Welcome

On the cover: John Lennon and

Philanthropy in the UK!

Sex Pistols reform –with Frank Carter as Johnny Rotten –to raise funds for historic London venue Bush Hall

AI can’t make it

The notion of an AI-enhanced Steve Marriott is rubbished by his surviving Small Faces and Humble Pie bandmates

From Harlesden they come

The story of The Cimarons, Britain’s first reggae band

New king at Newport

Photographer Edward Grazda on shadowing Bob Dylan at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival

Peaks district

Texan singer Chrystabell on her latest collaboration with David Lynch and the late Angelo Badalamenti

Jacken Elswyth

I’M NEW HERE

Uncut Playlist

On the stereo this month...

A JOHN LENNON EXCLUSIVE!

ON THIS MONTH’S FREE CD

MIKE CAMPBELL

AN AUDIENCE WITH...

JAKE XERXES FUSSELL

When I’m Called FAT POSSUM

GEORGIA PEACHES

How to buy Jake Xerxes Fussell

Q&A

Jake Xerxes Fussell: “Listening back to it now,

MILTON NASCIMENTO & ESPERANZA SPALDING

Milton + Esperanza CONCORD RECORDS 8/10

A to Z

This month…

SHELLAC

To All Trains TOUCH AND GO 8/10

REVELATIONS

CHRIS CORSANO The Key (Became The Important Thing

BEAK>

>>>> INVADA 8/10

AMERICANA

Album of the month

LIANA FLORES

I’M NEW HERE The Norfolk singer-songwriter

MABE FRATTI

Sentir Que No Sabes UNHEARD OF HOPE 8/10

REVELATIONS

James King & The Lonewolves: darkswagger

SUSS

Birds & Beasts NORTHERN SPY 8/10

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

Southern Rock Opera (reissue, 2001) NEW WEST

THE OLD NEW SOUTH

Drive-By Truckers at their storytelling best

Q&A

Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley: “It’s more timely now”

NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSE

Early Daze REPRISE 7/10

A to Z

This month…

REDISCOVERED

Uncovering the underrated and overlooked

WAYNE SHORTER

JuJu/Odyssey Of Iska (reissue, 1965/1971)

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE

Where to start with the Shorter back catalogue

THE SPECIALIST

Early star DeFord Bailey Etta

FOREVER LOVE

As the latest incarnation of LOVE prepare to return to the UK, talismanic original guitarist Johnny Echols, drummer Michael Stuart-Ware and longtime disciples Baby Lemonade explore the rich, enigmatic legacy of America’s most mercurial ’60s band and their visionary frontman, Arthur Lee. “He wrote music for future generations,” hears Rob Hughes. “Since he was a man ahead of his time, it stands to reason that it just took everybody else a couple of generations to catch up.”

FOREVER YOUNG

Johnny Echols on how Neil Young nearly produced Love’s studio masterpiece…

NEW LOVE

Exclusive! High Moon Records boss George Wallace on a tantalising new collection of unreleased Love songs

EVERYTHING FLOWS

Surviving carjackings, tornadoes and Trump, RICH RUTH is the sonic pathfinder blasting cosmic jazz-rock into the future. Holed up in his Nashville studio, he reveals how heavy sounds help restore his psychic wounds. “I realised it’s OK to be extreme with your music,” he tells Michael Bonner

GOOD THINGS DON’T COME EASY

All hail IRMA THOMAS! Fresh from upstaging The Rolling Stones at the Crescent City’s Jazz & Heritage Festival, the Soul Queen of New Orleans is here to set the record straight: on Jagger and co, Otis Redding, a hardscrabble life and what she lost in Hurricane Katrina. “If you can’t make a living doing what you love, you make a living doing what you have to,” she counsels Nick Hasted

Lou Barlow

The man who invented ‘folkcore’ picks highlights from his time with Dinosaur Jr and many others

The Light Fantastic

British folk’s siren LINDA THOMPSON may have been robbed of her beloved singing voice, but she has defiantly and resourcefully found new outlets for her creative spirit: her latest album Proxy Music finds other artists performing her new songs. Over lunch, she discusses collaborations, commune living, “drug dealing” for one former member of The Velvet Underground, taking tea with her favourite politician and ageing. “As for all my friends who die, I pretend they’re still alive,” she confides to Tom Pinnock. “I was chatting to Kate McGarrigle this morning…”

BRIGHT LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!

It’s not only the stars of folk rock that Thompson’s mixed with…

“When The Revolution Comes”

How a black collective’s radical call to arms became one of the earliest influences on hip-hop. “We were the vanguard of the revolution…”

NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

In 1974, the newly formed BLONDIE took their first tentative steps into New York’s burgeoning underground scene. In this exclusive extract from his memoir Under A Rock, CHRIS STEIN recalls his first encounter with DEBBIE HARRY, flat-sharing with the RAMONES, supporting TELEVISION and life among the city’s downtown bars, dilapidated apartments and unsavoury neighbourhoods. “A lot of weirdos showed up mixed in with actual musicians…”

EVOLUTION IN THE HEAD

I-Ching diaries and conceptual countries, FBI surveillance and the Lost Weekend – 1973 marked a period of intense personal chaos for JOHN LENNON. Amid all this turbulence, however, he found creative sustenance with Mind Games – an album steeped in cosmic benevolence, emotional heft, introspection and, most importantly, love. As a new expanded edition shines a light on Lennon’s working methods, Peter Watts discovers an artist at a crossroads, looking inside himself for ways to move forward. “It’s my dad getting back on track, after a very experimental and volatile period,” says Sean Ono Lennon. “At times it went a bit out of control…”

BOXISM

Let us take you inside the Mind Games Super Deluxe Box…

“I CONSIDER IT A MASTERPIECE”

Mind Games’ producer and creative director Sean Ono Lennon on “the honour” of working on his dad’s music, rediscovering “Aisumasen” and exploring the Mind Games universe. “I want to get as much attention for his music and make it as fun as humanly possible…”

CHANGE OF MIND

10 jewels from the Mind Games Deluxe Edition

“IT WAS PROPHETIC”

Bob Gruen on the Mind Games sleeve

KING OF GOSSIP

How John was introduced to Elton

JOANNA NEWSOM

Nine years since her last record, the harpist extraordinaire is reborn in a graveyard in California

LAMBCHOP

Barbican, London, June 1

SCREEN

Poor Things director’s dark, absurdist triptych; singalongs and sentiment in a chicken factory; a trip of discovery to Istanbul…

STAX:SOULSVILLESVILLE USA

STREAMING ON MAX 9/10

BOOKS

TheeMedway polymath: BillyChildishin hisstudio,May Road,Rochester, early ‘80s ©

The best bar none

The pick of the latest soundbars

Not Fade Away

Fondly remembered this month...

Feedback

Send your brickbats, bouquets, reminiscences, textual critiques, billets-doux and all forms of printable correspondence to letters@uncut.co.uk

Crossword

One LP copy of Mabe Fratti’s Sentir Que No Sabes

Jeff Ament

The Pearl Jam bassman on the records that really matter to him: “I remember the hair standing up on my neck”

Uncut

Kelsey Media, The Granary Downs Court, Yalding Hill,