MOJO May 2019

THE DETROIT OF 1959 AND THE EARLY ’60s INTO WHICH BERRY Gordy launched his record labels Tamla, Motown, Gordy and Miracle was already a hotbed of African-American musical talent, readily heard at the Flame Bar, The 20 Grand and other Motor City nightspots. The city’s existing recording companies such as Fortune, JVB, HOB, Lupine and Flick, would scout prospects there, soon to be joined by Gordy. The genesis of the young songwriter, producer and entrepreneur’s early years are described in Adam White’s feature, starting on page 44, and our Motor City Soul CD offers the chance to sample the musical environment of the formative years before and while his labels were founded. Robert West’s Lupine (also known as Lu-Pine) was particularly responsive to the scene, while Joe Von Battle’s JVB (also…

Julia Jacklin SYDNEY’S INDIE-FOLK COMMUNICATOR What music are you currently grooving to? Kacy & Clayton’s The Siren’s Song, the Australian band Body Type and Tiny Ruins’ Olympic Girls. I also discovered LCD Soundsystem about 100 years later than everyone else. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? Probably Time (The Revelator) by Gillian Welch, the one I come back to. It’s incredible, with the best opening and closing tracks I’ve ever heard. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? I believe it was Smash Mouth’s Astro Lounge. I bought it at Sanity in Penrith Plaza, half an hour’s train ride from my town. Wish I’d gone for something a bit cooler, but that’s it. Which musician, other than yourself, have you ever wanted to be?…

IN 52 YEARS, THERE HAVE BEEN 18 FULL-TIME members of the magical and resilient Fleetwood Mac. One, bassist Bob Brunning, lasted only a few weeks: given Peter Green had named the band after his preferred rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, Brunning can hardly have felt his position was secure. Others have endured much longer, though, and we talk to many of them in this special issue of MOJO, beginning with the revitalised new line-up of Fleetwood Mac. “Mick lives to make [Fleetwood Mac] survive,” Christine McVie tells us. “He has a way of finding the right people at the right time.” From Green’s mystic blues, through the quietly evolving craft of Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie and Bob Welch, to Stevie Nicks’s widescreen incantations and the hyper-detailed anthems of Lindsey…

MARK HOLLIS, who has died suddenly after a short illness, aged 64, was the chief architect of the extraordinary music of Talk Talk. In five albums under that name, four in close collaboration with co-producer Tim Friese-Greene, and one solo LP with venerable engineer Phill Brown, Hollis created a succinct body of work which evolved from time-locked pop to timeless, almost classical music, with a spiritual depth and an ability to move listeners unlike anything else in the canon. Talk Talk’s twin masterpieces, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, have been cited by numerous artists, Radiohead, Elbow and Arcade Fire among them, as enduring sources of inspiration, yet no one has got close to their hushed mystery. Born in Tottenham in 1955 (he was a lifelong Spurs supporter) and raised in…

STEVE HILLAGE kept active last year. 2018 saw him release the Café Seven album with his System 7/Mirror System techno-ambient project; he also played live with the latest line-up of his old band Gong, and at a special performance of Tubular Bells at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. A brand of System 7 sake was also launched, with Japanese brewers Aramasa. This year he continues to be engaged with past work and new creations. First up is new archival presentation The Golden Vibe. “Basically, I’ve got three-and-a-half hours of recordings from 1973, of me improvising with echo guitar,” he says from his west London studio. “I’ve got to edit it and make it work as a 73-minute piece, and I’ve got to use some production trickery to make it sound pukka, but…

…hopes for a new ROLLING STONES album leapt when Mick Jagger shared a clip of himself playing guitar to a funky rocker with the lyrics, “really want to tell the truth.” It came with the promise: “2019 – all about writing, recording… and a tour” … CATE LE BON (right) releases a new LP in May. Written in the Lake District, she recorded the songs in Los Angeles. Speaking to Radio New Zealand, she said, “It’s always nice to have a change of scenery. Even if it’s just to refresh your own creativity” … SUNN O))) have recorded two albums with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago. Following April’s Life Metal (see review p95), the “more meditative” Pyroclasts will follow in autumn. Of their call to collaborate, Albini thought, “This…