Medium Rare Interviews

With Belfast-born Van Morrison's July 1972 sixth album "Saint Dominic's Preview", the mainstream rock audience finally caught up to the quality jazzy, folksy rhythm'n'blues Morrison had been belting out consistently since critics began lauding his debut,"Astral Weeks". This rare 21st century classic rock interview was conducted in Belfast by the BBC's intrepid John Bennett.

Eddie Money was always an effortless interview before his death in September 2019, a real pleasure, because he loved people, he loved to tell stories, and he had a million of 'em. As I prepared dual anniversaries for two of the late Eddie Money's best selling albums, “Eddie Money” debut in October 1977 and the big breakthrough “No Control” five years later in June 1982 forty years ago,  it occurred that one of the less recognized aspects of the brief but all-important Punk Rock trend in the latter half of the Seventies is how it aided and abetted countless upstart bands at the same time which were not necessarily a part of that CBGB Club scene. The late Eddie Money is my guest here In the Studio.

The wonderful music on Supertramp's "Even in the Quietest Moments", peaking at #16 on Billboard and #12 in their native UK, sounds to my ear as vital today as ever, somehow frozen in time like the snow atop the grand piano on the album's cover. One of the Supertramp singer/ songwriters, guitarist Roger Hodgson joins me here In the Studio for a rare classic rock interview while sharing spectacular live performances from transitional album “Crisis? What Crisis? “ plus sublime songs "Give a Little Bit","From Now On","Downstream" and "Even in the Quietest Moments".

"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.

This interview with Jackson Browne features highlights"Doctor My Eyes","Jamaica Say You Will", and "Rock Me on the Water" from his January 1972 debut; "Late for the Sky" 's  title song as well as "Fountain of Sorrow" from 1974; his commercial breakthrough and multi-million seller "The Pretender" in November 1976 with "Here Come Those Tears Again" and the timeless title song; and a 2010 live acoustic version of the 1977  Jackson Browne mega-hit "Running on Empty".