Rock would be no fun without its underdogs. In the 1970s, Badfinger wrote skyscraping hits with the Beatles in their corner until the bottom line caved in from under them. Meanwhile, across three brilliant yet brutally underselling albums, Big Star’s bushy-tailed power-pop hardened into beautiful surrender. Where some saw that band’s downfall as a cautionary […]
Mighty as a dinosaur with the sensual power of a panther and colorful like a cartoon, Marc Bolan was inarguably one of rock n’ roll’s greatest wonders. Glam rock’s founding father danced and dazzled his way into the hearts of teenagers from London to Los Angeles to Tokyo. Even before that, he won the world […]
The last American-born creative renaissance occurred over the internet in glorified message boards thanks in part to the U.S. government’s narrow-mindedness. On January 16, 2007, DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon were arrested after the Morrow County Sheriff’s Joint Vice Task Force and the Clayton County Police raided their offices, confiscating 81,000 mixtape CDs in […]
Keyboardist Bob James has been sampled in hip-hop classics from Run-DMC’s “Beats to the Rhyme” to Eric B. and Rakim’s “Follow the Leader.” An agogô-bell breakbeat from one of his recordings has propelled tracks by N.W.A. and A$AP Rocky. No jazz artist has been sampled more than him. The term “godfather of hip-hop” has even […]
Kim Parker is spinning a yarn about her stepfather, Charlie Parker, when a hummingbird swings by to greet her. “It’s a beautiful thing to see them,” the jazz singer tells Discogs from her garden in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. One year, she says, Kim and her neighbor, Bud, who she describes as “a very interesting and […]
Some famous musicians’ children limp through public life both defined and limited by their last name. Not Justin Townes Earle. Get a load of all six-foot-six of him, bowtied and looming over the mic on The Late Show With David Letterman, vowing to die a watery death in the song “Harlem River Blues.” “I’ve been […]
The Doobie Brothers, like so many classic rock acts, are easy to take for granted. For the past 50 years, the band has always seemed to be there. They’re a mainstay of the summer concert schedule and should be on the road right now to celebrate their golden anniversary if not for the pandemic. Too, […]
One of my earliest memories of MTV was seeing Joe Lynn Turner fronting Rainbow for the video of “Stone Cold.” Clad in a leather jacket, sporting a dark mane, and staring down the camera with confidence, he sang an atmospheric ballad of faded love and disillusionment while masked women circled him in front of a […]
Since its inception in the 1970s, hip-hop has consistently displayed a certain level of homophobia. Whether looking at the lyrics of the seminal tune “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (in which two F-bombs are dropped) or tracks by Eminem such as “Criminal” (“A homosex, hermaph, or a trans-a-vest / Pants or […]
The creative process differs wildly. For some, it’s a caffeine-fueled routine. For others, it’s a substance-sustained free ride. For Leon Michels, it can vary from project to project. The co-owner of The Diamond Mine and namesake of El Michels Affair (which dropped a new album this year) boasts many producing recording credits with the likes of […]
