Tag Archives: Classic Rock and Oldies

I’m in the mood to make unqualified blanket statements today because I can. So here’s one: Abbey Road is the best Beatles studio album – not Sgt Peppers, not Revolver, or whatflippingever. Abbey Road, from 1969, was the last album the Beatles recorded together (Let It Be, recorded earlier, was …

1989 was a pivotal year for me: I had been DJing for a living for about six years and the lifestyle was killing my marriage, spirit and body – at 31 I felt and looked very old and worn out. I had come to question whether rock ‘n’ roll – …

I heard Gene Vincent’s 1956 coiled rockabilly great “Be Bop A Lula” on the radio this morning. It reminded me of something … December, 1989 – A woman came up to me while I was DJing at a Christmas party and asked me to work her upcoming 50th birthday party. …

Rolling Stone picks the 100 greatest guitarists of all time in the new issue coming out Friday: Late rock musicians Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman lead the list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Hendrix, who invariably tops such polls, …

Animal House - a great film with an equally impressive soundtrack. BC Founder Eric Olsen details the songs.

We’ve had a lot of talk lately on Blogcritics about Elvis Presley, the founding of rock ‘n’ roll, and title to the throne. There was a two-year period between 1955 and 1957 when NO ONE made rock ‘n’ roll like Little Richard. In the spring of 1955 Bumps Blackwell was …

Sometimes Age just jumps right up and kicks me in the jimmies, although most of the time I don’t think about it. Driving around the mountains of North Carolina a couple of weeks ago listening to the eccentric classic rock of The Ride gave me plenty of time to torture …

I am not the prog-rock fan that some are – I see a fair amount of it as masturbatory noodling in search of an idea, but when it’s on, it’s majestic. For me the peak of prog-rock was a sequence of three Yes albums in the early ’70s. Since Yes …

If Norah Jones (who is also on Blue Note) is a jazz singer, so is Van Morrison. From a press release: Van Morrison has signed a worldwide deal with EMI Music’s legendary Blue Note label, which will give one of music’s most creative figures a home at the prestigious jazz …

With the Stones running around conquering the world 40 years after their first tour, I thought it might be interesting to look back at the formative years when things were still fluid and an institution they were not. I talked to the Stones’ original manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, …