R.I.P.

In my early teens I was a big fan of The Allman Brothers’ 1971 live album At Fillmore East. And this 13-minute instrumental was my favourite track.

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Sad to hear of the death of one of hip-hop’s unsung pioneers, Keith LeBlanc, creator of this landmark collaboration with black rights leader Malcolm X. 

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Fifty years ago Steve Harley’s Cockney Rebel were the second band I ever saw. They were riding high in the charts with Judy Teen and I’d been a huge fan since I first heard this song a year earlier. I thought it was the strangest and most compelling piece of music I had ever heard.

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I discovered Can at the age of 16, back when I was at school. Not because I was some sort of cool avant-garde kid but purely because they put out an album for a cut-price 59p. 

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Sunday Times – July 10, 2011
 
Almost exactly nine years ago I was sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park in downtown New York, talking to Justin Townes Earle. He was a troubled young man who made music of searing honesty – the vital component of the hybrid of blues, country and folk that he sang and played.

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