Don Van Vliet, alias Captain Beefheart, pioneered an angular, off-kilter, deviant blues that was unlike anything heard, yet or since. His manic, mangy Howlin’ Wolf growl is immediately recognizable, as...
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When it comes to contemporary classical minimalist music, I’m more inclined toward rhythmic stuff like Steve Reich or Philip Glass—I’m at heart a rock and roll lover, after all, and...
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I would be a fool to suggest I was an expert (or even more than moderately knowledgeable) on contemporary classical music. I’m mostly a rock guy. But I have the...
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Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, needs no introduction. But I offer a few disclaimers: First, Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall was the first album I bought with my own...
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Bob Dylan (born Robert Zimmerman) should need no introduction. He’s one of the greats in the history of popular music, a masterful songwriter—indeed, the only rock musician ever to earn...
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Before there was little Michael Jackson fronting the Jackson 5, there was child prodigy “Little Stevie Wonder,” who hit number one in 1963 with “Fingertips” at the age of thirteen,...
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Bob Marley and the Wailers should need no introduction. To many, Marley is the face of reggae, plain and simple. For a large part of their career, however, the Wailers...
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Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen started out as a poet and novelist before turning to music as the main vehicle for expressing his literary, darkly romantic vision. In songs hushed and...
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Not only were Sly and the Family Stone a model of diversity, they put out some of the best, most influential music of their time. Like their personnel (black and...
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Singer and guitarist Lou Reed got his start in the Velvet Underground, alongside bass guitarist and violist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Maureen Tucker (plus, briefly, singer Nico)....
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