Alan Paul

Aaron Neville, one of the greatest and most distinctive pop singers of the 20th century, is mostly farming these days. He says he has retired from performing at age 82, though he looks a decade younger than that, his voice is undiminished, and he…

Steve Miller, 1970s rock icon, strolled out onto an elegant Jazz at Lincoln Center stage last week, sat down on a stool and picked up a custom double-necked acoustic guitar. Smiling widely, he told the sold-out crowd that he was going to start with…

How does a songwriter go about turning an iconic movie into a Broadway musical? “You take the Hippocratic oath: First do no harm,” says Glen Ballard, the co-composer of the new stage version of “Back to the Future,” the beloved 1985 film about a…

When the drummer Stewart Copeland conceived his band, the Police, while living in London in 1976, he had the name, a logo and even a manifesto. What he didn’t have was an actual band. He found his first crucial partner when he walked into a Newcastle…

When Dave Matthews formed his namesake band over 30 years ago, in Charlottesville, Va., most of his bandmates were seasoned professional musicians. He was more of a bedroom guitar picker, better known as the bartender at Miller’s, a hub of the town’s…

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Motown Records helped to define a golden age of American music, as rhythm and blues and rock and roll became the world’s dominant pop genres. Smokey Robinson played a double role in creating the Detroit-based label’s remarkable…

Billy Strings, 30, is one of the fastest-rising touring acts in American music. After starting out in Traverse City, Mich., in 2012, he headed to Nashville and began to generate buzz for his singing and his guitar playing, which is both technically…

Cameron Crowe was one of rock’s top journalists before he had a driver’s license, a 16-year-old traveling the country with groups like the Allman Brothers Band and writing cover stories for Rolling Stone magazine. Yet the prodigy grew up in a San…

For the music entrepreneur, putting on concerts by the Grateful Dead and other jam bands means ‘chasing magic.’ At 49, Peter Shapiro believes he’s too young to be writing an autobiography, so he wants to make one thing clear about his new book, “The…

After a megahit debut in the ‘90s, the singer-songwriter never stopped pursuing musical ‘growth and learning.’ The singer-songwriter Jewel wanted her album “Freewheelin’ Woman,” released in April, “to be fresh and representative of who I am today,”…

The legendary singer-songwriter returns from a pandemic hiatus with a heartfelt new album Most listeners don’t associate the singer Bonnie Raitt with Broadway musicals, but she grew up steeped in them. Her father, John Raitt, was an actor who starred…

At 74, the guitar legend has a new band, with a stage musical and an orchestral concert in the works Bob Weir says that he has always had “horrendous stage fright.” It’s a startling thing to hear, because he has performed thousands of shows in front…

Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images John Mellencamp doesn’t much care what you think about him. “I just don’t give a f—,” he says. ”I never did look for acceptance—from my parents, from my teachers, from my record company.” He single-mindedly pursues…

In a new audiobook, the singer/songwriter explores the creative process that led to ‘The Boxer,’ ‘Graceland’ and other classics. Paul Simon is adamant that he has no desire to write a memoir. He was intrigued, however, when the writer Malcolm…

America’s slow-moving immigration bureaucracy may have changed the history of rock and roll. When Ringo Starr was 18, still going by his given name Richard Starkey and working in a factory in the U.K., he and a friend decided to move to the U.S. to…

The guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band found a second act as a star of ‘The Sopranos’ “I think every good artist eventually asks themselves if they are being useful,” says Steven Van Zandt, who has been the indispensable consigliere for…

The guitarist and songwriter who collaborated with Otis Redding and John Lennon is releasing a new album at age 79 Steve Cropper has been the cornerstone of some of the best rock and soul music of the 20th century, revered by fellow musicians but…

An artist known for folk-inspired songs has released her first cabaret album, recorded at Manhattan’s swanky Cafe Carlyle In an ordinary year, Suzanne Vega would have followed up the release of her latest album, “An Evening of New York Songs and…

As he chafes against the pandemic’s restrictions, the country legend has released two albums while overseeing a radio channel and two cannabis companies You might think that Willie Nelson, at age 87, would enjoy a chance to slow down his constant…

At 72, the music legend who wrote ‘Fire and Rain’ and ‘Something in the Way She Moves’ reflects fondly on ‘the arrogance of youth’ It might seem unusual, even presumptuous, for a 72-year-old man to write a memoir covering just the first 21 years of…