The Blue Note legend is not based on distinctive artwork alone. Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, the company’s founders, cared enough about quality to pay for rehearsal time as well as putting the musicians in a good studio with a fine engineer. Yes, they presented the results in an attractive package with a coherent label identity. But they also paid scrupulous attention to what they included on their monthly schedule. Albums were selected for release according to how they would benefit the artists’ careers as well as the company. They also recorded more than the label could release, which...
Philadelphia isn’t a place generally spoken of with the same reverence as those other, more mythologised centres of American rock’n’roll – a Seattle, say, a Detroit or a New York City. All the same, for the last decade or so the city has kept hitting home runs. From hometown heroes The War On Drugs, Kurt Vile and Steve Gunn to a rich punk rock demimonde that includes Sheer Mag, Swearin’ and other paragons of the DIY sound, recent times have seen Philly kicking out the jams with the best of them. But if Philadelphia lacks the hype afforded to...
It was still only 1984 when, on The Waterboys’ second album A Pagan Place, Mike Scott revealed “The Thrill Is Gone”, a mournful eulogy to the growing realisation that a relationship has run its course. It’s a line that’s at times haunted both him and his audience: Scott’s pursued a dedicated but haphazard path, trying copious genres on for size, and sometimes – not least around 1993’s Dream Harder, which led to the group’s original dissolution – he’s lost his way. Since reanimating the Waterboys name in 2000, however, and especially over the last decade, his openness to his...
The new issue of Uncut – in shops now and available to order online by clicking here – includes a brand-new interview with the redoubtable Patti Smith. She’s poised to release Peradam, the third instalment of her collaborative trilogy with Soundwalk Collective, based on René Daumal’s 1940s metaphysical-quest novel, Mount Analogue. But she also takes April Long back to the beginning of her extraordinary career, and hints at what’s next… When you look back at yourself, at the beginning of your career, what do you see? Well, I was young and inexperienced. I didn’t even know how to use...
Then just 20 years old and working in a London coffee bar, Shirley Collins first appeared on record on the 1955 compilation Folk Song Today. She was a newcomer alongside such veterans as Bob Copper and Jeannie Robertson, accompanying herself on an autoharp for her take on “Dabbling In The Dew”. In a neat reminder of her dogged commitment to the traditional songs of England, especially of her home county Sussex, she revisits the song here, on her new album, 65 years later. Heart’s Ease is only the second Collins record since 1978’s For As Many As Will, after...
If you’d been one of the 200,000 lucky attendees of 1970’s Goose Lake International Music Festival in Michigan’s Leoni Township, you’d have caught some truly stellar acts. Joe Cocker, Jethro Tull and Faces represented the bluesy, progressive and British side of things. Alice Cooper, the Flying Burrito Brothers and James Gang offered a winning sampling of the United States’ very eclectic early-1970s rock scene. But as good as all of the festival’s big-name groups likely were, the odds are strong that the Goose Lake set that attendees were probably talking about in the weeks, months and years to come...
CLICK HERE TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, Gillian Welch, Peter Green, Black Sabbath, Richard & Linda Thompson, Bright Eyes, Bill Callahan, The Cramps and Sun Ra all feature in the new Uncut, dated October 2020 and in UK shops from August 13 or available to buy online now. As always, the issue comes with a free CD – this time comprising 15 tracks of the best new music that Drag City has to offer. THE ROLLING STONES: In brand new interviews, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and more talk Goats Head Soup! They recall heading to...
Here at Uncut, we write a lot about transformative events in a band or an artist’s career. Those critical moments where a creative leap takes place, or when an adverse situation is overcome or how a new collaborator brings fresh and revelatory perspectives. CLICK HERE TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR I’m pleased to report that you’ll find all of these covered in this month’s issue of Uncut. For our cover story, Mick and Keith (plus assorted eyewitnesses) whisk us back to Jamaica in late 1972 – a time when the Rolling Stones found themselves...
As you’ll read in our deluxe, fully-updated Ultimate Music Guide, in his lifetime Prince was an artist whose creativity ran to films, gruelling concert tours, productions and compositions for other artists, as well as the trifling matter of his own 30 plus studio albums. His was a journey which found him exploring different musical combinations, pushing erotic boundaries – all of which he maintained while in the full glare of celebrity’s beam. Prince’s was a singular vision and a vast creativity. His outpouring of ideas was difficult to completely accommodate in traditional releases at the peak of his fame...
With a new, expanded Sign O’ The Times incoming we present the deluxe, remastered Ultimate Music Guide to a musical revolutionary. From Prince’s first recordings to his superstar years and the Vault recordings beyond. In-depth reviews of every album. Archive interviews, rediscovered. A pop life, in full. Click here to buy Advertisement
