Rolling Stone is a fortnightly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still the magazine’s editor-in-chief, and music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was known for its musical coverage and for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990’s, the magazine changed its format to appeal to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors, and popular music. In recent years, the magazine has resumed its traditional mix of content. (More from Wikipedia)
The 2008 documentary, It Might Get Loud shows rock guitarist legends from three generations discussing their music and their careers and their influences: Jimmy Page (the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2), and Jack White (the White Stripes, the Raconteurs). Needless to say, they all three made the Rolling Stone list of 100 Greatest Guitarists also: #3, #38 and #70, respectively.
At one point, Jimmy Page starts flipping through a pile of 45’s and pulls out “Rumble” by Link Wray and His Ray Men. To see a rock legend grooving along with that song, to see that big beaming smile on his face, to hear him discussing how the song developed, to see Page actually doing “air guitar” to “Rumble”: that really is something special. The clip from It Might Get Loud is well worth a viewing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLEUSn8y9TI .
(February 2013)
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If anything, Leon Redbone had an even more stylized appearance than Tiny Tim; and he became known for his performances of old songs like “Champagne Charlie”, “My Walking Stick” and “Shine On Harvest Moon” in a creaky voice while playing a guitar. Though his was basically a novelty act also, Redbone got a lot more respect. Bob Dylan for one was impressed when he performed at the Maricopa Folk Festival in the early 1970’s; and Rolling Stone magazine praised his singing as “so authentic you can hear the surface noise [of an old 78 rpm]”. Like Tiny Tim, Leon Redbone was also a frequent guest on the Tonight Show as well as Saturday Night Live.
(March 2013)
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Greg Shaw began as an amateur journalist and wrote hundreds of newsletters and fanzines early in life; many revolved around science fiction and the work of Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien, but they also included one of the earliest rock magazines that Shaw started in 1966 with David Harris, called Mojo Navigator Rock and Roll News. The magazine was said to be an inspiration for Rolling Stone magazine; Greg Shaw wrote for Rolling Stone also, but he and RS founder Jann Wenner apparently didn’t get along that well.
(May 2013)
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The hits continued for Chuck Berry through the end of the 1950’s and are available in the essential collection, The Great Twenty-Eight – Rolling Stone magazine ranks this retrospective album #21 on its list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. Just for fun, try to count up how many other rock bands and artists recorded a group of songs that could justifiably be described as “the great 28”.
In 2003, Chuck Berry was listed #6 among “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” by Rolling Stone magazine; Time magazine put him at #7 on their list of the 10 greatest electric-guitar players. Six of Berry’s songs made the 2004 list of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”; “Johnny B. Goode” was ranked #7, and it topped Rolling Stone’s 2008 list of “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time”.
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In 1978, Bruce Springsteen told Dave Marsh in an interview published in Rolling Stone: “I play Buddy Holly every night before I go on; that keeps me honest.”
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The song opens with a cry of “A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-lomp-bom-bom!!” and closes with the same cry except that it ends “. . . bam boom!!” In April 2012, Rolling Stone magazine declared that the opening cry in “Tutti Frutti” “has to be considered the most inspired rock lyric ever recorded”. To Little Richard, these syllables were a drum pattern that he heard in his head.
(June 2013/1)
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The L7 album Bricks Are Heavy was named by Rolling Stone as one of the Essential Albums of the 1990’s.
(December 2013)
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Besides the Rolling Stones, Rolling Stone magazine is also named after “Rollin’ Stone”, as is Bob Dylan’s signature song, “Like a Rolling Stone”.
(March 2014/1)
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What I have found about most Internet music sites is that they are mostly geared toward modern music and don’t help me very much. Even Rolling Stone only goes back to 1967; the Rolling Stone Record Guide that I had pre-Katrina covered only albums in print except for the biggest artists. Allmusic truly tries to cover everything, though some of the UARB’s and UARA’s don’t show up in their database. Generally speaking, Allmusic has more bands and artists than Wikipedia, though some bands with a big write-up in Wikipedia have almost nothing in Allmusic.
