MOJO July 2021

Robert is a writer and film-maker in Memphis. His books include It Came From Memphis and the Muddy Waters biography Can’t Be Satisfied. Recent films include Best Before Death with Bill Drummond and Emmy-winner Best Of Enemies. His Big Star box set linernotes won a Grammy: he writes about the band on p46. Hurrying home one evening in the winter of 1988/89, MOJO’s Contributing Editor saw ex-Redskins singer Chris Dean selling Socialist Worker at Willesden Green station. Keith was halfway to his flat before realising he’d walked past a scoop, and ran back – but the commissar was gone. Keith’s Redskins feature is on p36. “All my music discoveries came via the medium of radio, and still are, via the incredible growth of internet radio. Independent heavyweight champion NTS is my choice…

WHEN DAN AUERBACH AND PATRICK CARNEY SAT DOWN TO compile this very special CD for MOJO, they were adamant it shouldn’t just be a Black Keys Guide To The Blues. Instead, they wanted to be more specific, zeroing in on the propulsive throb of the Hill Country Blues, the North Mississippi sound that’s been a profound influence on The Black Keys right up to their new album, Delta Kream. “It’s music that’s always resonated with me, and that we’ve tried to emulate,” says Carney. “We learnt to play trying to play like those guys. Now when we play it, I don’t feel like a re-enactor, I feel like I actually channel the energy.” Here, then, is a rollcall of heroes, programmed by Dan and Pat for long days and longer nights,…

Eddy Grant MAYOR OF ELECTRIC AVENUE What music are you currently grooving to? I’m grooving to life. There’s a song called Grooving Out On Life, by Hopeton Lewis, out of Jamaica. It’s hard though, I listen to everything. It shows the degree of swing I’ve got in my head. I sing, consistently, What A Wonderful World. It helps me to see things in a positive, half-full way. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? I can give you 10. Tracks Of My Tears, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Emmerton by the Mighty Gabby, Say It Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud, No Woman No Cry, live… I’ve got an almost encyclopaedic memory of great songs. Each one, if they were the only song left for me to listen to in…

I’M ALWAYS A BIT SCEPTICAL WHEN people argue about what might be the finest year for music (my only-slightly sanctimonious set response: every year’s great if you dig deep enough). Nevertheless, as 2021 rolls on and we tick off the albums celebrating their 50th anniversaries, it’s easier and easier to understand why so many of you punt 1971 as the annus mirabilis. Already this year, we’ve marked the golden jubilees of Tapestry, What’s Going On, Déjà Vu, Ram and Maggot Brain, testimony to the range of 1971’s key albums, as well as their enduring brilliance. This month, we head back to A&M Records in Los Angeles, just down the corridor from where Carole King is recording Tapestry in Studio B. Studio C is tiny, but it doesn’t need to hold many…

THE HOT NEWS AND BIZAR PLANET MOJO “BACK IN January ’66 when I first saw The 13th Floor Elevators, I’d never seen a band as strong,” says Austin, Texas writer and producer Bill Bentley. “Their music gave a lyrical reality to what I was looking for – it was like the Bible, it taught me something about another world that was real. I’ve searched for that in everything since then.” Heady claims for a band – usually. But when it comes to the still-strobing legacy of Roky Erickson and his band of psychedelic kamikazes, all rhetorical norms are suspended. In 1990, Bentley was behind the Roky covers album Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye, when ZZ Top, Julian Cope, R.E.M. and more paid homage and raised funds for the embattled singer and…

RECORD shops have always been a vital part of MOJO readers’ lives, every one of them essential exchange points for sustaining music, info and vibes. This June 12’s global Record Store Day, joyously, they will be open for business again. But, when you stop by, say Spillers Records in Cardiff, or New York’s Downtown Music Gallery, from 8am sharp, which limited one-off exclusives will you be looking out for? Albums-that-never-were get their freaky, unreal due this year. Before Elton John’s 1969 debut Empty Sky, he had an album called Regimental Sgt. Zippo (Mercury) ready to go: finally incarnated on vinyl, this RSD edition features some songs heard on 2020’s Jewel Box, five “finished” versions, and the first non-bootleg release of You’ll Be Sorry To See Me Go. Tom Petty & The…