Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i Classic Rock

WELCOME Sometimes, things happen that you can’t control. Sometimes, things happen that no one can control. And with the Covid-19 pandemic running rampant, that’s the situation the entire world finds itself in at the moment. We began to notice the ramifications as we finished up the last issue, but it’s been a mind-blowing few weeks of adjustment, and I’m proud to be able to bring you your latest issue of Classic Rock. It’s the first time we’ve put together an issue completely remotely from the ‘comfort’ of sofas, makeshift desks and precariously balanced laptops, aided and abetted by Team CR’s feline assistants. Understandably, we’ve had quite a few queries as to how the current crisis might affect us. As it stands right now, it’s business as usual. One thing you…

Bill Rieflin September 29, 1960 – March 24, 2020 BILL RIEFLIN: ALAMY; GETTY x2 BILL RIEFLIN WAS among the most versatile drummers of his generation, having played with a wide range of artists including King Crimson, R.E.M., Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Swans, Revolting Cocks, Pigface and KMFDM. News of the death of the 59-year-old was confirmed by Crimson leader Robert Fripp, who wrote: “A call from Tracy Rieflin in Seattle. Bill Rieflin flew from this world c. 18.50 Pacific, 18.50 UK. Tracy told Toyah and me that the day was grey, and as Bill flew away the clouds opened, and the skies were blue for about fifteen minutes. Fly well, Brother Bill! My life is immeasurably richer for knowing you.” Born in Seattle, where he lived his entire life, Rieflin…

CANAMII Concept, WEA International, South Africa, 1980. £600. Concept is a strange album. Opening with layers of cosmic synths, Afrock has the vibe of an obscure late-70s Italian zombie movie soundtrack. That’s followed by Phantom Players, which introduces the haunting folky narrative of vocalist Claire Whittaker. From here on it’s a progressive journey into a sci-fi world of intriguing sounds and top-drawer musicianship, albeit spectacularly kitsch in its ambition. Canamii was essentially a studio project, inspired in part by the conceptual works of the Alan Parsons Project, and featured a revolving cast of top studio musicians and engineers; keyboard player Phillip Nel was chief engineer at EMI studios in Johannesburg, and Whittaker worked there as a mastering engineer. They all worked intensely on the project and were given free rein…

⋆CLASSIC⋆ ROCK PRESENTS BOOM! HOW THE BOOM! BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK BOOM! AGAIN BOOM! The blues: it’s the story of rock’n’roll’s past, but also its present… and its future. Over the coming pages we take you back in time to the barrel houses and gin mills of America to meet some of its fearsome originators. Next it’s the blues explosion that followed them, and birthed classic rock as we know it. Finally we draw your attention to some of the present day’s most incendiary bands and artists who are discovering that the blues is the most exciting place to be. Words: Marcel Anders, Geoff Barton, Joe Bosso, Mark Blake, Max Bell, Jamie Dickson, Paul Elliott, Polly Glass, Hugh Fielder, Siân Llewellyn, Joel McIver, Ed Mitchell, Tony Russell, Johnny…

SKIP JAMES GETTY x4 Had it not been for unfortunate timing – his first recordings were released just as the Great Depression hit – the singer/guitarist and early pioneer of open-D-minor guitar tuning (resulting in the deep, haunting quality that characterises much of his music) might have become known much sooner. As it was, he remained under the radar until the 60s when his music, along with that of fellow delta trailblazer Son House, was unearthed by enthusiasts, arguably kick-starting the decade’s blues revival. Over time James has become a popular name to drop in blues and rock circles. Killer Track: Devil Got My Woman…

HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN GOING BACK HOME Perpetually obscured by the shadow of BB King’s groundbreaking colossus Completely Well, his follow-up album Indianola Mississippi Seeds is the forgotten masterpiece that is due its time in the sun. Words: Ed Mitchell GETTY 1970 was BB King’s year. As his 1969 studio album Completely Well continued to gain momentum, groundbreaking single The Thrill Is Gone made the top three on the Billboard Best Selling Soul Singles chart and No.5 on the Billboard Top 100. A reworking of the 1951 Roy Hawkins hit, its brooding arrangement helped King win that year’s Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. King’s The Thrill Is Gone is notable for its orchestral strings, a wash of ear candy that was commonplace…

