It’s widely believed that Pete Townshend’s successful efforts to bring the guitarist out of his self-imposed musical exile marked a turning point.
Author: Bill Kopp
Bill Kopp
Bill Kopp is a lifelong music enthusiast, musician, collector, and – since the 1990s – music journalist. His writing has been featured in music magazines including Bass Guitar, Record Collector, Prog and Shindig! (all in Great Britain), as well as Billboard, Electronic Musician, Goldmine, Trouser Press, Ugly Things and more than a dozen alternative weekly newspapers. He is the Jazz Desk Editor and Prog Editor at BLURT online, and has written liner note essays for nearly 20 albums, including titles by Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Larry Coryell, Edgar Winter, Rick Wakeman, The Ventures, Dave Mason and Iron Butterfly. He has interviewed several hundred musicians and music industry figures of note, and his musoscribe.com blog has featured new content – thousands of music reviews, essays, interviews and features – every business day since 2009. He lives in a nearly century-old house in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, two cats, many thousands of vinyl records, and perhaps too many synthesizers and guitars. He's on Twitter @the_musoscribe. His first book, Reinventing Pink Floyd: From Syd Barrett to The Dark Side of the Moon, will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2018.
If the album had given us nothing more than “Born to Be Wild,” it would still be a classic. But there was a lot more to the mostly Canadian band’s first LP.
After finishing the recording sessions for his new album, the artist decided he didn’t like some of it and went back into the studio. A classic emerged.
Their classic ‘Days of Future Passed’ turned 50 in 2017. Former band members Mike Pinder and Thomas discuss those heady early years
It was a new concept: a rock band would play its new songs, read some poems and be backed up by an orchestra. Today it’s considered a landmark recording
The deeper complexity and nuance that had lurked under the surface came to the forefront in the L.A. band’s classic 1967 third album.
Every defining characteristic of the British band’s self-titled debut would become a hallmark of the oft-maligned heavy metal genre.
In the hands of a lesser group than Traffic, the various musical styles represented on ‘Mr. Fantasy’ may well have been a mishmash.