Classic Rock
‘BLACK SABBATH ARE PLAYING FOR 30 PENCE’
February 9, 1970. Arriving late at our local rock club on a rainy Monday night, the 15-year-old me is hoping to catch American blues guitarist Freddie King, but, approaching the venue, Friars Aylesbury sounds to be under some kind of bombardment. A sheet of paper tacked on the door says King can't make it, and Black Sabbath are playing instead for the half-price admission of 30 pence.
1 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
'OZZY WOULD BE WATCHING THE HISTORY CHANNEL'
My first Sabbath gig was on May 30, 1970 at Malvern Winter Gardens.
2 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
“YOU'VE GOT NICE EYEBROWS”
On July 5, 1986, Ozzy was in Sacramento, California, during a long tour in support of his latest album The Ultimate Sin. This was a few weeks before he headlined the biggest UK event of the year for heavy metal fans - the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park. As a writer for weekly music paper Sounds, I travelled to Sacramento with photographer Peter Anderson to write a cover story on Ozzy. Things did not go exactly to plan.
3 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
BABY ZEBRAS, COCKTAIL IN HAND'
When you’re doing a live syndicated radio show, if your guest is late, you're fucked.
2 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
OZZY WAS READY TO GIVE IT ALL UP'
It's really hard to talk about Ozzy in the past tense. It just seems impossible he's gone.
1 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
"LET'S GET A TATTOO!"
Dave Ling remembers a night out in Hollywood with the Prince Of Darkness.
3 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
GLENN HUGHES
With Trapeze, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Black Country Communion, solo projects and more, the bassist/vocalist has spent more than 50 years in rock. Addiction nearly derailed his roller- coaster career, but he pulled himself back from the brink and is still going strong. A life? Not half.
10+ min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
THE VIEW FROM THE SOFA
Obviously, the first blow to the sofa-bound Back To The Beginning livestream viewer is that stream though it is, live it isn't. So you're doomed to twiddle your devil-horn digits until three o'clock before one o'clock finally rolls around and a recently rebooted Mastodon waggle their collective Black Tongue at you. In the interim you pop a can and revel in the lack of a queue for your toilet.
2 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
Rodney Crowell
The country star returns with a guest-packed new album, and tells us what revived his interest in southern rock.
2 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
Rival Sons/Creeping - Jean Bournemouth 02 Academy
While the support band impress, the headliners show why they're the band that other bands are impressed by.
2 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
De'Wayne
Listening to his genre-flipping new album, it's clear Taco Bell's loss is very much rock's gain.
2 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
Neil Young And The Chrome Hearts
BST, London Hyde Park
1 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'
Fully Qualified Survivor would be a perfect album title for Walter Trout. Unfortunately someone else used it. The bluesman returns with Sign Of The Times, looking at a world gone wrong.
8 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
Warrior Soul
Marking the band's 35th year, the US band tour the UK in August and September.
3 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
Connor Selby
He's seen mostly as a blueser, but there's more to him than that.
2 min |
September 2025
Classic Rock
WE SHARED THE YEARS
A personal Ozzy tribute by Classic Rock's Geoff Barton.
10+ min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Richard Morrison
Thomas Hardy's dark poems are a vital record of a rich musical past
3 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Pick a theme... and name your seven favourite examples
3 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Learning the notes
Unique to the British cultural scene, chorister schools can offer often educational opportunities that are hard to match, writes
6 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Donizetti's opera comes to a bloody end as sopranos scrap
Nineteenth-century opera is packed with scenes of fiery confrontation, from the red-hot love entanglements in Bizet’s Carmen to the apocalyptic clashes between gods, demigods and humans in Wagner's Ring cycle. Few, though, are fierier than the convulsive episode Gaetano Donizetti placed at the heart of his opera Maria Stuarda, as he readied it for presentation at the Royal Court of Naples in 1834.
3 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Vienna Austria
If you're a classical music lover and you haven't been to the Austrian capital, it is definitely time you paid a visit, enthuses
3 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Code to joy
Many composers have embedded coded messages in their music – and some still remain a mystery
6 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Arvo Pärt
From serialism to the hypnotic tintinnabuli, the 90-year-old Estonian's world has shifted radically over the years,
6 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Cold comfort
In the late 1980s, British pianist James Kirby braved cold, hunger and totalitarian rule to study in Moscow. Here he shares his memories with
8 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Mark Kermode
Film Critic, Broadcaster
4 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Man of the World
Though many may think of John Rutter as being the most British of choral composers and conductors, his huge popularity in fact spreads right across the globe,
7 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
In good hands
As we celebrate legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman's 80th birthday, the virtuoso speaks to Charlotte Smith about teaching, conducting, his famous sound – and keeping inspired over a career of more than 60 years
8 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Concert Heaven Concert Hell
Top artists recall their best and worst performances
3 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Picture perfect
What are the best ever uses of classical music masterpieces in film? From heartbreaking love stories to apocalyptic visions, we select our top 12
9 min |
September 2025
BBC Music Magazine
Heroes & Villas
Rachmaninov holds a special significance for pianist Alexander Melnikov – a composer whose life bore similarities to his own,
6 min |