Inhaltsverzeichnis für August 2024 in MOJO

Sheila Curran Bernard Sheila is the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning writer of Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly’s Truths From Jim Crow’s Lies, which she adapts for MOJO from page 38. She is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Sam Emerson Sam, who took this month’s cover shot, wanted to be a photographer from elementary school. He shot the Stones at Altamont, and The Osmonds across America, worked with Fleetwood Mac and collaborated on Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean video. “Not only did I follow my dream,” he says, “but I truly lived it as well.” Martin Aston MOJO contributor Martin first interviewed Manchester post-punks The Chameleons in 1985 at London’s landmark den of iniquity the Columbia Hotel. Thirtynine…

1 Jimmy Webb If These Walls Could Speak (FIRST RELEASE GLEN CAMPBELL, LIGHT YEARS, MCA, 1988) 2 Paul Simon Run That Body Down (FIRST RELEASE PAUL SIMON, PAUL SIMON, CBS, 1972) 3 Lennon & McCartney Norwegian Wood (FIRST RELEASE THE BEATLES, RUBBER SOUL, PARLOPHONE, 1965) 4 Billy Joel Allentown (FIRST RELEASE BILLY JOEL, THE NYLON CURTAIN, COLUMBIA, 1982) 5 Bacharach & David Walk On By (FIRST RELEASE DIONNE WARWICK 45, SCEPTER, 1964)…

ANTI-FOLK SINGER-songwriter, political activist, feminist icon and LGBTQ+ rights campaigner: it shouldn’t be surprising that Ani DiFranco has also been a pioneering force in independent music for over three decades. The seeds of self-reliance were sown within her from an early age. “My mother wasn’t much for parenting,” the Italian-Canadian recalls of her childhood in Buffalo, New York. “I was encouraged to be independent. As a pretty young kid I remember her saying, ‘I trust your judgement’, and going back to her business. That was the template for me becoming very self-directed.” By 15, already a veteran of the Buffalo coffee house scene, DiFranco was emancipated from her parents and in control of her own destiny. By 19 she’d started her own label, Righteous Babe, and released her self-titled first…

I AN GILLAN KEEPS A RECORD PLAYER AT HIS HOME studio in the historic seaside town of Lyme Regis, Dorset. “It’s a top-class turntable,” divulges Deep Purple’s lead vocalist. “I find the act of putting a record on very tactile.” When the mood strikes, Gillan’s man cave reverberates to the analogue sound of his favourite Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong LPs. But the deck is also hooked up to a device which can convert Hound Dog and What A Wonderful World into MP3s. “And there’s a CD player, a mini-disc player, everything,” he adds. Today, Deep Purple – the group he still fronts – are a similar blend of vintage and modern, having just acquired a new guitarist, Simon McBride, for their 23rd studio set, =1. On Gillan’s watch, Deep Purple…

BIG BLACK KEROSENE (from Atomizer, Homestead, 1986) Albini’s para-industrial trio (quartet, if you include Roland the drum box) make like a machine grinding human bodies while Albini-asnarrator distils Midwest smalltown alienation into an act of self-immolation. The guitars, or whatever they are, in the chorus at 2:50 (and subsequently) are terrifying and beautiful. PIXIES CACTUS (from Surfer Rosa, 4AD, 1988) The first album ‘recorded by Steve Albini’ heard by most alternative rock fans, certainly the first to establish an Albini mythos. His audio verité aesthetic (OK, plus amazing songs) is the root of the album’s timelessness. And here, the feel of a hot, dry room encases Cactus’s febrile madness. Dave Lovering’s snare drum is mind-shattering. SUPERCHUNK SEED TOSS (from No Pocky For Kitty, Matador, 1991) Do Steve Albini records sound…

