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Articles by Michael Stuart

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About Michael Stuart

After university, Michael spent twelve years working for MELODY MAKER before going freelance. He claims to keep doing it because it is all he knows. More Posts

Walking on the spot

Most people will have heard Walking In Memphis, the 1991 multi-Grammy award song by American Marc Cohn, a 59 year old, twice divorced, singer-songwriter. I know I have, but until this week – my problem rather than anyone else’s, I admit – neither his name nor his connection to said ditty had [...]

July 20, 2018 // 0 Comments

Burt Bacharach in concert

Perhaps the most tellling thing about the legend that is Burt Bacharach is that aged 90 he is performing at all. I had expected that rather like another ageing maestro Otto Klemperer he would be going though the motions with some conducting but no over 2 hours he presented, played, sang and I was [...]

July 11, 2018 // 0 Comments

A soul legend rocks the Union Chapel

The Grade 1-listed Union Chapel in Islington/Highbury, built in the late 19th Century in Gothic-revival style, is both a working Congregationalist church and a charity drop-in centre but perhaps best well-known to irreligious bums like me as a corking-good live music venue. Somehow its combination [...]

July 11, 2018 // 0 Comments

Madame Butterfly /Glyndebourne

I had seen this Madame Butterfly 2 years ago in gestation as part of the autumn repertory and last night Puccini’s masterpiece made a powerful impression as the story is as magnificent as the music despite some tinkering by director Annilese Mackinnon. I imagine most readers know the story [...]

July 9, 2018 // 0 Comments

Bob Dylan’s time out

I’m not a one-eyed Dylan worshipper but acknowledge him as one of the all-time greats of rock music. To put it in context, my favourite Dylan album is his thirtieth – Time Out Of Mind (1997) – probably because I related to its themes of world-weariness at the time – and for large [...]

June 9, 2018 // 0 Comments

Generations think differently, or do they?

At a recent social gathering I was discussing the issue of musical tastes with a gent aged 28. In the middle of our conversation – out of interest, having no idea of what answer he might give and alert to the possibility that it might be a combo or artiste of which I had never heard – I asked [...]

May 9, 2018 // 0 Comments

The art of keeping up and failing

It ill bodes anyone who ventures to predict the future – I’ll put my hand up straight away to having totally failed to foresee the way things might go when mobile phones and the internet first appeared in the 1970s/1980s – so you’ll excuse me for taking a deep breath before beginning [...]

March 9, 2018 // 0 Comments

Hey you! Get Off Of My Cloud!

And so the Rolling Stones are about to embark upon yet another UK & European tour this summer. See here for a report on the announcement in the – NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS As a former music journo who cut his teeth in the late Sixties and has spent over forty years in and around the industry I [...]

March 1, 2018 // 0 Comments

And now for something completely different

Last night I watched a recording that I’d ‘organised’ of a BBC television documentary called A Life On Screen about Michael Palin that was first broadcast at some point last weekend. It was both fascinating and entertaining. When Monty Python’s Flying Circus first hit the television [...]

January 13, 2018 // 0 Comments

New Years Day Concert Vienna

The ‘attend versus watch it on tv’ debate does not apply to the Vienna traditional New Years Day concert as tickets are gold dust, so I watch it every year on tv. This year they added a short film of an attractive young blonde girl on a bicycle touring the Belvedere and Leopold museums [...]

January 1, 2018 // 0 Comments

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