Robert Plant is a living legend of the highest degree when it comes to rock and roll. For years, he helped Led Zeppelin earn a mythical status among their peers as the vibrant vocal force behind their powerful music — but he’s done so much more than that. After Zeppelin’s eventual dissolution, Plant has remained […]
“Why are a ‘wise man’ and a ‘wiseguy’ opposites?” – George Carlin “Right Place, Wrong Time” by Dr. John “Right Place, Wrong Time” was Dr. John‘s biggest hit, cracking the Top 10 in 1973. It was the first single from his In the Right Place LP. Dr. John described how the song was written in […]
“Someone had the great idea that if I opened for The Who, more people could hear my new work, but we promptly fell flat on our faces,” legendary singer Robert Plant tells me with a laugh when we meet up and I remind him that we’d met before, back in the early ’00s. He’d recently […]
Vanilla Fudge departed from the three-minute single in 1967 with their debut album Vanilla Fudge. The New York-area band – drummer Carmine Appice, bassist Tim Bogert, guitarist Vinny Martell and organist Mark Stein – released the groundbreaking LP with extended versions of “Ticket to Ride,” “She’s Not There,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ […]
Lita Ford was one of the original Riot grrrls along with her fellow compatriots in the Runaways. Upon the band’s breakup, Ford forged on as a solo artist, upending macho perceptions about the authenticity of a female guitar hero. But Ford proved all the naysayers wrong emerging as a legitimatize musical force, gender be damned racking up the smash hits Kiss Me Deadly and Close My Eyes Forever, a duet with Ozzy Osbourne. Since returning to the music scene after a long sabbatical, Ford is back with […]
Freddie Mercury‘s birthday took place over the weekend, and while the iconic Queen front man obviously wasn’t around to celebrate, some of his musical pals (and fans) convened at the Milton Keynes National Bowl in Buckinghamshire, England. That’s where Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters brought their Sonic Highways world tour on Saturday. To mark […]
“We were enormously creative, always pushing ourselves,” Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin’s legendary guitarist and founder tells me when I ask why he thinks the band’s albums have stood the test of time. “If I was off the road I was writing songs for the next album. I wasn’t somebody who was sort of producing other […]
In the glorious world of rock and roll, record producers are an invaluable commodity. They serve as the key conduit helping to nurture, shape, inspire, guide and ultimately capture the essence of an artist or group. For that same artist/group, coming to the sessions prepared with a bulletproof batch of divinely inspired and chart worthy […]
Another song from the Led Zeppelin vaults has been released in anticipation of their next set of reissues – a mix of Stairway to Heaven that was recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles in 1971. Here’s the never-before-heard take, courtesy of Rolling Stone: John Paul Jones told Rolling Stone of this mix: “It’s […]
Steve Rosen has been writing about the creatures of rock and roll for 40 years. His stories have appeared in and on Guitar World, Guitar Player, Guitarist, Total Guitar and Ultimate-Guitar.com and virtually every other magazine and website with “guitar” in its title. The Laurel Canyon resident has written seven books—including works on Jeff Beck, […]
