In 1976 I interviewed Sylvia Robinson at All-Platinum Records’ New York headquarters. I was preparing a documentary for Radio 1 on Women In Rock – which Marianne Faithful would narrate with her leg in plaster from an unexplained fall and … Continue reading
The Who weren’t mods, they were groomed to look that way by Peter Meaden, a pill-popping publicist with so many ideas in his unnaturally active mind that he couldn’t always spot the right one. The mod image was a sound … Continue reading
Thirty-six years ago, I polled contributors to and friends of Let It Rock, the monthly magazine I edited: what, I wanted to know, were their highs and lows of 1973? Voter turn-out was impressive. While I can’t explain the no-show … Continue reading
The first public appearance of what would one day be touted as “the greatest rock and roll band in the world” was hardly headline news, claiming no more than a couple of column inches on an inside page of the … Continue reading
By 1963 everyone I knew had a TV. Two black-and-white channels: the one that was on and “the other side”. So when the Rolling Stones appeared on Thank Your Lucky Stars at teatime on Saturday 7th July, miming to their … Continue reading
Alexis Korner’s Parisian birthplace, Austro-Greek parentage, noble features and languid growl endowed him with an aura of exoticism unreflected in his musical partner Cyril ‘Squirrel’ Davies, a balding, ex-banjo-playing panel beater from Denham with a villainous streak, who could nevertheless … Continue reading
One warm spring Friday night in 1964, cooling off between sets outside the Ricky Tick club in Windsor, I share a match flame with a sharp-suited mod whose jaw works in perfect time with the record wafting from the upstairs … Continue reading
It may well have been his ‘Song Of A Baker’ on the Small Faces’ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake that first had me believing that Ronnie Lane was wise beyond his years. The opening line caught my attention. “There’s wheat in … Continue reading
It’s Thursday, 6th July 1972. The Guardian lies on the doormat, its front page torn, as usual. I’ve questioned the paperboy. He says the slot’s too narrow, but the flap has a fierce spring, and I reckon he’s frightened of … Continue reading
I am nine years old, watching Don’t Knock The Rock in High Wycombe’s Rex cinema, when I make a connection between music and the way the person playing it looks. Even at that age I identify something not-quite-right about Bill … Continue reading
The first time I hear Cyril Davies blow his harmonica is January 1963 at Leo’s Jazz Club in Windsor. As I approach, shoulders hunched against the cold, I watch billows of cigarette smoke, lit pink and yellow by the lights … Continue reading
