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The Latest Breaking News from Chris Blackwell

“Some people were cynical – ‘The Yeggles have spoilt it all!’ We were doing a gig in Brighton and someone shouted, ‘Rick Wakeman!’ It was demoralising”: Geoff Downes’ life and times in and out of Yes

His big break came with the Wombles, then he impressed Trevor Horn with synths he’d only borrowed. He forged a partnership with John Wetton and made it big with Asia – and his easygoing nature means he’s avoided most of Yes’ infamous dramas

Louder

Ending Isolation review – a takedown of solitary confinement by incarcerated co-authors

New book looks back at the history of the controversial prison practice while pushing for its dismantling

The Guardian - US

“Bob wanted me to help him not only learn guitar but learn to arrange. I think he caught on!” Ska and reggae pioneer Ernest Ranglin played with everyone from Bob Marley to Jimmy Cliff. At 93, he plans to secure his legacy

The guitarist guided the music of Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Toots, Prince Buster among others – but thinks the magic might never have have happened if he’d had access to better gear

Guitar World

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‘He was just unbelievable’: Photographer Kate Simon on her memories of Bob Marley

Exclusive: The photographer behind some of the most famous portraits of the late reggae icon remembers him on what would have been his 80th birthday

The Independent UK

“Lionisation is too late when you’re dead… I’ve often thought of faking my own death and watching the record companies drum up all the stuff they can”: A fight, a show then a drink with John Martyn

All the evidence you need to be convinced the hard-living singer-songwriter was as progressive as they come

Louder

Richard Branson and Island Records boss urged to fund UK Black music exhibition

Petition calls on Virgin Records founder and Chris Blackwell to back venture after profiting from such music

The Guardian - UK

GoldenEye, Jamaica: the low-key hideaway steeped in A-list history

This long-running resort has links to everyone from Naomi Campbell to Ian Fleming — and it should be on the bucket list of every self-respecting traveller, says Ben Cobb

Evening Standard

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“Paul Kossoff goes, ‘I’m not really in the mood. I have a friend here who can cut it.’ If it wasn’t for him I could be working at McDonald’s”: Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Al Anderson on the night he went from an unknown guitarist to tracking Natty Dread

Koss had to teach him the basics of reggae guitar as he waited for a cab to the studio. A couple of hours later he’d tracked the solos for Marley classic Natty Dread

Guitar World

“Hendrix came in at two o’clock in the morning. I can still remember the audience – Rod Stewart, The Beatles, the Small Faces – all of them were silent when Jimi was done”: Junior Marvin on joining Bob Marley – and the night Hendrix shook his hand

Marvin had been offered a 10 year contract from Stevie Wonder on the day he joined Bob Marley and the Wailers. But he never looked back. Here he looks back on making musical history with reggae's global icon

Guitar World

“I got home, called Stevie and said, ‘I’m so sorry, but I’ve just been offered a job with Bob Marley’”: Junior Marvin recalls landing gigs with Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley on the same day – and how he was forced to make a life-changing decision

Although Wonder was offering a decade-long contract, Marley's camp had their eye on Marvin for over a year before the initial meeting was made

Guitar World

“Every time Steve Winwood put fingers to a guitar or piano, something came out that transcended the normal. He has his failings as a person, but I guess you can’t have everything”: The story of Traffic

It seems every member of the groundbreaking band paid a price for their involvement – but a three-album run of rare quality remains as testimony to their lofty creative intentions

Louder

"Getting her to the studio was tough! But once we got her there, she was wonderful. We really sprung Slave... on her": The story of Grace Jones’ Slave to the Rhythm - tempo changes, stacked Roland synth patches and Trevor Horn

Never stop the action… Join us as musical mis-steps, happy accidents, crushing financial burden and raw unbridled talent give birth (eventually) to one of the enduring hits of the ‘80s

MusicRadar

"I think everyone has some sort of death wish... but I don't want to die": The spectacular rise and tragic fall of Paul Kossoff

Paul Kossoff should have been one of rock and blues' great guitar heroes. Instead, the light of the Free and Back Street Crawler guitarist shone briefly – and burned out quickly

Louder

‘Firebrand, poet and heart-throb’: how the film One Love captures the truth about Bob Marley

I was at the reggae superstar’s side before and after he escaped assassination. The new film took me back to this time, of love triangles, London punks and cold war conflict

The Guardian - UK

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Louder

“It was a no-brainer to get Jeff Porcaro from Toto to produce. He’d played on more hit records than anybody I knew”: how cult melodic rockers The Strand made the greatest AOR debut album you’ve never heard

What links Toto and Steve Irwin: Crocodile Hunter? Cult US rockers The Strand

Guitar World

“Bob Marley didn’t want to hear my jazz-rock… I had to start all over again. I needed to play slower and add more feeling. Once I did, he told me, ‘That’s it, man!’” Al Anderson opens up on his tumultuous time with a reggae icon

From No Woman, No Cry to Natty Dread and Revolution, every Bob Marley and The Wailers track Al Anderson played on was a hit – but he lived through broken promises, bad vibes from his replacement and sleeping rough on a mosquito-ridden beach to make it

Louder

“We couldn’t get a deal for Jethro Tull. The one person interested would only sign them if they dropped the flute player”: How Chrysalis rose from a booking agency to a leading prog record label

Chris Wright operated a business model that was more like a balancing act, with jail as the penalty for toppling - but Procol Harum, Trevor Rabin, Gentle Giant and others benefited from the approach

The Guardian - UK

Neville Garrick obituary

Graphic designer and friend of Bob Marley who created the sleeve artwork for many of the reggae star’s albums, including Exodus

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The Guardian - UK

‘Mick Jagger was surprisingly hard-working’: the all-star life of synth whiz Wally Badarou

His reputation for futurist pop got him work with everyone from Grace Jones and Talking Heads to Foreigner – now the French keyboardist is reissuing a soundtrack for a yoga DVD that became a Balearic classic

The Guardian - UK

Tricky: ‘I was less nervous going to prison than I was getting on stage’

As his debut Maxinquaye gets reissued, the Bristolian music legend answers your questions on Beyoncé, Bob Marley and annoying Gary Oldman with a Twix

The Guardian - UK

Gary Wright obituary

Singer and songwriter whose 1976 hit Dream Weaver combined yearning vocals with a haunting and distinctive synthesiser sound

MusicRadar

5 songs guitarists need to hear by... John Martyn

Brilliant, inventive, troubled, there was never a folk guitar player like Martyn, whose appetite for experimentation created a sound that resonated far beyond guitar culture

The Guardian - UK

‘I felt his vibration!’ Sonny Roberts, the UK’s first Black music studio owner

The Jamaican immigrant producer and entrepreneur, who is being honoured with a blue plaque this week, laid the foundations for a vibrant British reggae scene

Louder

Procol Harum: The epic story of A Whiter Shade Of Pale

More than half a century ago Procol Harum recorded the unlikeliest, best-selling, most bitterly-contested drug anthem of all time

The Guardian - UK

Nick Drake: The Life by Richard Morton Jack review – folk’s fragile man of mystery

This definitive study of the venerated singer-songwriter, who died at 26, examines his alarming unravelling and short life of artistic torment

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