WHEN NATHANIEL RATELIFF FIRST VISITED THE OREGON STUDIO OF Richard Swift in 2014, he instantly knew he was working with a kindred spirit. They’d met in sordid clubs on tours with other bands, and Rateliff was familiar with Swift’s CV: a string of warped soul records, stints in The Shins and The Black Keys, production credits for Damien Jurado and Foxygen. But working with Swift on his own songs, accompanied by his new Denver-based band, The Night Sweats, Rateliff fell hard. “It felt like finding a lost sibling,” says Rateliff. “He would be like, ‘You’re my twin.’ And we were both drinking the same. I could hang without judgement.” On a bluebird Sunday afternoon, with light cascading through the windows of his home in the Rocky Mountain foothills, Rateliff recalls…

FOR MICK FLEETWOOD – the one constant figure and unwavering force during the entire 57-year journey of Fleetwood Mac – the last few years have been, by his own admission, a personal and professional challenge. When the most recent incarnation of Fleetwood Mac – Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, aided by Neil Finn and Mike Campbell – played the last show of a year-long world tour in November 2019, the drummer didn’t think it would be a final farewell. “There was a full intention, without waiting too long, that we’d go and pick things back up,” says Fleetwood. “That we’d play stadiums, big shows and festivals… and then at that point it was heading towards us saying goodbye.” However, in early 2020 – just after Fleetwood led…

When you were writing these songs, did you have the ‘proxy’ idea in mind? “I didn’t have a fixed idea for the record. To say I work piecemeal is putting it mildly. Also, I started it so long ago I can’t rightly remember.” Over what period of time did you write them? Are there more where these came from? “I have songs hanging about for years. This took some time. God knows why I procrastinate so much, it’s not as if I have a ton of time left. I always say I won’t do more. It might be true this time.” Did you have these particular singers in mind for individual songs? “I didn’t have particular singers in mind though I have a collection of singers I like to work…

The Joy The Joy TRANSGRESSIVE. CD/DL/LP Mesmeric debut from a young Zulu vocal quintet. It sounds too good to be true: five members of a South African choir get to a practice early, mess around and realise what they have is the real deal. Ladysmith Black Mambazo will get a lot of comparative name-checks, but The Joy’s sound is their own: if the harmonies highlight their Zulu upbringing, and of lives spent listening to isicathamiya music, there’s much in their arrangements which could come from the street corners of New York, from The Belmonts, Teenagers and Del-Vikings. Primary lead vocalist Duzie has to be one of the finds of the year, soaring above his bandmates’ backing, but it’s easy – and rewarding – to lose him entirely and focus on…

RENOWNED FOR the extraordinary blend of brutal power and pin-sharp precision that propelled the MC5 and earned his ‘Machine Gun’ nickname, Dennis Thompson maintained that his hugely influential style came from the band being unable to afford a microphone for his drum kit. Drowned out by their Vox Superbeetle amps cranked to 10, he said, “I started hitting the drums harder and harder to get heard, breaking 1 5 to 20 sticks per show.” Resilient to the end, Thompson was the last surviving member of the band that defined Detroit-style high energy rock’n’roll and gave punk core blueprints on their three albums released between 1969 and ’72. The Detroit native born Dennis Tomich, on September 7, 1948, started playing drums at the age of four. His older brother’s bar band…

TIME’S UP 2 The KLF, as The Timelords (above), are at UK Number 8 with their novelty Dr Who single Doctorin’ The Tardis. This month’s Record Mirror has an “interview” with the song’s singing car Ford Timelord, who says, “In the past 700 years I’ve been… a refreshment tent at the Battle Of Trafalgar and a hippy down the front at Woodstock.” LOVESEXY BOY 8 Prince begins his 69-date Lovesexy tour in Paris. As well as seven Wembley Arena shows there’s a secret London gig at the Camden Palace on July 25. In September he has four days off before beginning the American leg. REVOLUTION JOE 13 In cahoots with anarchist group Class War, Joe Strummer and his group The Latino Rockabilly War begin their Rock Against The Rich Tour…

IN THIS MONTH’S MOJO, STEVIE NICKS TELLS OF WHEN SHE was “a terrible waitress”, retreating home after shifts to work at her songwriting. The art involved “lighting a candle or some incense, making [the bedroom] my sanctuary,” she remembers, “and sitting on the floor, writing – that was my idea of a good time.” It’s a romantic tale that plays into our image of Nicks – the dark nights, the naked flames, the lace fluttering in the breeze, a cockatoo, perhaps, to hand. But it also exposes an artist dedicated to put in the hard work and hone her craft. For this latest MOJO CD, we’re fortunate to have some powerful examples of how that craft flourished, with three of our favourite tracks from Nicks’ solo catalogue. But we’ve also…

