In the spring of 1974, DAVID BOWIE arrived in the United States by boat. By the time he left in the spring of 1976, his marriage was ending, his cocaine addiction was spiralling, and he'd become obsessed with Nazis. He'd also made another masterpiece: Station To Station. "We went days without sleeping," his valiant co-conspirators tell GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN. "Inhibitions were out the window."

The platinum blonde in British history

Fifty years on from their first successes, Roger McGuinn, the 12-string architect of THE BYRDS , tells Uncut about their exceptional first 18 months – and his relationship with Gene Clark. As the young group make their jet-powered escape from the folk think tank, we hear about making the scene on the Strip, outraging Iowa and a muted response in the United Kingdom. But ultimately how “Eight Miles High” became the spectacular conclusion of the band’s first era. “I almost left The Byrds entirely to go and be in this space band With Dino Valente,” McGuinn tells John Robinson

H OW to categorise Leonard Cohen? There is ...

In 1976, the revolutionary singer-songwriter LAURA NYRO returned from self-imposed exile. But her comeback confounded expectations, shifting away from the impassioned intimacies of her early albums to embrace more radical perspectives. Fifty years on, Nyro’s collaborators revisit her striking second act. “She was a hip American from the Bronx,” one friend and producer tells Rob Hughes. “But her soul was old.”

It’s a joy watching our favourite singers or actors, but though we might admire them and enjoy the happiness they bring, do we ever give a thought as to how precarious the world of entertainment actua