It was a song built on a simple idea – and those are often the best. Gladys Horton, the plaintive lead singer of The Marvelettes, is waiting for a letter
Mike Love’s vocals jumped straight in. “Fun is in, it’s no sin, it’s that time again,” he sang, and it was — time for the Beach Boys to deliver another
When Patsy Cline heard the demo of a new song by a little-known songwriter called Willie Hugh Nelson, she didn’t care for it much. But as she and producer Owen
Motörhead’s spirit of punk invaded hard rock for the first time on record on August 21, 1977. It was the date that marked the release of their self-titled debut album
Metallica faced a difficult challenge in 1987. With their stopgap EP, The $5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-Revisited, they found that in order to move forward they needed to look backward.
Etta James was a mere 17 when she had her first R&B success, in 1955, with “The Wallflower.” Her chart record immediately thereafter was up and down, to say the
You may struggle to believe it, but at the height of the Summer Of Love, the haunting title track to Bobbie Gentry’s debut album, Ode To Billie Joe, knocked The Beatles’
Over the more than 60 years that Kenny Rogers wrote songs, his trajectory defied any straightforward narrative. Yes, he’s a Country Music Hall of Famer; yes, one of his best-known
It would have been hard to imagine Kacey Musgraves becoming a crossover country star based on the sharp, understated songs she came on the scene with in 2012. But it
When asked how to explain the pianist and bandleader Count Basie for the average listener, Butch Miles finds it difficult to be dispassionate. As a teenager, he first saw the