Category Greatest Albums of all-Time
STILL REIGNING, STILL DREAMING: Jimi Hendrix Producer Eddie Kramer On The Making Of A Legend
“Jimi was so shy,” Kramer says. “He never said a word in the beginning. He was very polite, very reserved, but once he plugged in and started playing I realized, ‘this is pretty special’. I had heard a couple of singles he had done, but hearing him playing right there in the same room was a whole different ball game. But very quickly, once I established the sound that he liked, we got on extremely well and we could communicate – even though he would describe sounds to me as colors, like, ‘Man, I want it to sound kinda purple, you know what I mean, man?’ And I would come up with a sound that was purple. We inspired each other …”
7 For 70: Happy B-Day Mick! (Or, The Seven Best Stones Albums Not Named “Exile On Main St.”)
Just in case you missed it (and you very well may have since I initially posted when I was wet behind the ears and first learning how to work this newfangled blog), I wrote a lengthy feature on one of the Rolling Stones’ masterworks, “Exile On Main St.” And of course then posted a nearly-as-long-opening intro/preamble to my piece (hey, that’s how […]
MAYBE IN A BETTER WORLD: Alex Chilton Comes Clean
Alex Chilton still doesn’t get what all the fuss is about. Well, most of the fuss, anyway. Chilton concedes that his celebrated band, Big Star, had “a *few* good songs”, but he also makes a distinction between what he calls “good music and good songs.” The pair of albums the band recorded during its lifetime, […]
His Band Opened For Badfinger: A Q&A with Big Star’s Jody Stephens
A Q&A with Jody Stephens/Rolling Stone.com Even if Jody Stephens had never picked up a pair of drumsticks after 1974, he’d still have secured an immortal place in pop history as the drummer for Big Star — one of the most talked about and belatedly beloved American rock & roll bands ever. And although they […]
A BIG STAR SHINES THROUGH THE GOLDEN SMOG: Jody Stephens On Belonging Again
We all know how dreamily handsome Jody Stephens, the once and future drummer for Big Star, has always been (damn, check out Jody in his to-die-for patchwork leather jacket on the back cover of “Radio City”; with that feathered hair and jawline, the dude made Keith Partridge look like Ernest Borgnine). But he also stands as […]
THE SOLO SOUL OF A BIG STAR: Alex Chilton On No. 1 Records, Radio City Rebounds, And A Third Album That Really Wasn’t
I could barely believe it when he said yes. Well actually, to be more precise, I couldn’t believe it when, after asking whether the evasive, elusive, and reclusive Alex Chilton might possibly consent to an interview with me for my music column in the Boston Phoenix’s Stuff@Night magazine, his publicist checked with the man, called me back, […]
RPM: Jonathan Perry's Life in Analog 