Medium Rare Interviews

If only the world's most acclaimed rock musicians voted for election into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Little Feat would have been inducted on the first ballot years ago. The list of famous Little Feat fans included the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Palmer, and Robert Plant just for starters. But for most of the Seventies, they didn't sell many albums...

Fiftieth anniversary of the all-important transitional second ZZ Top album, Rio Grande Mud, will focus on the all-around improvements in recording quality and songwriting reflected in such perennials as "Francene", "Just Got Paid", "Sure Got Cold After the Rain Fell", and the introduction of "the squank" to guitar vernacular on "KoKo Blue". Squankmaster Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard, and the dearly missed Dusty Hill tell the colorful tales of the earliest days of ZZ Top here In the Studio for  Rio Grande Mud's five decade pit stop.

"So Happy It Hurts" is the Canadian rocker's fifteenth (!) studio album, and he's not even old enough to get the Early Bird Special down at Denny's. Adams became a star way back in late 1984 with "Reckless", one of the Eighties' biggest sellers, then in 1991 absolutely crushed it with "Waking Up the Neighbours", an all-time biggest selling album in history. Bryan Adams' seventh studio album, "18 'Til I Die" , was a #1 seller in the UK and Top Five sales internationally. But when  "18 'Til I Die" came out in June 1996, US rock radio programmers decided, in spite of the music actually on the album to the contrary, to brand Bryan Adams a love song balladeer, not rock enough, not alternative enough, not cool enough. Adams finally addresses the issue with tongue firmly in cheek on the song "Kick Ass" from "So Happy It Hurts" with the help of the brilliant British pillar of Python humor, John Cleese, who has been skewering pompous pundits for half a century. Also listen to the infectious "Never Gonna Rain Again" which could be Bryan Adams' next big hit.

The members of the original Byrds - singer/songwriter/electric 12-string guitar player Roger (Jim) McGuinn, singer/songwriter David Crosby, the talented but tortured late singer/songwriter Gene Clark, bass player Chris Hillman, & the late drummer Michael Clarke - were always unabashed in their acknowledgment of their influences, equal parts American folk singers, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. Yet instead of being hopelessly derivative, somehow they ended up being one of the greatest imprints on both the form and substance of rock and country music to this day.  McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman join me in this ultra-rare classic rock interview covering the first four Byrds albums Mr Tambourine Man,  Turn Turn Turn, Fifth Dimension , and Younger Than Yesterday in February 1967. - Redbeard