MEET BILLY STRINGS, THE BLUEGR ASS REVOLUTIONARY WHO SINGS “ABOUT METH, NOT MINING”.

NEIL YOUNG

IT WOULD BE AN EXCEPTIONALLY BRAVE NEIL YOUNG

THE MOJO COLLECTION

LO CLASSIC AND RARE NEIL YOUNG TRACKS

Welcome To The Loft Parade

Win! Luxury vinyl from ace reissuers Light In The Attic

ALL BACK TO MY PLACE

THE STARS REVEAL THE SONIC DELIGHTS GUARANTEED TO GET THEM GOING

Theories, rants, etc.

MOJO welcomes correspondence for publication. E-mail to: mojoreaders@bauermedia.co.uk

Star Shooter

Photographer to Bowie, Iggy, Lou and more, Mick Rock left us on November 18

TIME MACHINENE

Alexis Korner, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Cyril Davies, Ginger Baker

Is Dylan a Hip-Hopper?

Brain scrambled from attempting to work out rock ’s most puzzling mysteries? Please allow us to help

Don Brewer and Grand Funk Railroad

They began with power trio ambitions at the Union Hall. But after seven years of hard rocking, they ran out of track

Back To Lifehouse

Townshend says: after 50 years, The Who’s great lost opus is coming in 2022!

Radiohead side project The Smile prepares to beam...

Heads keep swinging: The Smile’s Thom Yorke and

Hunky Dory? Ziggy at 50? Blackstar? What’s next for the Bowie catalogue?

Just like gold: David Bowie with Spiders Mick

Foo Fighters scream on screen at Studio 666

Don’t have nightmares: Dave Grohl scares up a horror

The life of Mark Hollis, told in A Perfect Silence

Specs Enduction Hours: regular mystery man and eternal

The Stranglers make their live return – but is it farewell?

Bass face: JJ Burnel channels The Stranglers’ “certain

PAVEMENT BRING ON THE MAJOR LEAGUES

PAVEMENT ANNOUNCED their latest reunion in June… 2019.

TOM JONES

Treforest’s giant-voiced methuselah talks Dylan, rock ’n’roll and staying sane

HELLO AGAIN, FOLK- IMPROV EMINENCE/ LAP-STEEL HERO MIKE COOPER

Slide away: Mike Cooper (right and below), on

RISING BLUES STAR CHRISTONE ‘KINGFISH’ INGRAM SAYS YESTERDAY MISSISSIPPI, TOMORROW THE WORLD

RIGHT NOW, Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram is the most

MOJO PLAYLIST

Plug in, for avant-jamming, opiated pop and Yuletide twang!

Surviving the car crash of the Sex Pistols, then a car crash with The Professionals, punk’s percussion pathfinder remains sanguine, albeit wise to his (ahem) public image. “People don’t let you grow up from being a Pistol,” says Paul Cook.

Portrait by ANDREW COTTERILL THERE IS VERY LITTLE

“Meet Our New Guitarist!”

Fifty years since their revered Mark II line-up cut MachineHead, the baroque rock monolith that remains Deep Purple relive their greatest hits, mishaps and a well-aimed plate of spaghetti. But can they reach the end of this feature without one of them getting sacked? “We’ve always liked surprises,” they assure Mark Blake

Deep Cuts

A 10-track mixtape of Deeper Purple, compiled by Mark Blake

THE GUN CLUB IGNITE THE FIRE OF LOVE

Forty years ago in Los Angeles, punk crashed head-on into American roots and the punk-blues was born. Its frantic midwife was JEFFREY LEE PIERCE, a voodoo-driven, literary-minded musical savant whose group destroyed to create. With memories of heroin, The Cramps and the Blondie fan club, band members and friends recall how the alchemical deal went down. “Whatever his condition was,” they say, “Jeff never lost a beat.”

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Behind her fringe, under her covers, trading as CAT POWER, she's the indie icon who flew under the radar. Now she’s singing the songs of Billie Holiday and Nick Cave, are we - ironically - seeing the real Chan Marshall at last? "I always thought it would be beautiful to play in complete darkness," she teils VICTORIA SEGAL.