BOOM! HOW THE BOOM! BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK BOOM! THE QUIET ONES The mavericks, the overlooked gems, the odd ones out… It’s about time some of them got the recognition they deserve. GETTY It’s easy to think of the blues (or any music genre, for that matter) in terms of a handful of key artists. Even if you’re a blues fan, chances are it’s the big fish like Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Eric Clapton and Joe Bonamassa that readily spring to mind, right? And justifiably so; these guys are big names for a reason. But they aren’t the only names that matter. The blues is way more layered and interesting than that. We decided to look at some of the artists you won’t typically find in blues-orientated coverage.…

ON THE JUKEBOX 10 essential recordings from the pub rock era. Music Every Night–Bees Make Honey This amiable shuffle, like the Brinsleys’ Country Girl, evokes the warm atmosphere and bonhomie of pub rock’s early days. Rough Kids – Kilburn And The High Roads “Oi, Ian, what’s going on over there?”… “I dunno, I think there’s a bit of trouble… ‘Rough kids, play rough games and kick tin cans… They leave their feet out in the aisle!’ Desert Island Woman – Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers Phil Lithman’s take on the American West Coast sound features an extended guitar solo from Martin Stone, and great drumming from future Attraction Pete Thomas. Coast To Coast – Ducks Deluxe A clip of the live performance is often seen on pub-to-punk TV…

SEVEN NATION ARMY THE CURRENT GENERATIONS SMOKE ON THE WATER? How Jack White’s “little experiment” went through the roof. GETTY The last big year for rock super-hits, i.e. the kind that still mean something to non-music fans, was arguably 2003. There was The Darkness’s I Believe In A Thing Called Love, Foo Fighters’ Times Likes These and Evanescence’s Bring Me To Life, among others. But none of them took hold as fiercely, and certainly none of them have remained as ingrained in the global subconscious, as The White Stripes’ bare-bones blues earworm Seven Nation Army. It might not have reached as many No.1 chart spots as other rock songs that year, but its cultural impact has resonated powerfully ever since. To all intents and purposes it’s the young generation’s Smoke…

ROYAL BLOOD The Brighton duo whose dirty, bluesy brand of rock’n’roll went stratospheric. New rock groups aren’t supposed to blow up. Not seriously, in this day and age, with the final guitar wave of the early 00s swiftly becoming a distant memory. But Royal Blood did. Within a year of their formation they’d become the coolest band in Britain. When asked to pinpoint the moment when the duo’s sudden ascent to the public eye began, frontman/bassist Mike Kerr says, with evident disbelief: “As soon as our first record came out it went mental.”. Formed by Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher in Brighton in 2013, Royal Blood released their self-titled debut album in 2014. The rock world reacted with huge enthusiasm for their combination of catchy choruses, Led Zeppelin-style riffs and…

ERIC GALES As a teen blues prodigy he appeared to have the world at his feet. Then he lost over two decades to drugs. Now back in the game, and revered by just about every ‘serious guitarist’, Eric Gales has been enjoying something of a renaissance. He’s relatively classic-sounding but very versatile, comfortable improvising lush, clean chordal passages or delivering blistering solos that bring to mind players like Eric Johnson, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Hendrix. Killer Track: Whatcha’ Gon’ Do…

HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN GONE FISHIN' HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN Words: Damon Orion JESSE WILD Kansas City-born blues rocker Samantha Fish is a bit of an internet sensation these days. A few videos of her live performances – in particular a soulful rendition of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s I Put A Spell On You and a hellacious version of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs – have blown up on Facebook, sending an army of new fans flying in her direction. “It’s amazing,” the singer/guitarist says of the online attention she’s been getting. “It’s been interesting to see how one weird cell-phone camera video from four years ago that isn’t even on my radar can somehow get somebody’s attention and circulate the internet.”…

