Posts From Sam Sutherland

Sam Sutherland

Sam Sutherland

Sam Sutherland has worked both sides of the music biz street as music industry journalist at Billboard and Record World (as well as freelancing for Phonograph Record, Musician Magazine, High Fidelity and Rolling Stone), and in the label trenches with Elektra/Asylum, Windham Hill Productions and Discovery Records. In the ‘90s, he was beamed up to the digital rapture via software and early online projects for Microsoft and Amazon’s original music and video storefronts. He’s since produced entertainment content for Windows Media and, most recently, MSN Music. Nevertheless, he still prefers vinyl to digital. A New York ex-pat, Sutherland lives near Seattle.

The Dusty Springfield Pop-Soul Pinnacle: ‘Dusty in Memphis’

Nearing 30, the British vocal great was intimidated by the soul power at Atlantic Records, her new home. She overcame it and turned out a masterpiece.

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The Poco Country-Rock Legacy: “Deliverin’,” With a Gallop

With its stellar vocal harmonies and instrumental dexterity, the album established Poco for decades to come and drew a blueprint for country-rock’s future.

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‘Let It Bleed’: The Rolling Stones’ Turbulent Masterpiece

The album captures the band at its creative apogee through a dark masterpiece that mirrors the violent ’60s milieu in which it was created.

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The Van Morrison Masterpiece: ‘Astral Weeks’

A “feverish poetic intensity persists” throughout the cycle of songs that comprise his 1968 work, even as those songs shift in pace and tone.

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Traffic ‘The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys’: Rock on the Fusion Frontier

What had begun as post-‘Sgt. Pepper’ psychedelia turned toward a darker, more idiosyncratic synthesis of jazz, blues, world music and English folk elements.

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‘Desperado’—Eagles’ Sagebrush Country-Rock Opera

With its sophomore effort, the band tethered its polished country-rock to a concept album driven by a Wild West narrative.

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‘Disraeli Gears’: When Cream Rose to the Top

On their second album, the trio honed their virtuosic interplay to a sharper edge and added a more modern sensibility spiked with psychedelia.

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‘Wildflowers’: Tom Petty’s Heartbroken Solo Masterpiece

Petty called it his favorite album. Its generous song list only hinted at the virtual torrent of material he was creating during this period.

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Flying Burrito Bros.’ Seminal Country-Rock Debut, ‘Gilded Palace’

Gram Parsons had envisioned the Burritos as “his” band, but ‘The Gilded Palace of Sin’ underscores the partnership between Parsons and Chris Hillman

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The Byrds’ ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’: Cornerstone of Country-Rock

Their most consequential stylistic stroke since their pioneering folk-rock debut three years earlier, it ushered in country-rock and Americana.

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