the moment in the Bad News documentary when guitarist Den lost his rag and said, “I’m not going any further until I hear Alan say that we’re heavy metal.” Den’s concerns were real: he worried that the band (Bad News) might be drifting into other areas, like prog rock, or even pop. And definitions – in the form of genre – are important in popular music. Who among us has not dismissed a record in their youth just because it was “disco” or “country” or “hair metal”? Of course, nowadays we are open-minded and only find (insert name of this week’s whipping boy or girl here) annoying. As with goth, all Britpop acts denied being Britpop. Pulp, Suede, Oasis, Blur – all were…

Martin Carthy Martin Carthy (Fontana (S)TL 5269, LP, UK, 1965) £30 The flawless debut, accompanied by fiddler/mandolin player Dave Swarbrick, featuring inspired reworks of High Germany, Scarborough Fair and The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Steeleye Span Please To See The King (B&C CAS 1029, LP, UK, 1971) £35 Carthy cuts loose on Telecaster for this electric folk-rock gem. Highlights include The Blacksmith and the tempestuous Cold, Haily, Windy Night. Martin Carthy Shearwater (Peg PEG 12, LP, UK, 1972) £25 Vivid, rhythmic tales of death and betrayal, topped by the epic Famous Flower Of Serving Men and Betsy Bell And Mary Gray, with Maddy Prior. Lal & Mike Waterson Bright Phoebus (Trailer LES 2076, LP, UK, 1972) £150 A feast of strange and beautiful originals, expertly coloured by Carthy’s deft…

The world’s largest city and major cultural centre, Tokyo has had an appropriately outsized music scene. Ever since its citizens were first exposed to pop blaring from the radios of occupying American soldiers, the city’s musicians have found ways of putting their own take on Western sounds, whether melding them with traditional enka folk melodies, fashioning them to suit their own ideals and language, creating idealised pastiches or forging groundbreaking experimental styles. It’s a city where sugary pop and smooth AOR co-exist with ear-splitting hardcore, dreamy folk and zen-like ambient experiments. From Shibuya-kei to Japanoise, J-pop, city pop and environmental music, Tokyo musicians have created styles that have reverberated across the world. Accounting for the short format, important artists such as Boris, Merzbow, and Fushitsusha have been left out as their…

Fronting his livewire mixed-race, multi-gendered Family Stone, Sly Stone looked like he could have stepped out of a blaxploitation film, except that era was still to come in 1968 when he ignited his psychedelic soul inferno with Dance To The Music and changed black music overnight. As Joel Selvin writes in his band history, For the Record: Sly & the Family Stone, “There are two types of black music: black music before Sly Stone, and black music after Sly Stone.” Assailing both R&B and pop charts, Dance To The Music and the hits that followed -- including Everyday People, Stand!, Hot Fun In The Summertime, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), I Want To Take You Higher and If You Want Me To Stay -- were immortal consolidations of Sly’s…

From The Vaults New Albums Books/Movies Singles Lives The Kinks The Journey - Part 3 BMG 964143641 (2CD, 2LP) The opening power riff to You Really Got Me has always been a statement of intent. It kickstarted The Kinks’ lengthy spell as chart regulars in 1964, and 14 years later it also heralded the arrival of another enduring four-piece when it served as the debut hit for US rock titans Van Halen. It could be argued the latter cover version might never have come to fruition, were it not for an upturn in the former band’s fortunes in America. This third volume of highlights that began in 2023 to mark The Kinks’ 60th anniversary cherry-picks cuts from six albums released between 1977 and ’84, five of which returned the group…

Rewind – Johnny Rivers (Imperial LP9341, 12”, US, 1967) £20 Webb wrote seven songs for white R&B guitarist Rivers and arranged the album under producer Lou Adler’s direction. Contains the first recorded version of Do What You Gotta Do, later made famous by Nina Simone. Jim Webb Sings Jim Webb (CBS 63355, 12”, UK, 1968) £20 Denounced by Webb himself as a cash-in album assembled ‘by a bunch of ruffians from some old demos of mine and tarted up to sound like MacArthur Park’, this fails to break the 30-minute barrier but remains a collectable artefact. Sunshower – Thelma Houston (Dunhill DS-50054, 12”, US, 1969) £10 Debut album from future soul diva Houston, produced and – bar one track – written by Webb. Presages a similarly soulful project with the Supremes for Motown…

