In October 1974 Malcolm McLaren conjured an unusual group name for four young musicians who congregated at his shop at 430 King’s Road.
//The group name as it appeared on the ‘right’ side of the You’re Gonna Wake Up t-shirt//
At the time the transition from the premises’ previous incarnation as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die to Sex was nearing completion; in fact the teenagers Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock (who was also a sales assistant on Saturdays) and Wally Nightingale assisted McLaren in applying the finishing touch with the erection of the pink vinyl shop sign constructed at his direction by carpenter Vic Mead.
For the ‘My London’ slot on his BBC Radio London programme, British broadcaster Gary Crowley has conducted an illuminating interview (with musical choices) with Nick Logan, editor, publisher and hands-down the greatest British magazine innovator of our time.
In 1956 the Hollywood photographer John E. Reed took a series of promotional shots of the stars of DJ Alan Freed’s rocksploitation flick Don’t Knock The Rock.
//Front cover of the Rev-Ola reissue of I Am The Greatest. Scan courtesy Joe Foster//
I was commissioned to write these sleeve-notes by Joe Foster for his label Rev-Ola’s 1998 reissue of I Am The Greatest, the Cassius Clay album pulled from the shelves by Columbia Records amid his championing of civil rights and name change to Muhammad Ali.
To those of us who grew up with Ali, whatever our persuasion or interest in boxing, he was – as I wrote nearly 20 years ago – King Of The World.
//From Champion As Long As He Wants, Gilbert Rogin, Sports Illustrated, November 29, 1965//
In the mid-60s, the writer Gilbert Rogin, one of those hard-asses equally at home publishing fiction in The New Yorker as filing sports coverage in the dailies, expressed the perplexing prospect presented to the world by Cassius Marcellus Clay’s complex personality.
Insisting on using Ali’s despised “slave-name”, Rogin was attempting to assess this giant’s world-beating activities inside the ring, but his remarks refer equally to this collection of bragadoccio raps, bar-room poems and verbal whuppings delivered to the likes of vanquished rivals such as Sonny Liston.
Also present and correct is the rare version of Ben E. King’s Stand By Me, a finely delivered performance which rivals those of the greatest vocalists who have also covered the song.
At the time of recording Clay’s cachet was pretty damn high. His charisma, stunning physical abilities and spitfire mouth had combined to turn around the fortunes of the US boxing industry; annual receipts rose from $7.8m in 1963 to £26.5m two years later.
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