songwriters
Reissue CDs Weekly: Lynn CastleSunday, 18 June 2017
In a 1967 headline, The Washington Post pegged Lynn Castle as a “Shapely Blonde in Blue Jeans, Popular Barber in Hollywood”. She had attracted attention as the hairdresser of choice for The Byrds, The Monkees, Del Shannon, Sonny & Cher and... Read more... |
CD: Aurelio - DarandiTuesday, 14 February 2017
It's a monstrous cliché – all too often laden with problematically patronising overtones – to describe African, Caribbean, or Afro-Latin music in terms of “sunshine”, with all the carefree holiday brochure imagery that brings. But damn, the music of... Read more... |
Stevie Wonder, Hyde Park BST FestivalMonday, 11 July 2016
Sixty-five thousand people came to Wonder. The final night of British Summer Time in Hyde Park was a sell-out. With a performance lasting four hours including an intermission, the Detroit-born legend and his band – and also the weather, which stayed... Read more... |
Carole King performs Tapestry, Hyde Park BST FestivalMonday, 04 July 2016
If last night made anything clear it's that some things are still some way beyond the reach of hipster reappropriation. The audience in Hyde Park for Carole King was 99% white and middle-aged, with the very few younger people scattered about... Read more... |
CD: Neil Young + Promise of the Real – EarthThursday, 16 June 2016
While many acts have deployed the live album as a stop-gap or an easy money-spinner, some of Neil Young's best work was recorded live – Rust Never Sleeps, Weld and Arc-Weld, Live at Massey Hall 1971, the enigmatic Time Fades Away and so on. As an... Read more... |
George Martin (1926-2016), record producer and 'fifth Beatle'Wednesday, 09 March 2016
For many pop-pickers, the presiding image of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee will be Brian May (he – yes, of course – of Queen) grinding out the national anthem on the roof of Buckingham Palace. For me, there was a much more meaningful moment later the... Read more... |
Jim Dolan, the Singing TycoonMonday, 25 January 2016
We're packed into the basement of Madrid's Costello Nite Club, a kind of narrow brick-lined tunnel off the Calle Gran Via. It's the kind of place where you could imagine finding groups of earnest jazzniks nodding along to atonal pandemonium in 11/7... Read more... |
CD: Adele - 25Thursday, 19 November 2015
The anticipation for Adele’s new album has been building for months. It’s been nearly five years since her last, 21, which became the biggest-selling album of the 21st century, shifting over 30 million copies.Numbering the ages at which she wrote... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Thea GilmoreSunday, 17 May 2015
It takes a particular combination of talent, guts, perseverance and sheer bloody-mindedness for an artist to take the creative decisions that Thea Gilmore has across her approaching 20-year career and get away with it – thankfully, all qualities... Read more... |
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, CBSO Centre, BirminghamSaturday, 28 February 2015
You might imagine that composers in general would write songs. On my way to the BCMG’s programme of pieces from the songbook assembled by John Woolrich and Mary Wiegold for the Composers’ Ensemble 30-odd years ago, I tried and failed to think of a... Read more... |
Sunny Afternoon, Harold Pinter TheatreWednesday, 29 October 2014
The bittersweet career of The Kinks is portrayed to surprisingly potent effect in this fast, funny and sometimes poignant musical, now transferring to the West End from the Hampstead Theatre. No mere "jukebox musical" – though it's crammed with... Read more... |
10 Questions for singer Laura MvulaMonday, 11 August 2014
Laura Mvula, despite her exotic-sounding name, is a quintessentially British artist. Not just because of where she comes from – Birmingham – but also how she stays humble and understated while dripping with talent. Her story is equally endearing.... Read more... |