COOLIDGE, ARIZONA. 1951. A fresh-faced 13-year-old New York-born kid has just arrived in town. He takes his bike, goes exploring and discovers a new world: the desert. “I fell in love with all that space,” recalled Duane Eddy when we spoke in 2010. “You could just lose yourself out there. Musically, I could always go out into the desert with just an acoustic guitar and write a song.” Eddy, of course, is known for that sound. The ‘twang’, as it became known. You can hear it on classic tracks like Rebel Rouser, Ramrod, Cannonball or any of the 45s from Duane Eddy’s early hot streak – the unmistakable bending of those reverb-soaked, low-end strings delivered in a classy, unadorned manner against a driving rhythm designed for maximum impact. Listen a…

Ani DiFranco (RIGHTEOUS BABE, 1990) The blueprint for everything that would follow, her staccato finger picking and strident lyrics were already well-honed on this debut. Horrifyingly, the words of right-to-choose track Lost Woman Song are still chilling 34 years later. Living In Clip (RIGHTEOUS BABE, 1997) DiFranco admits her studio albums sometimes lack the intensity of live performances. With a trio including Gang Of Four’s Sara Lee on bass, it acts as a fiery best-of for her first seven albums. Binary (RIGHTEOUS BABE, 2017) With cameos from Ivan Neville, Justin Vernon, Maceo Parker and Gail Ann Dorsey, these stretches into jazz and rock include the pained but ultimately justified Pacifist’s Lament: proof, if it were needed, of how she’s in it for the long haul.…

THE HEAVY HITTER Deep Purple Deep Purple In Rock (EMI HARVEST, 1970) Gillan’s sense of Deep Purple as “primarily an instrumental group” forced him to turn his voice into an instrument to compete with Jon Lord’s Hammond and Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar. The transformation from Episode Six crooner to Hounslow’s answer to Robert Plant is extraordinary. Gillan blueprints his trademark whisper-to-a-shout on Bloodsucker, Child In Time and Speed King. But the scream that launched a thousand imitators is best sampled on Into The Fire. THE HOLY ROLLER Various Jesus Christ Superstar: Original Soundtrack (DECCA/MCA, 1970) Gillan had just joined Deep Purple when aspiring musical theatre impresarios Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber lured him away, temporarily, to play Jesus on their rock opera soundtrack. “Andrew told me to improvise, but not…

THE WEATHER WAS MILD – JUST UNDER 50 degrees fahrenheit, with light rain – on Wednesday, December 26, 1934, as 67-year-old white folk music collector John Lomax and his 19-year-old son, Alan, arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, eager to show off their most important discovery to date: 45-year-old Black musician Huddie Ledbetter, the man at the wheel of Lomax’s car. For the previous three months, unpaid, Ledbetter had served as Lomax’s chauffeur and personal attendant, while also providing invaluable assistance as Lomax collected Black folk music on behalf of the US Library of Congress. Most often, they recorded in prisons, where African-Americans were incarcerated in numbers vastly disproportionate to their presence in the general population. Together, they worked their way through the southern states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South…

BORN IN THE FLOOD If This Thing Should Spill (SCI Fidelity, 2007) Pope and Rateliff’s post-millennial indie rock quartet speaks to a specific time and sound, when Pitchfork and NME were christening Tapes ’n Tapes and Bloc Party as the respective bands saving rock’n’roll. Their radiant Anthem and drifting On A Good Day presaged Rateliff’s wonderful polarity as a stylist. NATHANIEL RATELIFF & THE NIGHT SWEATS Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (Stax, 2015) “I made it my personal intervention,” Rateliff sings during the gorgeous mid-album ballad Wasting Time. That’s how The Night Sweats’ debut works, too – a decision made to try something new that, in turn, felt like a lightning bolt. This is unapologetic soul revivalism, unabashed and urgent, with horns that reach skyward. NATHANIEL RATELIFF And It’s…

