Inquiring Minds
Latest Stories
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Peter Guralnick didn’t set out to be a music journalist. The occupation didn’t really exist at the time when a combination of luck and bluster led the obsessive blues fan to interview a “rediscovered” Skip James in 1965 for a non-existent magazine assignment. His piece was eventually published, and it...
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It was, according to guitarist/singer Jock Bartley, not only one of the highlights of his musical career, but of his life. And it happened onstage at Liberty Hall here in Houston late in the evening of February 24, 1973. Bartley was playing just his second gig behind country rock pioneer...
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John Kay’s voice is one of classic rock’s most distinctive. As the lead singer/rhythm guitarist for Steppenwolf, his gravelly, powerful tone drives their best known songs like “Magic Carpet Ride,” “Rock Me,” “Hey Lawdy Mama” and of course, signature tune “Born to Be Wild.” As the sole original member left,...
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It’s not every person who can literally hold their life’s work in their hands. But that’s what exactly happened with Uriah Heep guitarist Mick Box when he recently unpacked the band’s massive, career-spanning box set 50 Years in Rock (BMG). “I was overjoyed, and it was an honest emotional reaction...
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With 50 years in the music business, singer Michael Des Barres certainly counts as rock royalty. But he’s also actual royalty, as in the 26th Marquis Des Barres of France—though his childhood was anything but a soft ride on a royal horse-drawn coach. “My father was a Marquis, but he...
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Today, their names are among the highest of jazz titans, familiar even generations after they laid down their most famous work: Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Max Roach, and Charlie Parker. But it’s easy to forget that when these jazz men first started playing the new strain of bebop...