Over at Pitchfork I review the new Craft Recordings reissue of John Lee Hooker’s Burnin’, a 1962 LP where he’s backed by Motown’s the Funk Brothers. It may not be the best album Hooker made but as it’s playing I think that it is. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/john-lee-hooker-burnin-expanded-edition/
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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Senior editor of Pop Music at Xperi, also Allmusic, Pitchfork, LA Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard and elsewhere. Newsletter: sterlewine.substack.com
Farewell to the mighty Tom Verlaine, a guitarist of boundless imagination and invention. Rock & roll never sounded the same after Television. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/28/arts/music/tom-verlaine-influential-guitarist-and-songwriter-dies-at-73.html
My latest newsletter covers Bob Dylan revisiting Time Out of Mind, R.E.M.'s Bill Berry making a thunderous return to actions and a bunch of Britpoppers in middle age.
https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/so-it-goes-2023-week-two
https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/so-it-goes-2023-week-two
My appreciation of David Crosby, who thoroughly embodied all the excesses, both good and bad, of the classic rock era. https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/rip-david-crosby
RIP David Crosby
David Crosby wasn’t easy to love. He harbored loveable qualities, traits that were offset by a barbed sense of humor that played as arrogance in his younger days and endearingly cranky in the last years of his life. No matter the era, he seemed to embody all the excesses of his generation, the quintessential Baby Boomer who was at all the right parties and all the right happenings and would never let you forget it. At his nadir in the 1980s, a decade where he’d serve time in prison and kick his addictions, he still flashed a grin that suggested he thought he got away with a prank: the squares would never know just what he had seen.
2023 begins with a bit of good news: De La Soul’s catalog will arrive on streaming services this March. https://variety.com/2023/music/news/de-la-soul-available-streaming-services-march-1235477592/
Farewell to the mighty Thom Bell, the architect of the gorgeous Sound of Philadelphia and one of the greatest songwriters and producers of the 20th Century. https://www.inquirer.com/news/thom-bell-sound-of-philadelphia-dead-obituary-20221222.html?outputType=amp
My appreciation of Terry Hall, one of the iconic pop stars of the 1980s.
https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/enjoy-yourself-terry-hall-rip
https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/enjoy-yourself-terry-hall-rip
Without any further ado, here are my favorite reissues of 2022. https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/ste-best-reissues-of-2022
Here it is, my Best Albums of 2022 list. Several familiar names, maybe some surprises too.
https://sterlewine.substack.com/p/stes-best-new-albums-of-2022
At the Los Angeles Times, I explored the composition of "Jingle Bell Rock," the holiday staple by Bobby Helms. Until his death, the singer claimed he and guitarist Hank Garland rewrote a demo called "Jingle Bell Hop," a dispute that can never be definitively settled.
