RockPopandRoll

In his career with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - a group in the conversation for "Who is the greatest American rock and roll band ever?" - guitarist Mike Campbell's rare lead vocal was on a track called "I Don't Wanna Fight" from Echo.

Other than that, Campbell did a whole bunch of other-than-lead-vocal work to help make the band, recordings, and live show sound the way they did for 40 years. Now, without Petty, he carries that...

Two things that drive me batshit crazy with radio stations and the way they present their versions of rock and roll: 

1. The same four songs from every artist, played over and over and over and...

2. The loss of discovery and creativity.

You don't listen to the radio anymore?  Got it. Me neither. At least not in the traditional, find-the-station-on-the-radio way. I do, however, listen to terrestrial stations, those with a...

They’ve been fired from tours for speaking their mind, they’ve broken up more times than a high school couple, and yet, they remain as the band that still carries the flag for 70s-inspired blues-rock. Stones-rock. Faces-rock.  And they have stayed around long enough to inspire new bands to keep doing the old rock thing. Their sound blasts back to 1972. The Black Crowes’ debut album was a crunch of rock a...

Steve Earle is rock and roll, he is country, and Earle has deep roots in early Americana all the way back to Guy Clarke, Townes Van Zandt, and Rodney Crowell, among many. A songwriter first, I found him with his "Guitar Town" release back in 1986.  Listened to the second album, the Springsteen-esque "Exit 0", a lot, and when 1988's "Copperhead Road" album came out, we turned it up loud. With this episode, I wanted to listen to...

Classic rock and roll bands and artists releasing new music?  What's the point?  Is it worth a listen?  Do we discount some excellent rock from these bands just because it's not 1987? Or is it a shell of their sound and original fire?

Def Leppard has a new song, in conjunction with a run at the Sphere in Las Vegas.  We take a first listen. Then we look at the past 12 months of rock and roll releases from bands l...

The thumping, pumping, Telecaster-driven, snare-smashing roots rock and roll of the 80's (and into the 90's) shaped my world.  Drove my inspiration for finding more of "that". Looking back, some of "that" lasted. And some of the bands and their songs went into the vault of lost rockers, and some even made it out to rock some more.  

This podcast jumps back about 10 years to when I was digging into the roots of my roc...

Can anyone put together a Santatacular set of rock and roll/Americana/roots-rock Christmas/Holiday songs?  Hell, yeah, someone can. 

I’m your guy.

We’re gonna take a look and listen to the best, oddest, dustiest, loudest, semi-legendary holiday rock music.  My top 20, countdown style. Songs you can sing along to every time you hear the damn thing, or tunes that should have been more than a holiday lost cl...

As time passed since Todd Snider passed away on November 14, I've been crawling around, hearing some music that I'd put aside. Some of it is Todd's music, especially his post-Nervous Wrecks output. Along the way, I found the purported Todd Snider Playlist of 2018, listing the top songs that he'd listened to that year.  I took it as real.  Don't know if it is. Still, I recorded this podcast episode by taking it at face val...

Jefferson Starship is an oddly overlooked band on classic rock radio. In the annals of late 70s-into-the-80s corporate AOR radio rock and roll, they sat firmly and fittingly with Boston, The Cars, REO, Styx, Foreigner, and the rest of that gang. 

While those bands still get their four cuts played repeatedly on the classic rocker stations (and burn those few cuts out), Jefferson Starship was quietly placed to the side.  Hm...

John Fogerty's influence in rock music is somehow underrated - he's a quiet titan of rock and roll. The rocket blast that was CCR was short (around 1968-72), and he took long breaks from his music. He was burned by a contract held by a man, according to Fogerty, who stole royalties and made bad investments with their money, and held all the rights to those CCR songs - rights taken when the band broke up and Fogerty needed to get ou...

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(Some of) My Favorite Covers:

From the earliest days of rock and roll, cover songs have been a vital part of the music’s forward movement, drawing on its past.

Long before we knew about digital discovery, one of the fastest ways for new artists to connect with audiences was to reimagine an ...

INXS recorded their biggest album, Kick, in Sydney and Paris, produced by Chris Thomas. Atlantic Records didn't like the record offered them $1 million to go back to Australia and record another album. The band said no. Good call. Kick was released in October 1987 and peaked at No. 1 in Australia, No. 3 on the US Billboard 20, and had four top 10 singles

But they had more than Kick. INXS’ music filled a niche, on the radio an...

Billy Squier spent the ’70s in New York City, playing with the rock band Piper. They toured with Kiss. Squier released his first solo album in 1980, The Tale of the Tape.  “The Big Beat” got some radio airplay.

All of that changed with 1981’s Don’t Say No.

I count eight songs that were played, either on pop radio or, to a greater frequency and depth, on rock radio of the 80s.

Huge album.  Bil...

The Doobie Brothers have been a band for more than 50 years. Their first album was released in 1972. It's now 2025, and they have a new record, called Walk This Road.  And we're going to take our first listen to the album here on RockPopandRoll.  How did they do?  Would I listen again?  Does it rock?  Does it roll?  Do we hear the echoes of "China Grove" or "BlackWater"?  Dovwe want to?

Lots of qu...