Posts by Leslie Michele Derrough

It was a warm summer evening in 1993: That’s how author Greg Prato remembers his brief shooting star moment meeting Shannon Hoon. He was in New Haven hoping to see Blind Melon play a concert at a venue he was too young to get into legally. So he was hanging around the venue with some […]

 “I had no idea that Chris was a voyeur when I met him,” Debbie Harry writes in the forward to her bandmate’s new book. “How could I know? His mother told me when we met that his personality was fully intact as a tiny baby.” She’s joking. Maybe. With another foray into the photographic world […]

Whether you are a country music fan or not, you have to admit that Carlene Carter is a pistol with vocal cords. The daughter of June Carter and Carl Smith, and the step-daughter of Johnny Cash, all three legends in country music, Carlene has always been the spunky gal with a love for sprinkling her […]

If you go about an hour and a half south of Memphis, you will happen upon a town called Clarksdale, Mississippi. There is a museum there, the Delta Blues Museum, and for anyone who has loved the blues, this is one of the most popular stopping places on their journey down what is known as […]

Although harmonica player Kim Wilson is very excited about his new album with Mud Morganfield, a tribute to Mud’s father Muddy Waters called For Pops, we have started talking about Howlin’ Wolf with a joyful glee. “Sam Phillips loved Howlin’ Wolf,” Wilson stated. “The Sun stuff is incredible with the Wolf. I’ve got all of […]

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane for a moment. It’s the mid-1970’s and The Midnight Special is the staple of my adolescent Friday nights. A band of greasy Boston bad boys overtake the screen and proceed to blow me away with an old Yardbirds song. Dressed in tight satin pants and hair too […]

When Kenny Wayne Shepherd first made a name for himself as a young buck blues-rock guitar player, he was known as the kid, the embodiment of the legacy Stevie Ray Vaughan had left behind. Although Shepherd grew up quickly in the spotlight, he was always seen as the kid. Now at 37, Shepherd has long […]

If you take four musicians who grew up on the rock & roll of the fifties and early sixties and put them in a studio together, they are bound to come up with music that feels happy, uncluttered and fresh; the kind of sounds that you bop your head to, sway your shoulders and hips […]

There is more than one description for a music journalist. Some of us are living, breathing encyclopedias of recorded music, effortlessly comparing deep cuts from thirty years ago to a newly minted master tape without blinking an eye. Then there are the ones who studiously inject their writings with BIG WORD philosophic mental wanderings about […]

It really doesn’t take much to start a band. You just need someone to sing and a couple of people to play instruments. But to maintain a band, it takes heart, soul, talent, luck, stamina, guts and most importantly chemistry. For without that special ingredient, your band will be nothing more than a sorry cover […]

It was really KISS that did it; zapping all those young boys between the eyes with bloody tongues and spaceman guitar solos, sparking in them dreams of being a rock star, singing or playing guitar in front of thousands of screaming fans. KISS is to blame for over half the rock & roll musicians walking […]

Noah Hunt has been the voice of Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s band since 1997, when he recorded the Shreveport-born blues guitar player’s second album, Trouble Is. We know a lot about the blonde-haired former ingénue who can channel Stevie Ray Vaughan with just a few plucks of a guitar string and that he is mighty obsessed […]

Happening upon their set at Jazz Fest in New Orleans earlier this year was a moment of pure enjoyment. A laid back duo with a passion in their vocals, Amanda Sudano and Abner Ramirez were performing for an audience who had been baking in the hot afternoon sun. And they were nailing it: the intimacy […]

For years, Vegas has been the garden of neon, sequins and men painted blue, comedians, crooners and Bette Midler lung-busters. Then along came some limber swingers interpreting the music of the Beatles and Michael Jackson. But for the REAL rock & rollers, not much was happening on the Strip on a regular basis. Until now. […]

When Ian Anderson called to talk with Glide about his latest solo album, he was in the middle of playing, as he called it, “little tour events” in the UK. A few days off and then he’d be back performing in Romania and Switzerland. Although our conversation was brief, we kept the primary focus on […]

Next week, Aerosmith will start their latest sojourn across the United States, hitting sheds in the summer heat, Slash and his erstwhile Conspirators in tow. If this was 1977, it would be a no holds barred rock & raunch three ring circus. But times have changed and Aerosmith are no longer young lions in red […]

A long time ago in a Hollywood full of poofy hair and big dreams, the sidewalks were a carnival of sins with guitar picks. The bands that flocked to the aging yet regenerating section of Los Angeles were getting signed by labels and putting out songs that wallpapered MTV screens morning-noon-&-night. It was a hallowed […]

Some people think that guitar shredding is a young man’s forte. With agile fingers and intense unwavering concentration, the sky can be the limit conjuring notes at warp speed.  Guitar players such as Jason Becker, Paul Gilbert and Yngwie Malmsteen brought power playing to the forefront via Shrapnel Records and the genre is alive and […]

Last month, the Counting Crows eased back into the illuminated spotlight to perform on Seth Meyers’ late-night show, singing two of their biggest hits, “Round Here” and “Hanginaround,” prepping themselves and their fans for a big summer tour, which kicks off on Wednesday, June 11, in Florida. Despite not having released an album of original […]

“What you see him do with GNR is just a fraction of his ability on the guitar,” proclaimed Terry, a fan and guitar player from Los Angeles, in Vegas for the iconic band’s second Vegas residency. “He’s a true technician.” Truer words could not have been spoken. Growing up in New York with an early […]