Posts From Jeff Tamarkin

Beach Boys’ Mike Love Talks ‘Pet Sounds’

We asked him how the rumor got started that he didn’t like the album. He tells us: “I don’t know if there are any better harmonies ever”

Read More

Whatever Happened to Stephen Talbot, ‘Leave It to Beaver”s Gilbert? We Asked Him!

Talbot on Jerry Mathers [Beaver]: “He carried that show. He was smart, and in the last couple of years, he was chafing against playing dumb.”

Read More

‘The Band’s With Me’: A Former Groupie Lays It All Down

The memoir is a vivid, raucous, hilarious snapshot of a side of the rock world once ubiquitous. Romano makes no excuses for any of it, nor should she

Read More

Bruce Barthol, Country Joe & the Fish Bassist, Dies at 75

Barthol played on the psychedelic group’s first three albums, including the anthemic ‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die.’

Read More

10 Rocking ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ Performances

You didn’t really “make it” until you’d been on Sullivan. Check out these great clips from the all-time biggest variety show in America

Read More

‘Super Session’: When Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills Got Into a Jam

“The first real rock ’n’ roll jam session,” the gold-selling album featured members of some of the hottest bands of the late ’60s

Read More

Melanie on ‘Candles in the Rain,’ ‘Brand New Key’ & More

“I was just Melanie, the cute flower child person. To the hip people, the real hipsters, I became the cool person to bash. I don’t know how that happened.”

Read More

When Jefferson Airplane Auditioned for Phil Spector: ‘Man, Let’s Get Out of Here!’

“He was shooting [a pellet pistol]. Made me uncomfortable and I left after we played,” remembers guitarist Jorma Kaukonen of the “strange” meeting.

Read More

Making the Scene With Lenny Kaye: Musician, Author, ‘Nuggets’ Curator, Fan

Kaye: “Ideas start coming together, almost like cosmic dust starts to form a planet. Then there’s a realization that something different is happening.”

Read More

Charlie Gracie, Early Rocker Who Hit #1 With ‘Butterfly,’ Dies at 86

Loved by the likes of Paul McCartney and Graham Nash, the Philly rockabilly singer helped put Cameo-Parkway Records on the map.

Read More