Steve Sutherland

Donovan: What’s Bin Did And What’s Bin Hid

Steve Sutherland | Feb 19, 2021 | 0 comments

Steve Sutherland listens again to the debut LP that catapulted a teenage singer to stardom as over half a century later the album is re-released on 180g vinyl

Dylan digs Donovan!' This was the headline on the front cover of British weekly Melody Maker, on the 8th of May 1965. It wasn't true of course – not remotely so.

Inside the Studio

Rockfield Studios

Steve Sutherland | Feb 16, 2021 | 0 comments

Steve Sutherland kicks off a new series with the story of a farmhouse that became the world's first residential recording studio, and a home to hitmakers for over 50 years

The TV was out the window, still plugged in… The double-bed was broken in half... It was just like a hand-grenade had gone off in the room... The whole studio got smashed to pieces, the living room, everything got blitzed… There were smashed windows… just devastation…'

Vinyl Release

Prince: Sign O' The Times

Steve Sutherland | Jan 15, 2021 | 0 comments

As this 1987 LP appears on 180g vinyl Steve Sutherland recalls his interview with Prince back in 1981. Did their meeting influence the singer's signature behaviour?

Maybe I should shoulder some of the blame. It was me, after all, who declared in a Melody Maker review of his previous album, Parade, that Prince was God's gift to music or some such nonsense.

Meet the Producers

The Bomb Squad

Steve Sutherland | Jan 05, 2021 | 0 comments

In the last of our series celebrating the work of those masters behind the mixing desk, Steve Sutherland tells the story of not one producer but a hip-hop production team whose looping and layering of samples revolutionised the way records were made

On this particular point, Chuck D is unequivocal. 'Our sole intention was to destroy music'. The record he's talking about, released in June 1988, is hip-hop giants Public Enemy's second LP, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back.

Meet the Producers

Allen Toussaint

Steve Sutherland | Dec 15, 2020 | 0 comments

His ability to mix funky rhythms with sophisticated arrangements saw this US-born producer create a string of magical smash hit singles. Steve Sutherland looks at the legacy of Allen Toussaint, whose work epitomised the sound of 1960s New Orleans R&B

You'll be aware, no doubt, of the phenomenon known as Cancel Culture – a state of mind in which those celebrities deemed to have diverged from what today passes for socially acceptable behaviour are called upon to renounce their past and present sins or be damned and ditched forever. To some, this impulse to blame and shame, while born of the best intentions, seems to have tipped into the absurd.

Vinyl Release

CC Revival: Cosmo's Factory

Steve Sutherland | Dec 07, 2020 | 0 comments

Packed with tracks that would become staples of rock radio, this 1970 LP from Creedence Clearwater Revival is now released on 180g vinyl. Steve Sutherland listens...

Let's talk 'covers'. Surely everyone knows the rule by now: a cover version is only acceptable if it takes the original and does something different with it, which at least equals or at best improves it. There. It's not exactly rocket science is it? So how come there are still so very few classic cover versions after all these many years?

Vinyl Release

Getz and Gilberto: Getz/Gilberto

Steve Sutherland | Nov 10, 2020 | 0 comments

Stan botches his store raid and is briefly locked away. Steve Sutherland listens to the Bossa Nova sax maestro as this 1964 Verve album is reissued on 180g vinyl

Stan Getz may have been good at many things in 1954 but robbery sure wasn't one of them. Strung out on smack and desperate for a fix, the hot young jazz saxophonist found himself eight days into a tour, standing outside a drugstore in Seattle.

Meet the Producers

Dave Stewart

Steve Sutherland | Nov 06, 2020 | 0 comments

Perhaps what distinguishes this British-born producer is that he's not only able to play a variety of instruments but is also a performer. And a hugely successful one too, having been one half of chart-topping duo Eurythmics. Steve Sutherland on Dave Stewart...

Back in 1973, Dave Stewart was stuck in a hippie band called Longdancer. It wasn't a bad gig but Dave was restless. Then he met Erin Grace. She was this gorgeous American singer/songwriter who he bumped into in North London and the two hit it off.

Investigation

Just For The Record... 2020's Record Store Days

Steve Sutherland | Nov 03, 2020 | 0 comments

Steve Sutherland on the vinyl treats arriving on 2020's Record Store Days

Launched in America in 2008 as a way of encouraging collectors to frequent their local independent record shops and keep vinyl alive, Record Store Day is now an annual event offering rare, limited edition releases which will not only tickle the fancy of uber-fans but, like other works of art, accrue value as investments.

Meet the Producers

Gus Dudgeon

Steve Sutherland | Oct 09, 2020 | 0 comments

From David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' to the albums that rocketed Elton John up the charts, this British-born producer was one of the first to fuse orchestral arrangements with the fire of rock 'n' roll. Steve Sutherland considers the work and legacy of Gus Dudgeon

In the Spring of 1968, David Bowie, a pop star with a failing career, sat through Stanley Kubrick's trippy masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey at least three times at the Casino Cinerama in Old Compton Street. 'It was the sense of isolation I related to,' he explained later. 'I found the whole thing amazing. I was out of my gourd, very stoned when I went to see it – several times – and it was a revelation to me. It got the song flowing.'

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