Fifty years ago this week I met up with Patti Smith at a rehearsal studio on New York’s West Side to interview her for Melody Maker . We alr...

Jackson, that is, and to have ‘got’ Michael was something of a poisoned chalice as Dan Beck, senior product manager at Epic Records in New Y...

“The Kinks always hated photo shoots,” says Ray Davies. “When we first came into the music industry, photographers were strictly old school,...

No, I’d not heard of Big Pete either, not until Colin Harper sent me a copy of his book which, as labours of love go, might rank alongside M...

‘Long Black Veil’ is an American folk ballad that dates from 1959, written by Marijohn Wilkin and Danny Dill, that tells the sad story of a ...

The life of Cat Stevens was forever changed in the autumn of 1975 when, by his reckoning, he was saved from drowning by the Almighty. Swimmi...

Just Backdated is off on his holidays, taking with him Cat/Yusuf’s autobiography which will be read by the pool alongside the house of frien...

This is the book that no established rock or pop star will want in their Christmas stocking. With very few exceptions, everyone who has enjo...

“If you’re in a room, as I was at Live 8, with David, Nick, Rick and Roger Waters, nobody speaks,” says Polly Samson, wife of David Gilmour ...

Every great story needs a great villain, and in The Elvis Presley Story the villain has always been Colonel Tom Parker, his manager. Just lo...