June 2025 - Page 26 of 31 - Vintage Rock Times

The record Jimmy Page said captured Led Zeppelin’s best live moments

It goes without saying that 1972 was a mammoth year for British stadium rock. The three biggest bands on the planet were all at their creative and live peaks as The Rolling Stones fired off one last classic entry of the golden album run with Exile on Main St, and The Who were setting the […]

George Harrison’s single favourite guitarist of all time: “The world’s best”

Sometimes, the sum of a band’s parts are greater than the individual, but some group’s final output is so engrossing that it can become difficult to pick out the many different skills that go into creating it. For example, while Jimmy Page is seen as the de facto leader of Led Zeppelin, John Paul Jones’ […]

How George Harrison prevented John Lennon from singing “Maharishi, what have you done?”

I love a good forbidden giggle. The kind when being told to stop only increases the amount you laugh and you end up fighting a physical battle with your own silly mind. While the stares of disappointment pointed at me, largely come from friends and family, John Lennon had the entire world patiently waiting for […]

The one drummer Jack Black says beats John Bonham: “Out of control”

Being a drummer is about way more than hitting things for a living. Despite every single rock and roll drummer commonly being labelled as ‘the dumb one’ in whatever group they’re in, there’s a lot more that goes into keeping time than playing a decent rhythm, and the most technical percussionists have reshaped what people […]

One of John Lennon’s best songs for The Beatles took him months to complete: “The same old bits every few weeks”

It’s easy to hope for your favourite musicians to be struck by creative lightning and suddenly deliver a masterpiece in music. It’s the stuff of legend, but legends appeal to the masses, and most listeners would rather a performer be inhabited by a higher power only to deliver a savant-like sonic structure in the space […]

“That’s better”: the album John Bonham almost lost a leg over

Whenever I watch a live show, there’s always one person I want to be: the drummer. One foot in their own world, and the other with their bandmates keeping time, they always look like the ones having the most fun. There’s a physicality to it that I envy, something that embodies the primal spirit of […]

The “lost” chord that The Beatles travelled around Liverpool trying to learn: “The missing part”

None of The Beatles ever claimed to be the best musicians in the world when they first got together. Half of the time, their music was being played for a laugh more than anything else, and getting the right chord to a song could have simply been a case of John Lennon and Paul McCartney […]

What do The Beatles mean by ‘Glass Onion’?

Not everything that John Lennon put into his songs for The Beatles was meant to make the most sense. It was hard enough trying to find out what some of his psychedelic songs were about in the early days, and it was bound to be tough trying to find some kind of internal meaning behind […]

What was “The whole story”: The song that signalled the end of Led Zeppelin

As a music critic, I often find myself conflicted over the balance of evolutionary innovation and the mastery of one single craft. Take David Bowie, for example; his entire DNA is rooted in his mercuriality that shifted with every new album. By the time the campaign rollout for his third album came, we were used […]

“It’s too high”: The song Brian May thought would be too difficult for Freddie Mercury

Throughout every decade we had Queen, nothing seemed out of their grasp. Compared to most bands that follow one sound and stick with it throughout their career, the rock monarchs were absolutely fearless when it came time to challenge themselves, whether that meant going towards pop, making cheery show-tunes, or the greatest stadium-sized hard rock […]