On entering a room containing a piano, what pianist doesn’t turn white at the command, ‘You can play – let’s hear you!’ You thought you were visiting friends, not giving a performance, so of course yo

A STAPLE OF many great country and country rock songs — and, in the hands of Jimmy Page and Albert Lee, rock songs — is the sound of the B-bender. For those unfamiliar, a B-bender is a string-pulling

ALTHOUGH HE WAS 84 and had been ill for several years, the passing of soul-funk-R&B legend and general jack-of-all-trades Steve Cropper still stings — a lot. Perhaps it’s because Cropper, despite his

Fondly remembered this month...

ON THE SURFACE, guitar trends in 1986 looked downright wild and perverse — a weird parade of shred-happy virtuosos, anthemic power pop heroes, dirtbag metalheads and eccentric alt-rock outsiders. But

‘We’re going to have a tonal centre and tap our feet, and that’s the way it is.’ Steve Reich is in full flow, talking to me from his home in New York. ‘The big break, the knife down the line, was betw