Music Features

With the loss of multi-talented instrumentalist Roy Ayers, who died on Wednesday at the age of 84, the hip-hop world is honoring one of its greatest inspirations and sample sources. Hip-hop production stalwarts such as J. Dilla, Dr. Dre, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Madlib, and others have sampled from …

When Ingrid Andress sang the national anthem before a hockey game in Colorado last Friday, she was doing it to close a chapter of her career filled with shame, regret, and embarrassment. Seven months earlier in Texas, the country singer-songwriter spectacularly botched “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the MLB’s televised Home …

For those who came of age during the early days of MTV, Peter Wolf will forever be known as the frontman of the J. Geils Band, whose “Centerfold” and “Freeze Frame” videos were as much a channel staple as Nina Blackwood’s mane. But Wolf’s career and adventures in music didn’t …

Will Toledo has taken fans of his band, Car Seat Headrest, on some epic adventures over the years, leading them through concept albums full of lengthy songs and countless thrilling concerts. But he’s never spun a story quite as dramatic as the one he’s revealing this spring. The Scholars, out …

Unlike the other New York Dolls — the band he didn’t quite invent but came to personify after he was recruited when geeky bassist Arthur Kane and doomed drummer Billy Murcia knocked on his door in 1971 and asked if he’d join — David Johansen grew up solidly middle class …

Goodbye to David Johansen, the last jet boy standing from the New York Dolls. It wasn’t just his madman energy that helped invent punk rock — it was his warmth and soul. He got a loving send-off in the final weeks of his life, after his daughter Leah Hennessy announced …

Three years ago, in the midst of researching my book Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital, I knew I had to talk to David Johansen. Not because Johansen — who died Feb. 28 at the age of 75 —was one of those …

Mike Campbell was always more than just the deeply gifted guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — songs from “Refugee” to “You Wreck Me,” not to mention Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer,” began with music he wrote. In his essential, vividly told new autobiography, Heartbreaker: A Memoir, due March …

When Morrissey attempted to reunite the New York Dolls in 2004 for a performance at London’s Meltdown festival, he thought his odds of success were low. “I expected David [Johansen] to laugh at me and put the phone down,” he said that year. “But he was very agreeable and it …

Standing in front of a raucous sold-out audience at the Macon City Auditorium in Georgia on Friday night, guitarist Duane Betts paid tribute to his late father, Allman Brothers six-string ace Dickey Betts, with a soaring cover of “Ramblin’ Man.” “And when it’s time for leavin’, I’ll hope you’ll understand,” …