Fifty years ago, Heart ’s Ann and Nancy Wilson gatecrashed a male-dominated, payola-fuelled rock scene with with Dreamboat Annie , a platinum debut album powered by passionate vocals, guitar heroics and unshakeable self-belief. “We were young people on fire!”

A few years ago, Charlie Burchill and Jim Kerr were interviewed for a BBC documentary about music’s messiest break-ups. Which may seem like an odd booking, given the pair’s famously adamantine bond. B

SLASH WAS THERE when, in the aftermath of Guns N’ Roses’ 1987 debut album, Appetite for Destruction, the band suddenly exploded onto a chaotic arc from Sunset Strip hopefuls to one of the biggest, mos

Todd Rundgren Expect the expected and the unexpected at ...

AFTER SLASH AND Duff McKagan exited Guns N’ Roses in the mid-Nineties, things went kinda sideways for a bit. The band kept rolling, but it was host to a cavalcade of guitar players, from Buckethead to

NEIL YOUNG contains multitudes. In a career spanning six decades, many different Neils have emerged – Neil the loner, Neil the activist, Neil the superstar, Neil the country singer, Neil the bandleader and Neil the rebel among them. Ahead of Young’s 80th birthday this month, STEPHEN STILLS , GRAHAM NASH , EMMYLOU HARRIS , NILS LOFGREN , PATTERSON HOOD , THURSTON MOORE , MICAH NELSON , RANDY BACHMAN and MARGO PRICE offer their highlights of a fearless, single-minded artist, one driven to spontaneous creation and rapid emotional responses. “He radically changes his mind and his direction, to the shock of everyone,” says one of his oldest compadres. “But then, he’s done this all his life.”