live from your speakers

In 1974, had you put Stephen Stills in front of, say, a local wedding band, or your neighborhood kids’ garage band, those combos would have instantly become the coolest bands anywhere, by simple virtue of his presence. Or, more to...

Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson were naturally complementary singers who might have been bigger as a duo, had they begun their partnership earlier in their respective careers. As it was, Flack had spent the ‘70s making a brace of classic...

Fans of progressive rock had arguably their best era (certainly commercially, if not musically) in the 1970s, when the giants of the genre stalked the earth and made some of their finest records. By the end of the ‘80s, though...

Dokken was one of the great also-rans of the late-’80s hard-rock bands – a perennial opening act with exceptional instrumental pedigree and some pretty great songs to boot, they blasted apart just short of achieving wider stardom. Legend has it...

There are reasons Phish fans count their New Year’s Eve gig at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden to be one of their best. The show contained everything about the band that was so lovable to their tribe –...

Eric Clapton’s lengthy stands at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1990 and 1991 were of course working nights for the 45-ish-year-old guitarist, but they were also celebrations. Clapton had experienced something of a commercial resurgence with 1989’s double-platinum JOURNEYMAN, which...

Every great band has a back story – a history of performances, rehearsals, songwriting sessions and the like – that helped make them the group they one day became. The Beatles played countless gigs in Hamburg bars before they became...

We could use Pete Seeger right about now, couldn’t we? Who wouldn’t appreciate a wise, folksy elder with a predilection for bringing together people of different perspectives and creeds, someone who used storytelling and music to find common territory (emotional...

Who would have picked the Four Seasons, of all the rock and pop acts to emerge in the very early ‘60s, to still be a relevant musical force in the disco era? Certainly, they had their periodic commercial ups and...