"'Tommy' changed everything and saved us," Pete Townshend remembers in the introductory essay to the 2011 re-release of "Quadrophenia". Basically, The Who had been a singles band in the sixties; the sudden intellectualization of pop music had posed a new, unexpected challenge to its thought leader. "People suddenly wanted to hear 'serious' music from pop groups.
We remember: On 4 June 2008, the comeback tour with Yes singer Jon Anderson was cancelled due to his health problems. Anderson had been hospitalized only a few weeks earlier for an asthma attack. The doctors had strongly advised him against concerts in the near future. Only three months later it became known that the Canadian Benoît David, singer of the Yes cover band Close To The Edge and the melodic prog band Mystery, would represent Anderson on shows in the future. And not only that: David recorded the surprisingly solid studio work "Fly From Here" with Yes 2011.
And that makes guitarist/singer Dan Auerbach (35) really angry. He has the feeling that he will not be granted success, that mass compatibility will suddenly be something dirty and negative, and that as an artist he must not grow, but should always serve the same thing. Which is why he deliberately steps on the brakes to release the latest Keys epic, hardly gives interviews anymore and prefers to let the music speak.
For quite some time now Blues Pills have been an absolute favourite with critics. This is mainly due to the two front men. Elin Larsson, the Swedish singer, has an organ that goes to her heart's content - and to the men, even to other regions, if you listen to the urinal pool conversations during and after a Blues Pills gig. But the woman is not only an eye-catcher, her soulful voice, which is often compared to that of Janis Joplin or Inga Rumpf, gives the band a lot of leeway. This is also extended by the second main player, Dorian Sorriaux.
It was a shock. The first PR photos, published in March 1994, shortly before the release of "The Division Bell", showed an emaciated David Gilmour. He looked lean and hard, his grey hair shorn short. Perhaps he was marked by the fights that had raged between him and his former band colleague Roger Waters in the late eighties. Did the appearance of the sensitive guitarist show that he had worn himself out in the legal dispute that bore the traits of a private feud? That the economic aspects of the Pink Floyd enterprise were ultimately more important to him than the artistic side?
These days "The Power And The Glory" is the first release in a hopefully long series of new editions of Gentle Giant's albums. In recent years there have been numerous, sometimes half-hearted attempts to bring the works back into the consciousness of prog fans. But now Steven Wilson - after King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Yes - has taken care of probably the most complex of all prog legends and made his remix skills available to her. The result is phenomenal. Suddenly you think you can hear every single one of the numerous instruments that make up a Gentle Giant song.
Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards - all the great guitarists of the classical rock era have something in common without which a success story in the pop business would be inconceivable: hits. Jeff Beck has to pass. Not even a guitar riff for eternity like that of "Smoke On The Water" or at least a solo like the one in Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" he could claim for himself. The only hit he ever had was "Hi Ho Silver Lining!", an obscure 1967 beer-tent dark beer scarecrow, which producer Mickie Most had committed to make the guitarist a solo star.
In 1978, the debut album of the Canadian prog formation Saga featured a golden insect that has since become a kind of band mascot. The chapters, the mosaic stones that together form a science fiction march around Albert Einstein's preserved brain, were found non-chronologically on the Saga albums from 1978 to 2003. Futuristic design and virtuoso craftsmanship characterize Saga to this day. Michael Sadler and Ian Crichton report where the band stands in 2014.
For fourteen years, the White Stripes screwed and shredded the shortest connection between punk and blues, bypassing all frills and diversions. In the long run, however, guitarist Jack White was not enough for this action area, and he additionally founded bands like Dead Weather or Die Raconteurs. All these groups are temporary history. Lazaretto" is his second solo appearance. "Lazaretto" is an album built in the seventies. The record is full of pop effects, but also relies on the deeper effect, which only opens up after repeated listening.
"Maelstrom", the title of Stian Westerhus' new album, is the program: The guitarist and singer touches on it a bubbling mixture of styles, which fascinates again and again and draws the listener into itself. The Norwegian directs his band Pale Horses, which consists of keyboarder Øystein Moen and drummer Erland Dahlen, through experimental, psychedelic and prog waters and refines the whole thing with his expressive vocals, reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, Scott Walker and Chris Martin. As a child Westerhus discovered his passion for music.
