Born in Philadelphia in 1946, actor, singer and former model, Marsha Hunt, moved to London in February 1966. After appearing as an extra in Antonioni’s Blow-Up, she became a backing singer in Alexis Korner’s Free At Last before commencing a brief relationship with bluesman John Mayall. On his album, The Blues Alone (1967), he wrote and dedicate…
Anyone who loved Pete Frame’s spindly, hand-drawn Rock Family Trees (and who didn’t?) will recognise the value of a man who can join the dots between Wales’ Amen Corner, the quintessentially English Strawbs, Mott The Hoople and Australia’s Bee Gees. Stir in a studio discography that ranges from Alice Cooper via Lou Reed to the Pet Shop Boys…
On 16 September, screen sirens Ann Cusack and Elizabeth McGovern started a five-night run of a rocking, rolling musical extravaganza at a studio theatre in London’s Chiswick. What We Now Know runs through the lives of the pair, who briefly were in the same junior school class in Chicago, but only realised that fact many years later, when they wer…
If you’re a fan of the music press – and chances are, considering you’re reading this, you have read the odd “inkie” or rock magazine – you’ll enjoy this month’s cover story. In it, Simon Goddard shows how influential the music press of the 70s was, tracing the giddy ascent of punk as it happened: you get the sense that the NME, Melod…
A stellar cast of soul stars from the 60s, 70s and 80s performing songs written by the one and only Stevie Wonder comprise this terrific new volume in Ace Records’ Black America Sings…” series. 20 tracks covering the work of Stevie Wonder by the likes of The Bar-Keys, Marvin Gaye, Nancy Wilson, Randy Crawford…
The Electric Castle festival at Banffy Castle, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 16-19 July, includes The Cure, Twenty One Pilots.
1. The Staple SingersUncloudy Day(Fontana 688 515 ZL, LP, UK, 1966)A decade and more before Stax Records were secularising the Staples to grab R&B and pop hits, the then-quintet were demonstrating they were the finest gospel family group ever. With Mavis’ growling and whooping contralto wrenching every bit of emotion from the songs of faith…
Garish new artwork isn’t going to sway anyone who holds the opinion that The Great Escape is Blur’s overblown folly. Which is a shame as, with a healthy distance from both the hype that surrounded its release and the backlash that followed, cooler heads can sympathise with the sound of a band fighting for air amid the suffocating conditions of …
The All Points East festival at London Victoria Park, 28-29 August 2026, includes Ghostface Killah, Tyler, The Creator, Vince Staples.