REVIEWS ALBUMS High Priestess Casting The Circle RIPPLE Just like witches at black masses. The overwhelming impulse for most adventurous metal musicians is to go further out into the extremities, to play faster, heavier, wilder, to put animal heads on pikes or drown the audience in blood. LA doom power trio High Priestess take a different approach, pulling all their energy inward, creating an intimate, meditative and devotional experience, while still delivering the expected tri-tones and walloping slabs of fuzz. Casting The Circle sounds like the kind of thing you might stumble into midway through The Devil’s Rain. It’s so cult-y it might be impenetrable to the casual listener, but Mariana Fiel’s mournful chanting and Katie Gilchrest’s funereal organ and droning psychedelic guitar flourishes are so hypnotic it’s practically impossible…

REVIEWS BEST OF THE REST Other new releases out this month. Boston Manor Glue PURE NOISE Aiming for hitherto uncharted peaks of intensity, the Blackpool pop-punk five-piece have road-toughened beyond their identi-Emo origins to attain a formidably muscular grunge-tinged melodic fury. 8/10 The Reverend Shawn Amos & The Brotherhood Blue Sky PUT TOGETHER MUSIC Originating at the bluesier end of Americana, LA’s Reverend Shawn (a formidably soulful harp-toting vocalist) infuses a classy traditionalism with sharp R&B modes and full-tilt rock. 8/10 The White Buffalo On The Widow’s Walk SNAKEFARM An assured collection from Jake Smith. Shooter Jennings’s production perfectly spotlights the rare stylistic strength in Smith’s vocal while accentuating the weighty emotive maturity in his material. 8/10 Gaye Bykers On Acid Sodium Sun/Back On Track EP LIQUID GURU After 30…

REISSUES Sepultura Beneath The Remains: Deluxe Edition RHINO A thrash classic rides again. For so many metal fans, Beneath The Remains was the last great thrash record of the 80s. For some, no doubt, this 1989 album came to feel like the last great thrash record, full stop. To all but the most dedicated underground metal watchers, the Brazilians’ surgically precise brand of intense speed seemed to come out of nowhere, despite being their third album. The quartet combined a cleanly heavy twin-guitar attack with a dash of death metal’s earthy brutality and truckloads of restless energy. Highlights like the title track, Inner Self and Mass Hypnosis all sound brilliantly like a band determined to impress the hell out of everyone with their first album for Roadrunner Records, without sacrificing…

REVIEWS Neil Innes How Sweet To Be An Idiot CHERRY RED Bonzo Dog lynchpin, Rutles mastermind and honorary Python’s life in music. One of the saddest losses of the early part of 2020, Neil Innes remains an undercelebrated talent. The melodic genius behind the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, who gave them their hit (I’m The Urban Spaceman) as well as balancing Vivian Stanshall’s wild flights, Innes also gave audio flesh to Eric Idle’s Rutles, as well as being an essential extra Python and recording with the ramshackle GRIMMS. He had a long and extraordinary career, as befits someone with links to both the Pythons and The Beatles (he is the only person to appear in both Magical Mystery Tour and Monty Python And The Holy Grail). The secret to…

Pop Crimes: The Songs Of Rowland S Howard London Royal Festival Hall Colleagues and acolytes celebrate the late cult guitarist. It’s likely that the collective gasp when Nick Cave makes his surprise entrance on stage can be heard next door in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. But should it really be that astonishing that he’s here, when it’s the late Rowland S Howard – his former guitarist from The Birthday Party – who is being honoured tonight? And seated by a piano, he goes back over 40 years to revisit Howard’s signature song, Shivers. Whereas Cave elects to take the solo approach, erstwhile Bad Seed Mick Harvey has gathered an all-star cast from across Howard’s musical ventures to pay tribute to the late musician. For the first half of the show,…