1971 NUGGETS

IT WAS THE YEAR THAT HATCHED SOME OF THE LONGEST-REIGNING AND LEAST-DISPUTED GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME. BUT 1971 WAS SO GREAT, EVEN ITS LESSER-KNOWN GEMS ARE PRICELESS. MOJO’S CRATE- DIGGERS PRESENT 50 OF THEIR FAVOURITES

MOJO PRESENTS

From a puritanical upbringing in the Mennonite faith, through educations in hip-hop and garage rock with CeeLo, Black Lips and Danger Mouse, future-soul seer CURTIS HARDING has learned the hardest lesson: how to be himself, definitions be damned. “I’m open to everything,” he assures DAVID FRICKE

MAKING HAY

NEIL YOUNG’s been busy. Making a new life with Daryl Hannah, a new album with CRAZY HORSE, and building an actual barn to record it in. Meanwhile, the pandemic has enabled a slew of projects –a sci-fi novel, Archives II, III and IV, the legendary Toast LP – and bought time to mourn Elliot Roberts, fight for the planet and ponder CSNY. “There’s been a lot of new beginnings,” he tells SYLVIE SIMMONS

“YOU’RE RECORDING A COMBINED SOUL”

CRAZY HORSE, and producer N IKO BOLAS, on how they braved the elements, and their leader’s whims, to build a B arn.

SUGAR MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN

Who needs seven Old Mans? And six Sugar Mountains? You do! All Neil Young’s Archive series releases, in order of their original recording dates, evaluated by JOHN MULVEY

SO SHALL YE REAP

Fifty years on, LINDA RONSTADT remembers her role in Neil Young’s biggest hit album, H arvest

Talking Sheds

Leeds-based chroniclers of post-Brexit Britain refuse to give in to despair on exhilarating debut.

“I hope I end up like Elton.”

James Smith speaks to Victoria Segal

Fire and skill

Costello and trusty trio hammer through a set of dark, guitar-fronted songs brimming with melody.

Just say yes

Kur t Cobain’s favourite haute couture riffmeisters return

Eve Adams

★★★★ Metal Bird BASIN ROCK. CD/DL/LP Los Angeles-based

I am the lore

Nor th Carolina’s songf inder general weaves new folk art out of old material.

UNDERGROUND

Duane Pitre ★★★★★ Omniscient Voices IMPREC. DL/LP The

Drone attack

Robed doom messiahs channel feedback as an irresistible force on newly released radio session.

Jana Horn

★★★★ Optimism NO QUARTER. CD/DL/LP Deceptively gentle songs

Deeper and down

Instrumentals from former Cocteau Twin head for still waters.

JAZZ

Abdullah Ibrahim ★★★★ Solotude GEARBOX. CD/DL/LP Octogenarian South

FILTER ALBUMS EXTRA

Daniel Blumberg ★★★ The World To Come

EXTENDED PLAY

Bandcamp finds In December 2019, Australian experimental guitarist

Russellmania

The musical archive of the late Iowa-born cellist and electronic composer is now available in the UK and Europe. Andrew Male lends an ear to the first batch of four

Gorillaz

Toon army: Gorillaz, still getting away with it.

I shall be re-released

The Band’s underrated four th album gets a new lease of life on its 50th bir thday

Beware of the frozen dog

Clean on record, dir ty live, Blossom Toes struggled to find their true place.

Bill Fay

★★★★ Still Some Light Par t 1 DEAD

The last broadcast

Expanded radio and TV sessions bring the cult R&B heroes’ story up to date

REISSUES EXTRA

Air ★★★★ 10,000 Hz Legend RHINO. BR/CD After

Against the brain

This month’s find in rock ’s sunken dreadnought: freakbeat psych for proto-metallers

Yellow Magic Orchestra and solo

City pop picks.

Behind the wheel

DM’s dual narrative 1988 US tour doc: an unheralded classic, now digitally restored with extra live footage.

The King Of Gospel Music

★★★ Robert Marovich MALACO. £44 Concise bio of

Major Labels: A History Of Popular Music In Seven Genres

★★★★ Kelefa Sanneh CANONGATE. £20 Entertaining, diligent survey

Magnifico! The A-Z Of Queen

★★★★ Mark Blake NINE EIGHT. £20 Hailing Queen’s

Rock Concert

★★★★ Marc Myers GROVE PRESS UK. £20 The

Resurrection man

The great harbinger of his own doom repor ts from the twilight zone.