Alice Cooper The Revenge Of Alice Cooper EarMUSIC 4029759206798 (2LP/CD/DL/ltd edition box set: CD,7”, art print, t-shirt) It’s not uncommon for legendary bands from previous eras to reunite for lucrative tours but few return with a new album that sits easily next to past glories. Vividly helmed by original producer Bob Ezrin, the Alice Cooper band’s first full album since 1973’s Muscle Of Love swansong is a heavy-hitting tour de force from a band firing on all cylinders except for lead guitarist Glen Buxton, who passed away in 1997. What’s more, they have no immediate plans to tour. This was an album asking to happen after lifelong friends Alice, guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith played I’m Eighteen and School’s Out when inducted into 2011’s Rock…

Wet Leg Moisturizer Domino WIG530 D (CD, LP) Joes Exotic and Wicks. The Llandudno goats. Quizzing on Zoom. Normal People. Dill Danding. Banana bread. Jackie Weaver. Chaise Longue. When the cultural history of Britain during Covid is written, Wet Leg will surely sneak in there right at the end. Looking like Amish brides, serving an irresistible PiL-via-Sleaford Mods bassline and a vocal delivery more deadpan than a Tefal cemetery, they delivered Carry On Post-Punking levels of innuendo in their saucy hymn to reclining furniture, including that borrowed-from-Mean Girls line about buttering your muffin. It was the word-of-mouth, “Oh my god have you heard this?” musical moment of early 2021, and went viral just as the actual coronavirus, we were assured, was on the wane. The Isle Of Wight duo of…

Queens Of The Stone Age: Alive In The Catacombs Queens Of The Stone Age/Matador (Digital) Songs from the underground… Minimal volume and maximum drama are the keynotes of this short but sweet Queens performance movie, filmed among the tombs and bones of the Paris catacombs. Unamplified and unguarded, Josh Homme, his bandmates and a three-piece string section do some deep-cut spelunking for a set that’s meticulously moulded to the environment and the occasion, steeped in mood and metaphor. Of course, it’s hard to detach Alive… from an awareness of Josh Homme’s health struggles. The film was shot in July 2024, around the time QOTSA cancelled all remaining 2024 shows for the singer to receive “essential medical care”. Certainly, he cuts an imposing yet vulnerable figure – un-mic’d, pointy-bearded and sharp-boned,…

Emmie MacNevin backstage with guitarist Joey Santiago Tell us about the new The Night The Zombies Came. A lot was spontaneous. We just went into the studio and did everything on the spot. You returned to Guildford Sound, Vermont, to record. We love that it’s a residential studio. No interference, eco-friendly. We recorded in three weeks. The basics of three songs a day, drums and bass, then everyone together in the house. Dave (Lovering) had a tiny drum kit, and we had our acoustic guitars. We’d do arrangements, walk the woods, then the four of us jammed along. Once we got it, we’d get the perfect sounds later. How does studio album 10 compare to Doolittle, etc? With those albums, it was like Boston’s answer to CBGB. We used to play…

This month: This month: Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Billy Fury, Johnny Hallyday In 1955, at eight years of age, I went to my first gig with my Mum to see Guy Mitchell, Johnnie Ray, David Whitfield and Dickie Valentine. It was very exciting and started my love of live music. In 1962 I attended my first gig with school friends. It was the first tour of Little Richard in the UK. Also on the bill was Sam Cooke and they were both backed by the fabulous Sounds Incorporated. In the audience was my hero, Gene Vincent, and he was invited by the compere to sing on the stairs at the side of the stage, as his work permit had expired. Gene brought the house down with a charismatic Be-Bop-A-Lula. In…

At RC Towers, we look forward to new music emerging from U2, Slash, Rod Stewart, Muse, Soulfly, Bruce Springsteen, Miley Cyrus, Karnivool, Limahl, Korn, Evanescence, Norah Jones, The Jacksons, Apocalyptica, Def Leppard, Fake Names, Megadeth, Icon, The Ocean, Davey Lane, My Dying Bride, Nicky Minaj, KSI, Megan Moroney, Last In Line, Biohazard, ex-Destiny’s Child’s Michelle Williams, Lunatic Soul (on InsideOut), the late Paul Di’Anno (Conquest), ASIA (Frontiers), Mariah Carey (Gamma), Textures (InsideOut), The Dears (Next Door); a Tom Waits collection (Ace); WASP’s Blackie Lawless’ autobiography in 2026; a book by John Lydon; an exhibition of Debbie Harry’s Blondie clothing archive; and Supertramp live DVDs and reissue LPs. CELLULOID HEROES Projects due include Sam Raimi’s Send Help film, soundtracked by Danny Elfman, in cinemas, 30 January 2026; Judy Craymer’s ABBA Mamma Mia…

