Even if Leslie West had never sang or played another note after the summer of 1970, his place in rock history would have been assured. The summer before, he’d stunned everyone who saw or heard him with his breakthrough performance at Woodstock – his band Mountain’s third or fourth gig. A few months later, Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” – 2:32 of pure nitro, with Leslie’s unmistakable voice and head-scalping guitar front and center in the mix – became a national hit.
Fortunately, Leslie West did not fade from view after his first …

By the time of our 1979 interview, Mick Taylor, master of slide guitar and the poignant solo, had accumulated some of the most stellar credentials imaginable. Thirteen years earlier, just after he’d turned seventeen, Mick had launched his career with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, touring the U.S. and playing brilliantly on six albums. “He had the hard job of replacing Peter Green in my band,” Mayall wrote in 1970, “and over the period of two years made the grade to where people who played the guitar used to crowd every concert …

For decades rumors have swirled that Keith Richards is a drugged-out burnout one wheeze away from the afterlife. Forget it. Richards is, in fact, charming, resilient, and among rock’s most articulate musicians. Don’t believe it? Listen to the hundreds of songs he’s written or read his autobiography, Life. If musicians were light bulbs, this guy would be 120-watts.
 I’ve done three interviews with Keith. The first, in 1992, was a three-hour encounter in Manhattan for a Guitar Player magazine cover story. The second, below, took place on July 14, 1994, at …

Ronnie Wood gained his initial acclaim as the bassist in the first lineup of the Jeff Beck Group. Then in the early 1970s he distinguished himself as the lead, slide, and pedal steel guitarist for The Faces and Rod Stewart, with whom he played on the classics Rod Stewart Album and Every Picture Tells a Story. In 1974, he replaced Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones, a gig he holds to this day.  
Woods’ amplified lead guitar sound is one of the most distinctive in all of British rock and roll – sure-handed, heartfelt, and …

Believe it or not, in the early 1960s British musicians helped save American blues and rock and roll.
In its earliest incarnation, rock and roll had brought the meteoric rise of Bill Haley & The Comets, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and other movers and shakers. Their music was raucous, thrilling, and seemingly unstoppable, but the initial ride was short-lived. By the late 1950s, Haley was washed up. Elvis was in the army. Chuck Berry was in jail. Little Richard had abandoned rock to preach the gospel, and …

With Keith Richards’ nod, I was hired to put together a one-shot magazine, Inside the Voodoo Lounge, to be sold at venues and newsstands during the Rolling Stones’ 1994-1995 World Tour. The first part of my assignment was to fly to Toronto, where the Stones had taken over a boys’ prep school for their rehearsals, and interview each member of the band. I was thrilled to be talking to Charlie Watts, a favorite drummer ever since “Satisfaction” and “Get Off Of My Cloud” hit the airwaves.
My first glimpse of Charlie …