Best Christmas present ever, from music aficionado Richard Williams… Richard writes a review of everything music in the past twelve months… live music, films, new releases, reissues … and books……and we are very pleased to announce that we’ve made it into his top 5 music books for 2025… yes, that’s right… second year running.
So many crazy things happening this year… and now this… its an accolade. we are in a daze.
Thank you Richard..
Who is Richard Williams????
“Since the late 1960s I’ve written about music for the Melody Maker, The (London) Times, the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian, Down Beat, Jazz Journal, Mojo, the TLS, Granta, Uncut and other publications.
A list of the people I’ve most enjoyed interviewing during that time would include Marvin Gaye, Laura Nyro, Booker T. Jones, Miles Davis, Curtis Mayfield, Charles Mingus, Brian and Dennis Wilson, Smokey Robinson, Terry Riley, Max Roach, Mable John, Ornette Coleman, Steve Cropper, Chet Baker, Isaac Hayes, Mac Rebennack, Phil Spector, Ry Cooder, Gladys Knight, Lou Reed, Bob Marley, Ellie Greenwich, John Lennon, Allen Toussaint, Elvin Jones, Bruce Springsteen, Stan Getz, Boz Scaggs, Nico and Martha Reeves.
My books on music include Out of His Head: The Sound of Phil Spector (1972), Bob Dylan: A Man Called Alias (1990), Long Distance Call: Writings on Music (2000) and The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music (2009). I served a very happy three-year term as artistic director of the Berlin jazz festival from 2015-2017.”
You may have seen him presenting the first broadcast of The Old Grey Whistle Test..
