Jeff Beck: The Guitar Grandmaster
Sean MurphyAs impossible at it is to believe Jeff Beck has died (aged 78), it’s just as difficult to fathom that he was with us in the first place. If you’re…
Roger Waters: Shining On
There are so many musicians I admire, a smaller circle I adore, a smaller one still I revere, and a relative handful I’m grateful for. Artists whose work has changed…
Aug 4, 1967: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
8/4/1967: It was 55 years ago, today. With any discussion of 1967 (in general) and The Summer of Love (in particular) Sgt. Pepper soaks up so much (oh so much)…
Graeme Edge: The Right Guy for the Era
Prog rock (in general) and the Moody Blues (in particular) needed that guy, and Graeme Edge was that guy. His spoken word was exactly what that era demanded, distilling the…
Jim Morrison: 50 Years Gone
Jim Morrison took his last bath on July 3, 1971 in Paris. R.I.P. Lizard King. (I wrote, in what most normal people would consider painful detail, about The Doors in…
New World Man: An Appreciation of Neil Peart (One Year Later)
He knows changes aren’t permanent, but change is. Taken from Rush’s most famous song, “Tom Sawyer,” this line might best illuminate the “elemental empathy” that came to define Neil Peart,…
Eddie Van Halen: Rock Music’s Book of Revelation
photo courtesy of Salvatore Ferro When it comes to Eddie Van Halen, we are talking about an artist everyone would agree was, through the typical combination of hard work, good…
Jimi Hendrix: Five Decades Gone
It was 50 years ago, today. Attention, of course, must (and will) be paid, but the real question remains: what more can possibly be said, at this point, about Jimi…
Sitting on Top of the World: An Appreciation of Ginger Baker
Of course his father was a bricklayer, and it could be said that his son, born Peter Edward Baker, was one as well. But instead of a shovel he picked…
Ric Ocasek: Just What We Needed
We tend to believe (or want to believe?) that the best artists emerge, fully-formed, as though they were uncommonly blessed or destined. While in certain cases this impulse is intended…