KEEP-FIT BRITFUNK VARIOUS ARTISTS Move To The Music! – Exercises and Aerobics From The Famous Ragdale Hall (Spearcrest Records FIT 1, LP, UK, 1984) £40 Wanna get fit and get funky? Wanna get down (and then get up again)? Then check out the Ragdale Hall aerobics album. After the success of Jane Fonda’s Workout Record (CBS 88581, 2LP, UK, £1.50) in 1981, there was a flood of similar records made by everyone from actors to sports personalities, all star-jumping on the dance-fitness bandwagon. One of the more obscure ones was made in 1984 for Ragdale Hall in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. A former manor home, it became a hotel and, later, a successful health and relaxation centre, which it still is today. Despite Ragdale’s classy reputation, the record has a slightly cheap…

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CORINNE DREWERY Swing Out Sister singer on their latest box set What film could the new collection soundtrack? Every song that we write is really a soundtrack to some time in our lives, and the title of the box set, Certain Shades Of Limelight, is a line from the classic film, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, that we’re constantly living in different takes throughout our lives. Is there anything still unissued? We have a cellar full of cassettes of demos, unfinished B-sides and unrelated songs. But there’s a reason that they’re in the cellar! Maybe one day we’ll relent and reconsider them. Have you done anything that fans may not know about? If you don’t know, I’m not telling! Where were you when you fi rst heard one of your songs on…

Skunk Anansie singer Deborah ‘Skin’ Dyer OBE, born in Brixton, London in 1967, was the first black British artist to headline Glastonbury in 1999. Skin once described her band’s dynamic music as ‘clit-rock’, but she can’t be confined to a single sound, as her two solo albums demonstrated in 2003 and again in 2006. With Skunk Anansie – Skin plus Martin ‘Ace’ Kent (guitar), Cass Lewis (bass) and Mark Richardson (drums) – she has released six albums, with a seventh, The Painful Truth, out now. Hello, Skin. How come it’s been nine years since you released an album? Five years ago, we started to build this album and then Covid hit, so that kind of derailed everything that we were doing, and then our manager retired. She’d been our manager since…

For Richard Sinclair, the road to 70s Canterbury-based avant jazz-rock-prog band, Hatfield And The North – and beyond – began while he was still at school. “My father was a singer and entertainer in Canterbury,” explains Sinclair from his home in Italy, “and that’s how I got called up to the Hopper boys, when I was 15 years old.” The boys in question were future Soft Machine members, Brian and Hugh Hopper. “Their parents went to see my father all the time,” says Sinclair, “because he was doing dinner dances in all the posh hotels. He’d just bought me a guitar, and he was talking to Mr and Mrs Hopper. They said, ‘Our boys are just beginning a band.’ The boys said, ‘Come and have a play with us.’” That…

“I- don’t feel nostalgic for the past,” insists Robert Forster, on video call from his hometown of Brisbane, “but it’s a lovely place to visit. I like going back and rummaging around.” And it is surely worth more than a cursory look. Forster was partly responsible for the sunlit shadowy sound of The Go-Betweens, the 80s band who formed in the late 70s and reunited after almost a decade apart in the 90s. The ‘rock’n’roll gentleman’, weaned on Fitzgerald and Isherwood paperbacks as well as Saints and Jonathan Richman records, admits: “I like the way my career has been broken up. It sort of reflects life. Things happen in a person’s life, and they affect musicians and bands more than people realise.” Many ‘things’ have happened in the life of Robert…

Like Sly Stone and George Michael after him, Brian Wilson kicked off his career writing party songs. Unadulterated fun. In Brian’s case it was by transcribing his brother Dennis’ love of going to the beach with a surfboard – if they’d grown up elsewhere the songs could have been about speedway, or fishing. There was no guarantee that this super-localised Californian sound would translate across America, let alone to Britain and Europe. And at first, it didn’t. Even though it was a No 6 hit in the US, Be True To Your School was so unrelatable to anyone in the UK (what kind of square loved school that much?) that EMI didn’t even bother releasing it. But a year later, I Get Around and its unique production – so full of…

“From the moment his music reached me in the early 70s, it became a part of my soul” QUESTLOVE, THE ROOTS “Rest In Beats SLY Stone … and we should THANK @ questlove of @theroots for keeping his FIRE blazing in this Century. 2 documentaries and book. GET EM” CHUCK D, PUBLIC ENEMY “I met Sly during his years as a DJ. I will miss him as I know everyone will. My condolences to his family.” DIONNE WARWICK “In 1968 I saw Sly & The Family Stone debut at the Fillmore East in New York City opening for Jimi Hendrix. They were a freight train of bombastic, joyous souI that would soon climb the charts and change the sound of R&B for so many other artists. Rest In Soul!” PAUL STANLEY, KISS “Sly Stone…