(March 2014/2)
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Whereas rock music critique was previously about what was good and what was bad, the Blind Faith album was released (in August 1969) at a time when opinions began to be divided about rock music as a whole, and beyond mere aesthetic considerations – whether the idea of rock as an industry could be a good thing regardless of what the music itself was like. As an example, there were three different reviews of Blind Faith in Rolling Stone that month.
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As the years have gone by, appreciation of the Derek and the Dominos album Layla and Other Love Songs – which wasn’t even a critical favorite at the time – has grown, and the album makes several best-album lists. VH1 named it #89, and Rolling Stone has it at #115.
(May 2014)
One glance at the album cover for Saved proves beyond doubt that Bob Dylan was serious with his Christian period. The album art is by a veteran in that field, Tony Wright; two of his designs – for Traffic’s The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971) and Steve Winwood’s Arc of a Diver (1980) – were named among the 100 Greatest Album Covers by Rolling Stone magazine.
In order to downplay the Christian message in the Saved album (if that’s possible), the cover painting was later replaced with a painting of Dylan in performance.
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There was a noticeable dip in the ratings given by rock critics of Bob Dylan’s Christian recordings. That was not true so much for Slow Train Coming – Robert Christgau of the Village Voice gave the album a B+ and wrote: “The lyrics are indifferently crafted. Nevertheless, this is his best album since Blood on the Tracks. The singing is passionate and detailed.” Allmusic and Rolling Stone both rated the album ***.
For Saved, the Rolling Stone rating stood, but Allmusic gave the album only **, and Christgau scored it as C+. Entertainment Weekly showed a C–. Shot of Love had ** from both Rolling Stone and Allmusic; Christgau and Entertainment Weekly showed B–.
With Infidels though, all was forgiven: Rolling Stone and Allmusic were both at ****.
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Some of the criticism of Dylan’s Christian albums is quite harsh. For what it’s worth, a 2013 readers’ poll in Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Gotta Serve Somebody” as Bob Dylan’s second worst song, with “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” as the fourth worst.
(August 2014)
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To some extent, Pet Sounds was Brian Wilson’s answer to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album; and in turn, the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album is in response to Pet Sounds. Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds were voted #1 and #2, respectively, on the Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
(October 2014)
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Rolling Stone magazine included “Personal Jesus” in their 2004 list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”; and the UK music magazine Q ranked the song as one of the “100 Greatest Songs Ever”.
(November 2014)
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As stated in Wikipedia: “Rolling Stone ranked [‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’] #111 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the oldest song on the list.”
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As an example, I have previously written of the origin of the Ritchie Valens hit from 1958, “La Bamba”. The 1987 biopic film about Valens also took the name La Bamba, and “La Bamba” as performed in the film by the Chicano rock band Los Lobos became a Number One hit that year. This song originated in Veracruz (one of the 31 states in Mexico) and was particularly popular at weddings, where the bridge and groom would dance to this music; “La Bamba” might date from as long ago as the 14th Century and is said to have 500 verses. From Wikipedia: “[Ritchie] Valens’ version of ‘La Bamba’ is ranked number 354 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It is the only song on the list sung in a language other than English.”
(February 2015)
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There are probably a lot of people who think of “Yesterday” as being the quintessential Beatles song. It is certainly their most successful – from Wikipedia: “It remains popular today with more than 2,200 cover versions and is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. ‘Yesterday’ was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century alone.”
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One day not so long ago, I was looking at the Wikipedia entry on “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds – a song like this has its own article that (among other things) talks about various versions and covers of the song – and there was a quote in the introductory section from someone at Rolling Stone saying that this was the first psychedelic rock song. I changed the intro and wondered how the RS guy could have thought that. My comment started a discussion with another Wikipedian about this; I noted that the 13th Floor Elevators were advertising themselves as a psychedelic rock band the year before, and he countered that this doesn’t mean they were playing true psychedelic rock songs. Anyway, the link to the Rolling Stone quote no longer pointed to anything, so now the introduction says this (I think the caveat “bona fide” was my idea): “Accordingly, critics often cite ‘Eight Miles High’ as being the first bona fide psychedelic rock song.”
(July 2015)
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