Music Features

HIP-HOP WAS BORNINTHEBRONXINthe summer of 1973. To celebrate the music’s 50th anniversary,“Rolling Stone” will be publishing a series of features, historical pieces, op-eds, and lists throughout this year. Fifty years on, the details of that historic night in the Bronx — the night everyone now says gave birth to hip-hop …

If there’s a moment that sums up the genius of Robbie Robertson, it’s the part in The Last Waltz when they play “It Makes No Difference.” All five brothers in the Band perform like they’re reading each other’s minds. Every detail is perfect: Robertson’s guitar, Rick Danko’s voice, Garth Hudson’s …

It’s early Saturday evening and contemporary bluesman Cedric Burnside — the grandson of the great R.L. Burnside — is sitting on a large rock along the banks of the French Broad River. A hot mid-summer sun falls behind the Blue Ridge Mountains cradling his current location in Asheville, North Carolina. …

Rolling Stoneinterview seriesUnknown Legendsfeatures long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public. Here, these artists tell their complete stories, giving …

In 1986, ten years after the Band had played “The Last Waltz,” its final show with the original lineup, Robbie Robertson decided the time had come to return to music. He’d dabbled in acting and film scoring — not to mention some wild Hollywood times that he would later begin …

In his decades as an A&R representative for Tommy Boy, Elektra Records, and elsewhere, Dante Ross has worked closely with some of hip-hop’s greatest artists, including De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Brand Nubian, and many more. In this excerpt from his 2023 memoir, Son of …

Movies or life stories that are transformed into Broadway musicals always take a degree of liberties with their source material. Sometimes they’re egregious (Hey, Cher musical people, Gregg Allman didn’t sing “Ramblin’ Man” — Dickey Betts did!); other times they may be an improvement. The latter is sometimes the case …

HIP-HOP WAS BORNINTHEBRONXin the summer of 1973. To celebrate the music’s 50th anniversary,“Rolling Stone” will be publishing a series of features, historical pieces, op-eds, and lists throughout this year. MC Lyte has been grinding since 1987, first as powerhouse MC during rap’s golden age, then as an actor, radio personality, …

“The one thing I wanted to avoid was the sophomore slump,” says Wolfgang Van Halen — and if anything, his just-released second album as Mammoth WVH, Mammoth II, is a major step up from his impressive 2021 debut. The choruses and riffs are both big enough to match his band …

The life of Robbie Robertson — who died Wednesday morning after a long illness — can neatly be divided into everything that happened before The Last Waltz and everything that happened afterward. The 1976 all-star concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom marked the end of his career with the Band, …