Johnny Cash Songwriter MERCURY NASHVILLE/UME. CD/DL/LP IN EARLY May, the crooning country star Randy Travis released Where That Came From, a glowing but sombre shuffle about a magic love he’d lost. It was a ringer for the deftly melodramatic tunes that made Travis, with his curiously curling Southern twang, one of the form’s key figures beginning in the mid-’80s. Diggin’ Up Bones, Forever And Ever, Amen, On The Other Hand: the new tune represented a renaissance for Travis, hingeing on the same deft lyrical play and idiosyncratic tone as those songs that made him famous. For the past decade, though, Travis has struggled to speak, let alone sing, after almost being killed following a string of infections and a massive stroke. Where That Came From, then, came from AI, which…

I’m Not Anyone BMG. CD/DL Astute covers album celebrating 45 years of music-making. MARC ALMOND has always had a way with a cover version, from Soft Cell’s gloriously offbeat takes on Tainted Love and What? to his tingling duet with Gene Pitney on Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart. On I’m Not Anyone, Almond’s 27th solo album, he’s in his element re-imagining 11 songs by such disparate acts as Blue Cheer and Mahalia Jackson, inhabiting and internalising each one of them; every hurt, every joy. A case in point, Marmalade’s Reflections Of My Life, which in his hands, sounds both epic and vulnerable, as if Scott Walker had recorded it originally. If you’re feeling sensitive, it might just tip you over the edge. And if that doesn’t, then the emotional…

In The Light Of The Miracle BE WITH LONG OVERDUE first commercial 12-inch single release of one of the undoubted highlights of the abundant Arthur Russell oeuvre – the fact that Philip Glass and Gilles Peterson had previously tried and failed to get this remix to market gives you some idea of the range of its musical catchment area. The addictive agogô line of the 13-minute Danny Krivit A-side got one of the biggest cheers of the night at the euphoric Barbican tribute show heralding the recent publication of Richard King’s archival treasure trove, Travels Over Feeling. The mid-’90s Tony Morgan remix on the B-side is a bit more route one, but has a nice cameo from Allen Ginsberg.…

The dB’s Stands For Decibels ALBION, 1981 ZOOMING MOJO from home in the southeastern US, Peter Holsapple scampers off screen to pull out the bizarre cassette edition of The dB’s’ debut LP. “It’s all rusty now, but it came in a bean tin,” he explains. “Inside there is a cassette and a dB’s sticker. Albion Records did a beautiful job. At the Virgin store on Oxford Street, they had a front window with these all stacked up.” Recorded and conceived in New York by four schoolmates from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Stands For Decibels was released in Europe only in early 1981. Moody post-punk Britons were unmoved by this force-10-galepaced one-upping of Big Star’s #1 Record. However, with Stands For Decibels finally being lined up for a first vinyl release in the…

1 YÉ KÉ YÉ KÉ MORY KANTÉ (BARCLAY) 2 THEME FROM S’EXPRESS S’EXPRESS (RHYTHM KING/MUTE) 3 IM NIN’ALU OFRA HAZA (HAD ARZI/GLOBE STYLE) 4 N’IMPORTE QUOI FLORENT PAGNY (PHILIPS/DISQUES PÊCHE) 5 I OWE YOU NOTHING BROS (CBS) 6 ASIMBONANGA JOHNNY CLEGG & SAVUKA (EMI) 7 THE TWIST (YO, TWIST!) THE FAT BOYS WITH CHUBBY CHECKER (TIN PAN APPLE/POLYDOR) 8 GIMME HOPE JO’ANNA EDDY GRANT (ICE) 9 BOYS SABRINA (FIVE RECORDS) 10 J’AI FAIM DE TOI SANDY (CARRERE)…

