Contributor
31 items by Bud Scoppa
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Shining Through the Rain | ALBUM REVIEW
Shining Through the Rain shows that sixty-two-year-old Percy Sledge can still locate the emotional essence of a song, as he did so unforgettably on "When a Man Loves a Woman," his 1966 debut single. Producers Saul Davis...
January 27, 2005 12:00 AM ET -
Santana (Reissue) | ALBUM REVIEW
Santana's 1969 debut album followed close on the heels of the sextet's coming-out party at the Woodstock Festival, where the multiethnic, single-minded San Francisco band nearly stole the show from the likes of the Grateful Dead and...
January 27, 2005 12:00 AM ET -
Rolling Stone Hall of Fame: The Rolling Stones' 'Black and Blue' | ARTICLE
When Black and Blue came out in 1976, many dismissed the album because it wasn't Exile on Main Street or even Goats Head Soup – which, in retrospect, is precisely what makes it so cool....
June 24, 2004 11:25 AM ET -
Food For The Spirit | ALBUM REVIEW
God's really got a hold on the soul legendfloating over the digitized grooves of producer Michael Stokes, Smokey Robinson's unmistakable alto sounds as angelic as ever on this, his first religious album. He teases out "Let Your...
May 5, 2004 12:00 AM ET -
Life | ALBUM REVIEW
An addendum to 2000's Love, God, Murder a theme-based career retrospective conceived and produced by Johnny Cash himself, Life stands as the great man's final artistic statement: Frail and devastated by the death of his wife, June...
April 19, 2004 12:00 AM ET -
The Very Best Of Jackson Browne | ALBUM REVIEW
During the 1970s, Jackson Browne was it — a boyishly handsome SoCal icon whose critically admired hit albums spoke to listeners with unparalleled intimacy. The first half of this two-disc retrospective, drawing on Browne's five 1970s LPs...
April 19, 2004 12:00 AM ET -
The Paul Simon Songbook | ALBUM REVIEW
After Simon and Garfunkel's first album, 1964's Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m., stiffed, a bummed-out Paul Simon packed up and moved to London. There he might have remained, playing coffeehouses, if Wednesday Morning producer Tom Wilson hadn't come...
March 29, 2004 12:00 AM ET -
Graham Nash / David Crosby | ALBUM REVIEW
Stephen Stills and David Crosby have been taking it on the chin lately, and the blows hurled against them have not been without justification: the live album of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young may have been an...
May 26, 1976 12:00 AM ET -
Fleetwood Mac | ALBUM REVIEW
Not only is Fleetwood Mac no longer blues oriented, it isn't even really British: The two newest members, Lindsey Buckingham (guitar and vocals)...
September 25, 1975 12:00 PM ET -
Gorilla | ALBUM REVIEW
James Taylor pretty much wrote the book for the singer/songwriters of the Seventies. That may be a dubious distinction but Taylor's early work, characterized by subdued singing and restrained, clean backings, was also marked by an undercurrent...
July 17, 1975 12:00 AM ET -
Nuthin' Fancy | ALBUM REVIEW
With three full-time electric guitarists, a piano player and a fireplug of a lead singer who looks like Robert Blake's Baretta in a hippie disguise, Georgia's Lynyrd Skynyrd presents an unusually broad front line. And the band's...
June 19, 1975 12:00 AM ET -
There's One In Every Crowd | ALBUM REVIEW
Eric Clapton's sense of well-being is reiterated on There's One in Every Crowd, but on this album it seems less a cause for joy than an occasion for musical indifference. As on 461 Ocean Boulevard, Clapton plays...
May 22, 1975 12:00 AM ET -
Sheer Heart Attack | ALBUM REVIEW
Two of the most liberated and ambitious of the "fun" oriented British bands beginning to make their mark in the States are the updated war-horses Pretty Things and the nouveau-heavies Queen. Both of these groups, which could...
May 8, 1975 12:00 AM ET -
Dragon Fly | ALBUM REVIEW
For several years, the nucleus of the Airplane/Starship has been struggling to hold together a concept that didn't seem workable in the first place. The performing personalities of Slick and Kantner have long seemed much too cold-hearted...
January 2, 1975 12:00 AM ET -
Dragon Fly | ALBUM REVIEW
For several years, the nucleus of the Airplane/Starship has been struggling to hold together a concept that didn't seem workable in the first place. The performing personalities of Slick and Kantner have long seemed much too cold-hearted...
January 2, 1975 12:00 AM ET -
Bad Company | ALBUM REVIEW
On its first album, Bad Company — led by former Free singer Paul Rodgers and original Mott guitarist Mick Ralphs — resembles Free in its structural starkness and early Mott in its stormy directness. In Bad Company,...
August 29, 1974 12:00 AM ET -
Pretzel Logic | ALBUM REVIEW
Steely Dan is the most improbable hit-singles band to emerge in ages. On its three albums, the group has developed an impressionistic approach to rock & roll that all but abandons many musical conventions and literal lyrics...
May 23, 1974 12:00 AM ET -
Bachman-Turner Overdrive II | ALBUM REVIEW
This four-man band from Vancouver may be short on flamboyance, but producer-guitarist Randy Bachman (formerly a mainstay of the Guess Who) has a sure sense of dynamics and tone. He brought B.T.O. from nowhere nine months ago...
April 25, 1974 12:00 AM ET -
Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of Grateful Dead | ALBUM REVIEW
The Dead pretend they're a singles band in this collection of their best-known shorter tracks. The cumulative results are distinguished, not by profundity or virtuosity, but by a characteristic pleasantness. The album boasts attractive melodies and supple...
April 25, 1974 12:00 AM ET -
Time Fades Away | ALBUM REVIEW
This album may do for Neil Young's declining image what Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid did for Dylan's. But like Dylan's much-maligned movie soundtrack LP, Time Fades Away has its virtues when taken on its own...
January 3, 1974 12:00 AM ET