REVIEWS Testament / Exodus / Death Angel London Kentish Town O2 Forum ‘For Exodus fans there’s something special about this tour.’ KEVIN NIXON Bay Area thrash loudly celebrates its longevity. Four decades after the Bay Area thrash scene was born with a glorious Big Bang of local demo tapes and violent club shows, it’s wonderful to see three veteran bands join forces to set stages afire. This bill is pretty much every thrash fan’s dream. Even more pleasingly, if this titanic triple bill had been scheduled just one week later, it almost certainly wouldn’t have happened, thanks to the COVID-19 onslaught. Little does this sold-out audience know that this might well be the last gig they see until much later in 2020. On a happier note, it’s a stormer. When…

The Soundtrack Of My Life Drive-By Trucker and more Jason Isbell on the special records, artists and gigs that are of lasting significance to him. Interview: Polly Glass “Otis Redding’s These Arms Of Mine is about as good as singing ever got.” Fame Studios songwriter, Drive-By Trucker, Grammy-winning solo artist… All this, plus a lifetime of personal highs and lows, has seen Jason Isbell become one of the most captivating voices in contemporary roots music. His seventh album, Reunions, sustains this upward trajectory through masterful country-come-heartland sensibilities and searingly relatable lyrics. The 41-year-old, now based in Nashville with his wife (singer-songwriter/fiddle player Amanda Shires) and daughter, reflects on some of his treasured records. THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING My dad listened to arena rock and classic country music, and…

This month’s contributors NICK HASTED Nick enjoyed retracing his steps while researching his biography, Jack White: How He Built An Empire From The Blues, for this issue’s feature on the former White Stripe’s blues roots (p66). Long-time CR writer Nick’s favourite research perch remains a bar stool after midnight at Jack’s former Detroit local the Lager House. DAVID McCLISTER Top Nashville-based photographer David has captured some of music’s biggest names (Eric Clapton, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris…) as well as rock’n’roll’s most exciting 21st-century faces. Focusing on the latter this month, we sent him just down the road to shoot rising blues rock stars Larkin Poe (p78). Check out more of his work at www.davidmcclister.com STEVE MITCHELL Designer and illustrator Steve is responsible for the spectacular typography on this…

the DiRT RIP Thank you and good night. Alan Merrill February 19, 1951 – March 29, 2020 Joan Jett has expressed “deep gratitude and sadness” following the death of the New Yorker who wrote I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll, the song that became the biggest hit for both of them. During the mid-70s Merrill was a member of The Arrows, who first recorded the song. Jett’s remake topped the US singles chart for seven weeks in 1982. Merill, 69, died after contracting Covid-19. Julie Felix June 14, 1938 – March 22, 2020 Once described by the Times as “Britain’s first lady of folk”, Julie Felix was born in Santa Barbara, California. She arrived in the UK in 1964, and within 12 months she filled the Royal Albert Hall and hosted…

Genesis P-Orridge February 22, 1950 – March 14, 2020 THROBBING GRISTLE AND Psychic TV founder Genesis P-Orridge has died at the age of 70. The musician, poet, artist, occultist and gender-nonconformist was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2017. Born Neil Andrew Megson in Manchester, s/he adopted the name Genesis P-Orridge after joining a counter-culture commune in London, and gained notoriety after founding the COUM Transmissions performance art collective with Cosey Fanni Tutti, becoming famous for performances that embraced prostitution, pornography, occultism and serial killers. The pair even appeared together on the cover of UFO’s 1975 album Force It. That same year, P-Orridge and Tutti founded Throbbing Gristle. They described their style as “DeathRock music”, before settling upon “Industrial Music for Industrial People,” and were a huge influence on artists such as…

WELCOME BACK The Lickerish Quartet Three former Jellyfish men return with a new band and album, a sting being that there's no Andy Sturmer. BOB DYLAN: GETTY; RICK WAKEMAN: KEVIN NIXON; THE LICKERISH QUARTET: JAYGILBERT IT’S BEEN MORE than two decades since Jellyfish crashed and burned in a fireball of Day-Glo pop and recrimination. Two studio albums, some dazzling live shows and they were gone, exiting stage left in loon pants and hats that Dr Seuss might have dreamed up. Happily, three former members – Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Tim Smith and Eric Dover – have reunited as The Lickerish Quartet, and with their Threesome Vol.1 EP have recreated the psychedelic pop and bang – sublime and heady, like early Queen and Bowie jamming in your garage – that made…

