Creedence Clearwater Revival had more than a few brotherly battles — Credence Clearwater Revival, or CCR, disbanded in 1972 after years of infighting, rivalry and arguments. The rivalry between the lead singer, lead guitarist and songwriter John Fogerty and his brother, rhythm guitarist Tom, was at the heart of the friction in the band. [You can find Parts 1, 2 and…

A journey through each of Bruce’s mid-career studio albums for more forgotten masterpieces — We start Part 2 with the relaunch of Bruce Springsteen and with The Rising after a seven-year gap in releasing studio albums. You can find Part One of Springsteen’s Hidden Diamonds here. Springsteen fanatics, like me, were starting to get restless after such a long break. We had a large…

A journey through each of Bruce's earlier studio albums for one forgotten masterpiece from each — Tucked away on every one of The Boss’s 26 studio albums is a diamond of a track that rarely gets airplay. Obviously, there are more than a few Bruce superfans around the world who play his albums so often they will know them. As one who falls in this superfan…

There’s no way back — The attack hit the perimeter fence around 1am on the first night. By the time the crashing sounds roused them from their sleep, it was already over. It lasted five minutes at most. 5,000 volts running through the metal barrier would stop an elephant. Not that there were any elephants…

How four young boys from Liverpool changed music forever — If you want to understand why The Beatles were the greatest and the most influential and innovative band in music history, The Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles by Dominic Pedler will explain it better than anything I’ve ever read. The band set the templates for many genres of popular music…

A 7-year-old who loved one of music’s greatest years — I’m confused. In some of the responses to this writing prompt on School Year Music, some US writers have referred to a mysterious expression — ‘The Freshman Year’. I have no idea what this means as when you’re at school, you’re a boy, not a man. And in southeast England…

One of the greatest bands of the sixties had more than a few family feuds going on — If being in a band with your brothers was not enough family friction, how about adding a father, cousin and best friend into the mix? Maybe relationship friction and rivalry are necessary to spark the creative tensions that lead to the development of great music. If so, it’s possibly one…

Beatles songs they never released that could have been more classics — The Beatles hit number 1 with just about every album and single they ever released. But might they have had enough material for more albums and hit singles? I guess they didn’t have enough minutes in the day to record everything they had going on inside their genius musical brains. …

Brothers Ray and Dave Davies formed one of the '60s most influential bands. And they fought like cat and dog — After the Beatles, The Kinks were possibly one of England’s most innovative and influential rock bands of the first half of the 1960s. Even some of their music, much like The Beatles, was influenced by Indian styles as well as fusing British music hall with US rhythm and blues. They…