When looking through famous mugshots, the chances are you’ll have stumbled across David Bowie’s effortlessly stylish picture. It’s enough to make you think a...

You may have wondered about the circumstances of the cover photograph for Thelonious Monk’s 1968 album Underground. As you might imagine, when the recording ...

On 19th Feb 1980, Bon Scott, singer of AC/DC, was pronounced dead on arrival at a London hospital after a heavy night’s drinking. Scott was found in the pass...

On January 1, 1943, the American folk music legend Woody Guthrie jotted in his journal a list of 33 “New Years Rulin's." Nowadays, we'd call them New Year's ...

The album opens with a whisper. Haunting vocals conflate the imagination and inject a certain sense of desperation for what will happen next. This is the fi...

Fifty-two years ago, on December 10, 1967, a private plane carrying Otis Redding and the members of his touring band stalled on its final approach to the mun...

There are many ways to celebrate a new album from a band you admire. You can have a listening party alone. You can have a listening party with friends. You c...

In the spring of 1980, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie met H.R. Giger at a party at the Hansen Gallery in New York City, which was showing an exhibit...

In early 1972, Britain lay aglitter under the spell of Marc Bolan, the corkscrew-haired prince of all the pretty things. With his band, T. Rex, the progeni...

James Jamerson is the Schoenberg of getting from the I chord to the IV chord. He’s algorithmically generating a new pattern every phrase…[He] belongs with Ba...

Woodstock is widely regarded as one of the most important events in music history. The festival, which took place in August 1969, drew about half a million p...

Whilst sitting here eating my porridge and my eldest son is harassing me to play something I believe to be awful on Spotify, it dawns on me – how and why is ...

For some time now, certain fans of Queen have sought the elusive answer to the question “what made Freddie Mercury such an incredible singer?” That he was an...

It was 27 July 2012, the night of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The Queen got into a helicopter. Men with top hats walked on Glastonbury Tor. Th...

On Friday 28 August 1964, in a room in the Delmonico hotel at Park Avenue and 59th in New York City – at a rendezvous brokered with a keen eye to a story by ...

Phil Lynott was recording his second solo album in a studio in Soho and, as usual, the control room was overflowing with hangers-on. Lynott made a show of c...

In October 1972, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page travelled to Bombay to jam with Indian musicians. This is what happened… Lack of information has...

I'm seriously addicted to deconstructing well known songs, I've no idea why. I think it stems from playing around with the mixing levels at The Rolling Stone...

In the opening scenes of a documentary about his life, Ginger Baker breaks the film maker’s nose with his walking stick. The film’s title... Beware of Mr Bak...

The Ramones and CBGB. Has there ever been a better match of artist and venue? Okay, the Beatles had the Cavern Club and James Brown had the Apollo Theater. B...

So many hugely successful and talented musicians have died at age 27 that it almost seems reasonable to believe the number represents some mystical coefficie...

Elvis' finest moment isn’t his first Sun recording, 1954’s “That’s All Right,” or his 1956 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, although both of those are pre...

The “British Invasion” as a historical phenomenon, has achieved a status almost like that of Paul Revere’s ride, a watershed moment condensed to a singular i...

"Mick needs to know what he's going to do tomorrow," says Richards, his voice slurring into a laugh. "Me, I'm just happy to wake up and see who's hanging a...