Q&A Gavin Rossdale The Bush frontman on the paparazzi, fighting Keanu Reeves, and getting angry on new album The Kingdom. Words: Grant Moon It’s the day that the US travel ban kicks in, and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale has just got back to his LA home from his native London. It’s a trip he’s done countless times over the past three decades. A bona fide star, especially in the US, Rossdale’s legacy includes a slew of multi-platinum albums, stints as a judge on TV talent show The Voice, film acting credits, and a tabloid-dream ‘showbiz’ marriage to (and recent divorce from) No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani. Bush’s latest album, The Kingdom, sees the band on heavy, defiant form. You’ve said that all roads have led Bush to The Kingdom. Yes. We…

BOOM! HOW THE BOOM! BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK BOOM! AGAIN BOOM! IN THE BEGINNING Over the next few pages we look back on the music that initiated rock’n’roll, and the people who really birthed the rock star persona. GETTY Robert Johnson, Son House, Lead Belly, Memphis Minnie, Charley Patton, John Lee Hooker (pictured), Howlin’ Wolf… History has a way of deifying names such as these, ensuring that they’re spoken about in awed, reverent tones because of their innovative musical inspiration. In one respect this reverence is completely justified. These musicians and others are the founders of rock’n’roll, and of popular music as a whole. Without them there would be no Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin, Rival Sons and so many more. Except the full picture is a little gnarlier…

BOOM! HOW THE BOOM! BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK BOOM! THE BLUES ROCK BOOM After the Delta bluesers gave us the roots of rock, new generations took the blues and with it turned the nascent popular music scene on its head. ‘The blues had a baby,’ goes the old Muddy Waters line, ‘and they named it rock’n’roll.’ By the early 60s, though, the family tree had started to get incestuous, as the scratchy, haunting Delta porch songs of yore were hijacked on both sides of the Atlantic by a new strain of blues that applied speed, attitude, volume and chest hair. Blues had met rock. And it was the start of a beautiful relationship. Conventional wisdom tells us that blues rock peaked in the mid-to-late 60s. And it’s a…

HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN RORY GALLAGHER Highly regarded by his peers, the Irish guitarist personified the grass-roots musicianship of blues rock. GETTY If ever a man let the music do the talking, it was Rory Gallagher. On stage he wore the same old shirts and denims that he’d wear to the pub. His favourite guitar, a battered 1961 Stratocaster, looked like something he’d picked up from a flea market, its sunburst finish erased by all the sweat and wear and tear. To Rory, what mattered was not how you looked but how you played. And Rory Gallagher was simply one of the greatest guitar players that ever lived. He was so good that the Rolling Stones offered him a job in 1975, before Ronnie Wood…

BOOM! HOW THE BOOM! BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK BOOM! OLD BLUES, NEW TRICKS Who says the blues is an old man’s game? As the scorching mix of artists over the next few pages shows, age just doesn’t come into it. LYLE OWERKO/PRESS New blues gets a bad rap, often accused of being bland or overly polished. But in a world that’s moved on in so many ways – and where a gazillion clips of YouTube ‘guitar heroes’ having glossy stabs at They Call It Stormy Monday are never more than a click away – such flak is sometimes justified. Certainly the most slavishly purist end of the blues can feel pretty uninspiring. But to assume that’s all there is to it would be a great shame, because really…

HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN FANTASTIC NEGRITO The Grammy-winning maverick cheated death and became one of the blues’ biggest innovators. DEANDRE FORKS/PRESS In the run-up to his latest album, 2018’s game-changing Please Don’t Be Dead, Fantastic Negrito had a Chuck Berry moment. He wanted to write a song with the same irresistible impact of Berry’s indomitable classic Johnny B. Goode, and came up with Plastic Hamburgers. Ostensibly the two songs are very different – the latter fuses plantation-era Mississippi and cutting-edge Oakland in a way that would have been unavailable to Berry – but they do have one thing in common, something central to all the most enduring, irresistible treasures of rock’n’roll. “[Colleagues] kept challenging me: ‘What do you really wanna do?’ I went: ‘Well, I…

