About the author
Since the late 1960s I’ve written about music for the Melody Maker, the Times, the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian, Down Beat, Jazz Journal, Mojo, the TLS, Granta and other publications. A list of the people I’ve most enjoyed interviewing during that time would include Marvin Gaye, Laura Nyro, Booker T Jones, Miles Davis, Curtis Mayfield, Charles Mingus, Brian and Dennis Wilson, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves, Steve Cropper, Chet Baker, Isaac Hayes, Mac Rebennack, Phil Spector, Ry Cooder, Bob Marley, Ellie Greenwich, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Stan Getz and Martha Reeves. My books on music include Out of His Head: The Sound of Phil Spector (1972), Bob Dylan: A Man Called Alias (1990), Long Distance Call: Writings on Music (2000) and The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music (2009). I live in London.
Good luck with this. Beautifully evocative and steeped in detail. Best of all I can hear your voice.
Thanks, Kevin. I hope you continue to enjoy it.
Hi Richard
Re your blog on Cash – it’s his childhood home in Dyess that is slated to become a tourist destination. His home in Hendersonville – the one on the lake – burned down shortly after his death.
Steve
Martin Colyer put me onto this blog, which has stirred up lots of memories – espeially of the Jazz Centre Society’s Monday night gigs at the 100 Club, where we were both regulars.
By coincidence a friend had given me some Bob Downes reissues and Mike King of Reel Recordings had sent me a copy of his latest issue of Brish Jazz in transition, assembled from private recordiings and cassettes. It goes with Duncan Heining’s book “Trad Dads..etc”. It underlined to me just how good the music was about 1967 – 72: Mike Taylor, Joe Harriott, Mongezi Feza, Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Ian Carr and many others were pushing the boundaries of music. It’s an unforgettable reminder of the period and of many departed characters. But it’s also a reminder of those still performing: Gary Windo, Kenny Wheeler, Stans Tracey & Sultzman and the incredible Norma Winstone (heard here with Graham Collier). There were giants on the earth in those days, and some are still around.
Your blog is also very welcome for its breadth of music. I was part of a purist Jazz coterie but was a closet listener to Dylan, Beefheart, Terry Riley, Zappa and Tim Buckley. Your writing at the time gave me many paths to explore and it is very gratifying to see that those paths are still being kept clear and new ones opened up by your “Blue Moment” book and this blog.
Congratulations!
George Foster
Very good to hear from you, George. Glad you’re enjoying the blog. The memory of those Monday nights at the 100 never fades.
Great to come across this blog. I’ll never forget working at Virgin Marble Arch when one time we were playing The Skys The Limit by the Temptations; suddenly you stuck your head around the corner to give us the thumbs up. It made our day! Mind you the record deserved it and is still insufficiently acclaimed, I think. (People seem to have forgotten Smokey’s Quiet Storm too.)
You must have been playing the epic “Smiling Faces Sometimes”: best-ever use of bassoon on a soul/R&B record… And Quiet Storm was a wonderful album, particularly the title track.
Dear Richard, I’m very pleased to have discovered your new blog, there’s lots here to catch up on. I just skimmed through and lovely to see Don Cherry outside Munich KunstHaus. I think my musical taste was formed by many of your recommendations in the Melody Maker and on Disco 2 too! Keep up the good work. I’m pinning The Blue Moment to my blogroll. Best wishes, Chris.
Thanks, Chris. Much appreciated.
Terrific blog, Richard. Just came across it today as a Twitter neophyte. I recall emailing you on your journalistic versatility a few years ago when your reply suggested you were considering setting up a music-related blog/site. I am therefore claiming a morsel of credit for the inspiration !
Some wonderful writing within. Good of you to remember the late Kevin Ayers.
Keep it going !
Paul Crowe
Hi Richard, given your enthusiasm for both music and motor racing, I thought you might appreciate my rather tenous linking of Django Reinhardt and Ayrton Senna: http://www.f1professor.wordpress.com
I just read your excellent piece on Chet Baker. Can´t say I´m a genuine jazzfan, but I just had to check out the Tokyo concert after I finished reading. You were – of course – right. A truly splendid album. / regards Pierre Ragnehag, Sundsvall, Sweden.
Richard – a Facebook post by Michael Cuscuna alerted me to the existence of this blog. Your ’70′s Melody Maker output was a fundamental source in shaping my youthful taste in challenging music, and I’m delighted to renew my connection with your music writing.
That’s very kind of you, Jon. Thanks.
Hi Richard – stumbled on here via a Cafe Oto retweet and spent a very enjoyable time re-acquainting myself with your music writings. As always, impressed with the breadth,depth and eclectic range of your sonic interests (something in the East Midlands air back in the old days,perhaps?). Look forward to more…
Wonderful blog, Richard. I’ve recommended it to my friends here, in Spain. Thanks, maestro.
Good piece. My own take on the evening, perhaps more from the heart than the head, at http://nicelyoutoftune.wordpress.com