Nancy Sinatra STILL WALKIN’ ALL OVER YOU What music are you currently grooving to? Currently Beyoncé, Chris Stapleton, Nathaniel Rateliff, Billie Eilish and Wilco. But forever and always The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers and Dolly Parton. And I still love the standards – they still play that old stuff out here! What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? If I could choose only one, it’d be one of these three: Tony Bennett’s The Movie Song Album, Dad’s The Concert Sinatra and Johnny Mathis’s Open Fire, Two Guitars. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? Probably Ruth Brown. Maybe Tear-drops From My Eyes or Lucky Lips? I used to shop at Wallichs Music City at the corner…

Moovin’ N’ Groovin’ (SINGLE, JAMIE, 1958) Duane and producers Lee Hazlewood and Lester Sill unleash the mighty twang. Cut at Ramsey Recorders in Phoenix using a huge grain silo echo chamber, then supercharged with Plas Johnson’s booting sax, it established Eddy’s signature sound. Rebel Rouser (SINGLE, JAMIE, 1958) Eddy’s big-league debut. More fine sax (courtesy of Gil Bernal), plus background shouts by LA vocal group The Sharps. He promoted it on a Dick Clark outdoor TV broadcast, driven around on the platform of a giant fork-lift. Quiniela (FROM ESPECIALLY FOR YOU, JAMIE, 1959) A gently swinging jazz track, derived from the 1920s standard St. James Infirmary, with Al Casey on piano. Eddy tackled many different styles, but this early step away from the pure twang was one of his most…

BORN IN SALFORD in 1946, Graham Gouldman was elected to the Song-writers Hall Of Fame in 2014. Anyone who’s listened to pop music will know why he’s there alongside Bacharach and David, Jimmy Webb, Lennon and McCartney and the hallowed rest. He penned ’60s hits for Herman’s Hermits (No Milk Today), The Hollies (Bus Stop), The Yardbirds (Heart Full Of Soul) and more, wrote for bubblegum pop factory Kasenetz-Katz in New York, and then co-founded compulsive experimenters 10cc in 1972. Millions of sales later, with 1975’s magnificent I’m Not In Love their claim to immortality, he’s still sustaining, touring with his incarnation of 10cc and his Heart Full Of Songs project, and recording new LPs, of which I Have Notes is the latest. On I Have Notes, you’re joined by…

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STEVE ALBINI STOPPED BY THE SESSIONS FOR SLINT’S SPIDERLAND, ALTHOUGH HE WASN’T happy about the circumstances. In 1987, three years before Slint cut their lionised second album in a Chicago studio, Albini had captured the chaotic debut of the four teenage Kentuckians. He was 25, an iconoclastic punk provocateur who was not only reaching the end of his run with his demented industrial-hardcore band, Big Black, but also rapidly developing a reputation as an acerbic fellow who would record your band on the cheap and quick. For a few days that fall, he and the upstarts met at Studiomedia in the Chicago suburb of Evanston and tried to figure out what exactly they were doing. “We didn’t want a Big Black production, an Albini production. We wanted to experiment, to…

TAKE THIS HAMMER Lead Belly’s recordings of this prison work song have always fascinated Nichols. “I used to play this song a lot,” he says. “It’s not obviously a protest song but it definitely is. And it’s still relevant: in places like Texas and Louisiana, there’s still a culture of brutality in prisons. But I also hear the hope in this, the dream of a better life.” ROCK ISLAND LINE One of the most influential recordings in the history of popular music, the model for Lonnie Donegan’s skiffle version which lit the torch for British rock’n’roll. “I love how this is like an advert for the railroad,” says Nichols. “This aspect of folk music – as a record of contemporary events and how people felt about them – it’s like…

SCRIPT OF THE BRIDGE (Statik, 1983) A landmark debut, of the same calibre as Joy Division, U2 and the Bunnymen. From loud (opening juggernaut Don’t Fall) to quiet (aching finale View From A Hill is almost ambient), Script… covers post-punk terrain with anthemic vitality. Only time to sample one track? Second Skin is a masterclass in ebbing, flowing tension. WHAT DOES ANYTHING MEAN? BASICALLY (Statik, 1985) The production and songwriting falls short of its predecessor’s peaks and consistency, but the politically raging Singing Rule Britannia (While The Walls Close In) and Perfume Garden’s tribute to John Peel remain in the band’s live set for good reason. The CD reissue adds the fantastic In Shreds/Nostalgia single and album demos. STRANGE TIMES (Geffen, 1986) With a ‘proper’ producer, they found a new…

