Posts From Jeff Tamarkin

Beach Boys’ Al Jardine Interview—’Pet Sounds’: ‘Ahead of Its Time’

The Beach Boys’ founding member Al Jardine speaks with Best Classic Bands on the making of the group’s iconic album, ‘Pet Sounds’

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Don’t You Forget About Me: 13 More Timeless Early ’80s British Earworms

Those huge hits by The Clash, Joy Division, Pet Shop Boys and others still grab us nearly four decades after we first heard them.

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Judith Durham, Seekers Singer (‘Georgy Girl’), Dead at 79

The Australian folk-rock quartet’s big hits also included “I’ll Never Find Another You” and “A World of Our Own.”

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Jimy Sohns, Shadows of Knight Singer (“Gloria”), Dead at 75

The singer was only 16 when he co-founded the Chicago-based garage-rock band that would record one of the great covers of the ’60s.

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Linda Ronstadt Documentary Review: ‘I Have to Sing’

From the beginning of her career, Ronstadt was never not going to be a sensation. Only the natural course of life could make her stop singing.

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Little Feat’s Paul Barrere On the Band’s Legacy

“The most important part is the music itself. When we get together and we play these songs, it always brings the best out in you.”–Paul Barrere

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Cynthia Plaster Caster, Groupie Who Made Art From Rockers’ Genitals, Dead at 74

Using a substance utilized for dental molds, she immortalized rockers’ “junk,” with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Burdon and other musicians posing for posterity..

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Art Rupe—Label Owner Who Signed Little Richard and Sam Cooke—Dies at 104

A gospel music fan who moved into the fields of R&B and early rock ‘n’ roll, his Specialty Records label gave us some of the greatest classics of the era.

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Idol Chatter: An Interview with the Late Bobby Rydell

“They wouldn’t pull the hair so much, but they would go for a tie or a cufflink.”–The 50s/’60s teen idol on his over-enthusiastic fans.

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Bobby Rydell, ’50s/’60s Singer, Actor and Teen Idol, Dead at 79

Part of a wave of young, Philadelphia based teen idols, his hits included “Wild One” and “Volare,” and he starred in ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ with Ann-Margret.

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