⋆CLASSIC⋆ ROCK ON THIS MONTH’S DIGITAL ALBUM… LOCKDOWN BLUES Need a cool soundtrack for self-isolation times? We’ve teamed up with the good people at Mascot Records to bring you this exclusive compilation of the very best new bluesy sounds out there. 1 Walter Trout Goin’ Down To The River feat. Robby Krieger If you’re going to do such an age-old blues activity as go down to the river (right up there with ‘goin’ home’ and ‘woke up this morning’), for Godssake do it right. In fact, do it like Walter does on this slow 12-bar number that just oozes class. From Survivor Blues www.waltertrout.com 2 Joe Bonamassa This Train (Live) Don’t let the suit and serious expression fool you; Joe knows how to party. Originally on 2016’s Blues Of Desperation,…

REVIEWS Peter Straker This One’s One Me SFE Three-CD box set including 1977 solo album produced by Freddie Mercury. Jamaican-born singer and actor Peter Straker first came to prominence in the early 70s when, following his 1972 RCA album Private Parts, he was touted as the “black Bowie”. He later developed a strong friendship with Freddie Mercury, who agreed to produce his next album, This One’s On Me. That was followed by Changeling (’78) and Real Natural Man (’79). ercury might have known very well how to throw a flamboyant, theatrical pose on stage, but compared with Straker he was Lemmy. Rock was not actually his natural element, cabaret and musicals were. His every vocal syllable treads a board. This One’s On Me from a musical perspective is a bit…

Daddy Long Legs London Hackney Paper Dress Vintage Southern-style blues testifyin’ via New York attitude hits East London. With their repeated visits to this side of the Atlantic, Brooklyn’s mondo blues trio Daddy Long Legs have steadily and assuredly built up a following that verges on the devotional. And with tonight’s show being the culmination of their current visit to Europe, the sense of spiritual uplift and soul-shredding abandon is palpable even before a note is struck. Their relentless schedule has turned Daddy Long Legs into a formidable three-headed beast, but, crucially, their serrated and scuffed ramalama has lost none of the edge that made them so appealing in the first place. This is a band that understands that polish is for boots, while style is something much more elusive…

INSIDE THE WORLD OF ROCK the DiRT Covid-19 Special Report With the music industry “decimated”, Dave Ling looks at how, as we go into lockdown, musicians and promoters hope for a brave new world. PAUL HARMER PHOTOGRAPHY LTD PAUL HARRIES AS THIS ISSUE went to press, the UK, along with the rest of the world, was in the grip of unprecedented circumstances due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With the government enforcing a nationwide lockdown, the vast majority of people are being told to stay at home except for essential journeys, for example to buy food, or to exercise. As a result, many thousands of people have already lost their livelihood, with job losses and businesses closing down, including many in the music industry. With music venues forced to close their…

Kenny Rogers August 21, 1938 – March 20, 2020 THE WORLD OF country music is mourning one of its genuine superstars. However, with a career that spanned more than half a century, during which time he had more than 100 hit singles and sold more than 165 million records, Kenny Rogers was not be limited to just one genre. As he quipped in 2016: “I did songs that were not country but were more pop. If the country audience doesn’t buy it, they’ll kick it out. And if they do, then it becomes country music.” Rogers often preferred interpretation over composition, and reaped the rewards from recording songs written by others. The Gambler was written by Don Schlitz, Lionel Richie wrote Lady, and he teamed up with Dolly Parton for…

Bill Withers July 4, 1938 – March 30, 2020 EAGLES GUITARIST JOE Walsh has led the tributes to Bill Withers following the soul singer and musician’s death from heart complications. Withers was a reluctant star. “The more famous he got, the less he liked it,” Walsh said. Indeed as the hits stacked up – Ain’t No Sunshine, Lean On Me, Lovely Day and Just The Two Of Us were all smashes in the United States between 1971 and 1980 – the West Virginian struggled with the attention that accompanied his success. He also had an intense dislike of being on the road. In the end he declined all offers of a new record contract during the mid-80s, effectively ending his career as a performer. Upon being inducted into the Rock…

