Both John Lennon and George Harrison belonged to a musical generation that shared a near-universal teen soundtrack, centred on rock ‘n’ roll’s seismic lightning bolt from across the Atlantic. There was wiggle room, sure. Eric Clapton was more tethered to the old blues tradition, while Graham Bond was fundamentally shaped by jazz’s fluid rhythms, but […]
Continue Reading
Everyone knows by now that awards shows don’t match up with true success or true cultural impact. Some of the best artists in history, the best albums ever put to tape, or even the best films ever made, have gone without trophies as award bodies, like the Grammys, shun icons or only realise their worth […]
Continue Reading
By the end of his time with The Beatles, George Harrison had started to grow restless. The official story pins the songwriter as one of the hit-making machine’s most frustrated cogs. While Paul McCartney and John Lennon continued to dominate the Liverpudlian group’s recording sessions, Harrison grew increasingly disillusioned with his place in the band. […]
Continue Reading
Robert Plant joined Led Zeppelin just as they sprang from the ashes of The Yardbirds. The 20-year-old singer had been the frontman of his West Bromwich-based group Band of Joy when he was approached by guitarist Jimmy Page, who was in search of a new vocalist for his new incarnation of The Yardbirds. As Plant […]
Continue Reading
When approaching the conversation of the ‘Fifth Beatle’, there isn’t a soul on Earth who did more for the Fab Four than George Martin. He might have been one of the single most unassuming geniuses of his time, but his subtle touches on all their material are what brought them from being a fairly decent […]
Continue Reading
A decade into Led Zeppelin’s existence, they could still make a rational argument for being the biggest rock ‘n’ roll band on earth, but the days of appearing cutting edge or ‘dangerous’ were long gone, as the louder voices in the emerging punk scene had reframed them as unhip dad rock, or yesterday’s news. Jimmy […]
Continue Reading
It’s impossible to think of The Beatles without Ringo Starr leading the charge behind the drum kit. There might be no end to the amount of jokes being made at his expense for not being the most important member of the group, but if you were to take his drum parts out of all their […]
Continue Reading
We can all picture it, the glorious moustaches proudly stradling the top lips of The Beatles on the cover for their iconic album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. As it happens, the band were so enamoured with their hairy lips that they even included cardboard cut-outs of their newly spouted muff-dusters with copies the […]
Continue Reading
In a career that lasted virtually up until the moment Ozzy Osbourne took his last breath, Black Sabbath were blessed to have shared the stage with a wide variety of acts over the course of 55 years together. Of course, not all of these moments were spent as the same unit that they started and […]
Continue Reading
Every songwriter wants to write something that will last longer than they do. Even though music may come and go across generations, the power of a song can be strong enough to transcend any of the trends it fell prey to, often becoming classics without really trying. Although John Lennon already had a firm library […]
Continue Reading