After 11 years in Thelonious Monk’s quartet, in 1970, tenor saxophonist CHARLIE ROUSE sought to resume his sorely neglected solo career. After recording Two Is One, a solitary album for Strata-East in 1973, four years later Rouse came into the orbit of producer Alan Douglas, who helmed Cinnamon Flower Resonance), a stylish amalgam of jazz and Brazilian music, which is now reissued in expanded form. Besides the released album version, which Douglas tarted up with copious layered overdubs to increase its commercial viability, the reissue offers a fresh perspective by presenting the previously unheard, unadorned studio takes, which reflect Rouse’s original conception. There’s also an unreleased bonus track, Meeting House. Featuring noted US stars Ron Carter and Bernard Purdie alongside ace Brazilian musicians Dom Salvador and Amaury Tristão, Cinnamon Flower…

Jimmy Webb A Life In Words And Music – The Reprise Seventies Box Set Cherry Red QCRCD 7 BOX198 (7CD) As 60s turned to 70s, Jimmy Webb had a problem most songwriters would kill for. His compositions had been million-sellers for artists such as Richard Harris (MacArthur Park), Glen Campbell (Wichita Lineman), the Fifth Dimension (the multiple Grammy-inning Up Up And Away) and other top names. More wanted in on the action and were beating a path to his door. Yet his wish to be recognised as the singer of his own songs was to be put under the harshest of all spotlights as the new decade began. This was the era of the singer-songwriter, with the likes of Carole King, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen all baring…

300% Dynamite! Soul Jazz SJRLP 543 One of the coolest comps returns 300% Dynamite! is a pleasure from start to finish. Originally released in 1999, it was the third in a series that reintroduced reggae and ska to late 90s hipsters. Out of print for years, its limited appearance at RSD 2024 sold out, warranting a full-scale return to racks. Remastered and recut, the music here is unbreakable – from the 80s dancehall of Wayne Smith’s Under Me Sleng Teng and Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam to the deeper roots of Pablo’s Viva Tirado and Bobby Ellis’s Shank I Sheck, every track is a glorious winner. Johnny Clarke’s Rebel Soldiering, Dee Sharp’s Dub It Up and the sun-kissed majesty of Althea and Donna’s Uptown Town Ranking never fail to delight. What…

Congratulations on Looking For The Perfect Beat. It’s enjoyable and quite long! Well, I’m quite old. There’s a lot to get in there. I’m still doing stuff so I didn’t end it 10 years ago, I ended it last week. Why did you stop producing bands? I was always a reluctant producer, and I wanted to make my own music. When I worked with New Order or Freeez or even the early stuff like Soulsonic Force, they were more collaborations than me producing a band. I like to get involved in the writing. My personality was never really suited to being a producer – I was probably better off sticking with remixes because you’re on your own. You can do your own thing. Bernard Sumner from New Order is the…

Darren Hayman And His Electric Guitars Nobody You’d Know Wiaiwya / WIA 025002 (Cass) Darren Hayman’s new song about loss punches gently at the gut. The prolific songwriter, painter and all-round indie icon sings of a fantastic person he knew. It wasn’t someone whose name you’d recognise. But you’d have probably got on well with them, had you ever met. Because they were just so great. During his heartfelt tribute, Hayman introduces some broader musings on grief. “The good still die,” he intones with a slow headshake at the injustice of it all. “The cruel survive/I don’t know why.” Is it time, by the way, to wish a belated happy 94th birthday to Rupert Murdoch? In the modest promo video, Hayman sings straight to the camera in closeup. The only…

This month: Harold Bronson When Rhino Records co-founder Harold Bronson compiled a 1980 Love best-of, he contacted the legendary folk-rock-psych group’s leader. “The first encounter with [Arthur Lee] over the phone was not that great, because one of the questions I asked him about was ‘Signed DC,’ which everybody knows relates to the drug problems that Don Conka, the original drummer, had. He’s jiving me,” says Bronson, still incredulous four decades on. “‘Oh yeah, DC, it’s about Washington, DC.’ We’re putting out this best-of album, we’re doing a great package, informative liner notes. And he’s jivin’ me!?” Never landing a big hit in their mid-60s heyday, by 1980 Love were forgotten or never even heard by many rock fans. One-time Love producer Paul Rothschild “said it’s not gonna sell, and…