Marillion Beat The Covid-19 Quarantine Blues Band members isolating but still working on new music. MARILLION HAVE BEGUN work on a new album, their first collection of original material since Fuck Everyone And Run (FEAR) in late 2016. Just like the rest of us, vocalist Steve Hogarth, guitarist Steve Rothery, bassist Pete Trewavas, keyboard player Mark Kelly and drummer Ian Mosley are all confined to their homes, with each posting updates on the band’s Instagram page. Hogarth was the first to check in, saying: “Day four of listening to the jams.” This was followed by a message from Trewavas, who posted: “An early listening session has become my morning ritual and I’m really enjoying what we have to work with on this album. 40 years and we haven’t lost it…

WELCOME BACK Trivium Matt Heafy on recording angry, bands who don’t work hard enough, and smiling (or rather not) in photos. BACK IN 2005, a group of Florida unknowns walked on stage at the Download Festival, and walked off having passed into metal folklore. True, the path hasn’t always been smooth for Trivium since that star-making set (“We were called the kings of metal,” reflects Matt Heafy. “Then we made our next record and were called the worst band in the world”). But the frontman believes that pain was necessary to reach ninth album What The Dead Men Say, an ambitious, shape-shifting shuttle-run of brutal thrash riffs, often within the same song. How would you describe the musical vibe on the new record? I think the Trivium sound is having…

WELCOME BACK Dennis DeYoung The former Styx man returns with a new album, and still hopes a reunion with his old band could happen. DENNIS DEYOUNG: REBECCA WOLF DENNIS DEYOUNG WAS a core member of Styx from 1970 to 1999. As vocalist, keyboard player and producer, he played a crucial role in making the Chicago band hugely successful. Since leaving Styx, over the past two decades DeYoung has carved out a successful solo career that has included working with orchestras and composing musicals. Now he’s back with a new album, 26 East: Volume One, which combines the melodic rock, progressive and musical theatre touches that have long been his trademarks. He explains why this is his farewell recording. Why such a long gap between the new album and your previous…

MUDDY WATERS Muddy was a kingpin of Chicago in the 1950s. Born McKinley Morganfield in Mississippi, the young bluesman was recorded for the first time in 1941, and rode the confidence from that first pressing into a move north to Chicago. Brought aboard the nascent Chess Records – and backed by a band that included blues harp player Little Walter and piano man Otis Spann – in the early 50s Muddy fired off the songs that remain standards, including Mannish Boy and Got My Mojo Workin’. Killer Track: Mannish Boy…

SON HOUSE He was the part-time preacher, ex-convict and bottleneck blues master who influenced generations. GETTY x2 Of all the characters that feature in tales of blues from the early 1900s, Son House is one of those most regularly cited by present-day enthusiasts. In some ways he’s not an obvious choice – he wasn’t the most skilled purveyor of this music, or even the first – but he remains a quietly popular touchstone. Jack White even said House’s sparse, bewitching a-capella number Grinnin’ In Your Face is his favourite song. “By the time I was eighteen somebody played me Son House,” White said in the 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud. “That was it for me. This spoke to me in a thousand different ways. I didn’t know that you…

HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN HOT BLUE'S AND RIGHTEOUS ZZ Top’s album Tres Hombres transformed them from that Little Ol’ Band From Texas into a phenomenon, putting the Lone Star State back on the musical map as they defined the sound of Texan blues. Words: Ed Mitchell Interviews: Redbeard & Henry Yates GETTY In 1973, ZZ Top recorded a John Lee Hooker-flavoured boogie for what would become their groundbreaking third album, Tres Hombres. Driven by a rhythm that could piledrive through concrete walls, La Grange has since been described by the band’s guitarist and leader Billy Gibbons as “a defining moment”. It could scarcely have come along at a better time. The blues in Texas was just ticking over. The old guard were dragging themselves around…