Crying In The Night (Buckingham Nicks, Buckingham Nicks, Polydor, 1973) Resurrected by Nicks on her 2016 tour, this song ostensibly warns against a heartbreaker and her wiles. There are indications, however, that Nicks is rooting for this “tarnished pearl”; a jubilation in her phrasing, a languid pleasure at the prospect of this emotional wrecking ball being “back in town”. Cry harder. VS Frozen Love (Buckingham Nicks, Buckingham Nicks, Polydor, 1973) Fortuitously, Lindsey and Stevie already sounded like FM before they joined. Lo, an obvious shoreup shoo-in when Mick Fleetwood heard this shape-shifting, proggy blend of folk blues, dazzling AOR harmonies and feral lead guitar. The precocious holy grail of the Mac’s most combustible couple. Helpfully, Jim Keltner drummed. JMc Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac, Reprise, 1975) Essayed live by…

John Lennon Mind Games: Ultimate Collection CAPITOL/UME. CD/DL/LP ON APRIL 2, 1973, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held a press conference in New York City to announce their latest peace project: the birth of a nation. Nutopia was “a conceptual country”, they said in a statement, with “no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.” Citizenship was awarded by declaring “your awareness of Nutopia.” The statement was actually dated April 1 – April Fool’s Day. Nutopia was one of the couple’s “mind games”, Lennon admitted to the press corps. “We put the thought out, then we’ll react to whatever the reaction is.” There was underlying tension in the gag. Lennon was effectively stateless, fighting deportation from the US by the Nixon administration. The ex-Beatle was soon homeless as well, evicted…

Rusty Egan Presents Blitzed! DEMON. CD/LP We’re nightclubbing, we’re what’s happening: 4-CD set from sceneshaking DJ. BETWEEN 1979 and 1980, Rusty Egan was the DJ at Covent Garden wine bar and ’80s pop star nursery the Blitz Club, scenesetting for an adventurously dressy clientele keen to tap back into the glamorous art school spirit of Roxy Music and David Bowie. Dismayed by arriviste ‘New Romantic’ compilations, Egan has here reconstructed his echt 1980 sound, one of those up-for-grabs moments when the lines between punk, pop, disco and electronic music were blurred and everything was best accessorised with a faint sense of transgression (The Normal and Throbbing Gristle are present) and, if possible, a European accent (hello, Gina X Performance’s No GDM). Kraftwerk and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark provide the…

The Cool Operator GORGON/VP. CD/LP Rocksteady, roots and soul covers from the Dean of Reggae. JAMAICA’S FIRST child star, Delroy Wilson began his career at Studio One as a pre-teen in the ska years, cutting influential hits before his voice broke. Known as the Dean of Reggae because younger singers emulated his style, Wilson subsequently forged a strong working relationship with Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee, whose output forms the bulk of this compilation, mixing soul covers with inspired originals. Passionately rendered adaptations of foreign hits such as the Isley Brothers’ This Old Heart Of Mine and The Temptations’ Get Ready were hugely popular, and Wilson makes covers of The Wailers’ I’m Still Waiting and Alton Ellis’s Live And Learn all his own. Of the outstanding originals, the determined Better Must Come…

Sweet ’n’ sour: (clockwise from left) Freda Payne performing Band Of Gold in 1970; vamping it up: The Damned’s Dave Vanian in 1977; the Fabs’ much-bootlegged US debut on Vee-Jay; playing the Dane: Richard Hawley has been credited as scoring music for the film Denmark. I was assured by a friend that Lou Reed’s Perfect Day is about being on heroin. What other songs found success despite their rather heavy origins and lyrical content? Tony Graham, via e-mail MOJO says: Sweet-sounding hits with a dubious subtext is a rich area for study. A good example is hoary wedding party favourite of yore, Band Of Gold by Freda Payne, which is, of course, about a newlywed couple who split immediately, possibly because the male partner can’t consummate the marriage. Like that…