Martin Barre MCNIDDER & GRACE

There was a band who enjoyed the kind of critical reverence today’s crop of triers can only dream about, whose songwriting partnership of Robert Forster and the late Grant McLennan easily rivalled Mes

Retracing Our Steps (2007–2014) KSCOPE

So Paul McCartney said to Danny Francis in 1974. Francis, who passed away last year, spent the best part of 40 years putting himself between rock stars and trouble – and keeping them out of trouble. But, working with some of the rock world’s biggest names, he was more than just a bodyguard.

Fondly remembered this month...

PARADE BEGAN WITH a bruised ego. Two years earlier, in 1984, the 25-million-selling Purple Rain had set a sky-high bar. Now, the critical consensus was that Prince had fumbled the follow-up with Aroun