FREE The band with a couldn’t-care-less attitude honed on the rough-and-ready circuit of UK blues clubs. TEN YEARS AFTER: GETTY; FREE: PHOTOSHOT/AVALON There’s a saying: history belongs to the victors. That certainly appears to be true in the case of Free, whose bedraggled history has long been overshadowed by the far greater success of the band that superseded them, Bad Company. As bass player Andy Fraser said in 2006: “Free had many sides: blues, soul, folk. We were very much a 60s band.” Bad Company, more straightforward exemplars of the 70s rock elite, simply “took the side of Free that could be put out in arenas and sold that way”. In contrast, Fraser claims that Free “was always about more than just being successful. We wanted to break down musical…

HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN RAISING THE BAR THE STORY OF PUB ROCK In the early 70s, in the wake of the British blues boom, the smoky, sweaty, sticky-carpeted back rooms of a select few London pubs were where all the best gigs were happening. Words: Will Birch The British blues boom of the late 1960s – a movement kick-started by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (which famously featured, at various times, guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor) – came out of the pubs, or at least the clubs that thrived in smoke-filled rooms in numerous boozers dotted around Britain. Immediately prior to this, it was those same venues that played host to bands such as the Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Who, in the…

HOW THE BLUES EXPLODED AND WHY IT'S BACK AGAIN WHITE, BLACK AND BLUES There’s always another saviour comes along who is supposedly breathing new life into the blues. Jack White is one of those who really did. Words: Nick Hasted GETTY “I would much rather have lived in the twenties or thirties,” Jack White sighed to the NME in 2001, the morning after The White Stripes’ second gig in the UK, “but that will never be. My dream of being a black man in the thirties is not going to happen.” It’s as bold and manic a statement as any white rocker has ever blurted about the questions of race that dig like spurs into rock’n’roll’s use of the blues. It’s what Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page likely felt in…

STUFF BOOKS & DVDS Mystery Train: Images Of America In Rock’n’Roll Music Greil Marcus THE FOLIO SOCIETY Music writing at its very best. This is the motherlode. Held by Time magazine to be one of the “100 Most Influential Books written in English since 1923”, and it’s hard to argue with the New York Times when it claims Mystery Train (first published in 1975) to be the “greatest book written about American music (and rock in particular)”. The book is a collection of Rolling Stone critic Greil Marcus’s essays around several luminaries including Elvis Presley, The Band, Sly Stone and Robert Johnson, and details with painstaking detail and lovingly interpretative prose the direction rock music took in the late 1960s, updated and abridged at regular intervals. The attention to detail…

Essential Playlist What’ll I Do Harry Nilsson Somewhere Over The Rainbow Harry Nilsson I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter Paul McCartney Bye Bye Blackbird Ringo Starr Sentimental Journey Ringo Starr Skylark Linda Ronstadt I’ve Got A Crush On You Linda Ronstadt Rhapsody In Blue Brian Wilson I Got Plenty Of Nuttin’ Brian Wilson You’re My Thrill Joni Mitchell After Hours Glenn Frey If I Loved You Jeff Lynne She Jeff Lynne For All We Know Rod Stewart My Valentine Paul McCartney It Never Entered My Mind Linda Ronstadt Stormy Weather Joni Mitchell Beyond The Sea Jeff Lynne…

Elvis Costello And The Imposters London Hammersmith Apollo Crisis? What crisis? ‘Forget about Buddha, Allah, Jesus and Jehovah/Hurry down doomsday, the bugs are taking over…’ Like a new wave Nostradamus, Elvis Costello has a song for every calamity. He opens one of the last encores the UK will see before its live music shutdown with 1991’s B-movie vision of insect invasion Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over), as close to a pandemic primer as rock’n’roll has produced. Thanking us for “risking life and limb” to be here, Costello promises to “keep playing till they shut us down”, and dives into the set with a hurtling-towards-the-abyss urgency. Leaning heavily on 1981’s Trust, he opens with a burst of early favourites that threatens to outpace his voice – he seems…