rock rewind
Not Forgotten: Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bayou Country
American rock music was in an interesting place in the late 60s, with the psychedelic sounds of the West Coast jam bands, a burgeoning singer-songwriter movement, arty outsider rock courtesy of the likes of The Velvet Underground and The Silver Apples, as well as a roots rock movement that had been spearheaded by The Band. …
Not Forgotten: Randy Newman – The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1
Listening to The Randy Newman Songbook Vol.1, there’s probably a case to be made for him being one of the all time great American songwriters. It’s always been something of a mystery to me just why Randy Newman rarely receives the appropriate praise for his not insignificant contributions to popular song. Granted he is primarily …
Classic Compilation: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Anthology: Through the Years
Tom Petty – a Dylan disciple, a Byrds with harder-wearing tunes, a Bruce Springsteen for the rest of us. Few artists have defined approachable Middle-American rock and roll radio quite like Petty and his loyal band, and no one has made such a consistently good job of it for as long as he did. Anthology: …
Not Forgotten: The Zombies – Odessey and Oracle
Odessey and Oracle is one of those albums whose reputation seems to continue to expand with each passing year. The Zombies had enjoyed a number of chart hits through the mid 60s, but their first album hadn’t shifted many units. By 1967 they had switched record labels and headed into the studio to record an …
Not Forgotten: Tom Petty – Wildflowers
For his second ‘solo’ album Tom Petty did the smart thing and recruited Rick Rubin as the producer. Rubin’s organic and raw production methods were in sharp contrast to the synthetic and processed sounds that Petty’s albums (both solo, and with his celebrated backing band, The Heartbreakers) had suffered from since the lack-luster Southern Accents. …
Not Forgotten: Harry Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson was something of an anomaly in the music industry. He was undeniably a top-draw songwriter, however the majority of his best known hit singles were covers. He never performed live, yet such was his reputation as a hell-raiser and general mischief maker, it has subsequently clouded the fact that he was a genuinely …
Not Forgotten: T.Rex – Electric Warrior
The gap between being a ‘serious’ album act and being a ‘disposable’ pop act was still relatively wide back in the early 70s. The more album-orientated acts had a couple of hit singles at most (if indeed they even released singles), whereas the acts that appeared on Top of the pops had hit albums, but …
Not Forgotten: Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Brain Salad Surgery
‘Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends’ How’s that for a killer opening line? Read it again. It’s brilliant. It’s irresistable, pulling you in, promising a life-affirming musical experience and ramps up the anticipation for what can only be one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Except that it doesn’t …
Not Forgotten: David Byrne – Feelings
In retrospect Feelings is probably the last time that David Byrne made a conscious effort to make an album that might sell to an audience beyond his most obsessed fans. Where his previous self titled album had been a mature mix of material with a very definite adult feel about it, Feelings was partly a …
Not Forgotten: Thea Gilmore – Avalanche
It can’t be easy being Thea Gilmore. Widely hailed as one of the best songwriters of her generation, yet receiving almost no radio play and little media coverage. She’s been releasing high quality music now for the last eight years or so, but registers negligible sales. She displays traditional singer-songwriter strengths, but she doesn’t fall …