The vinyl word: Hendrix was the complete package, the full-service rock star as one-stop deity, and Purple Haze was his masterpiece

Joe Queenan recalls how a punch up ended an epic evening of concerts for Elvis Costello in Seventies' New York

When Bob Dylan reinvented himself as a country crooner on 1969's Nashville Skyline he caught many fans off guard

Bobby Fuller's future was bright when he fought the law - but he ended up in the hands of gangsters. That's the 60s for you

A song about the 13th century Albigensian heresy, sung in French by a Belgian nun, reached No 1 in the 1960s. We can learn a lot form that

White people are more than welcome to listen to the Godfather of Soul, but his music's not aimed at them, says Joe Queenan

Many bands start out good and end up bad. But Fleetwood Mac started out as a raw blues band and ended up as Fleetwood Mac.

Joe Queenan, or rather his son, asks exactly who or what is Thunderball. And how is it possible to strike like him or it?

The untimely death of Mike Smith, lead singer of the Dave Clark Five, is a sad reminder of a band whose simple humanity blinded people to the brilliance of their music

The Vinyl Word: Joe Queenan revels in the electrifying banality of Kraftwerk. Has any pop act ever been more German?

Otis Redding died the wrong way and at the wrong time. That's why he has never received the level of adulation that he surely deserves, says Joe Queenan

Joe Queenan invites you to forget about the substance abuse, the jailed husband and the cancelled gigs for a moment and remember what it is that made Amy Winehouse famous in the first place

The Vinyl Word: Joe Queenan on a song that is to the Pink Floyd canon what Ruby Tuesday is to the Rolling Stones' songbook: it may be a great song, but it doesn't quite fit

The Vinyl Word: Joe Queenan examines how Barry Gibb and his brothers went from the weirdness of 1967's New York Mining Disaster 1941 to the pure pop of 1975's Jive Talkin'

Joe Queenan digs into the past of Jailhouse Rock, one of the few good Elvis songs to adorn his films, and discovers a writing duo indirectly responsible for splitting up The Beatles

Joe Queenan goes in search of the progenitors of heavy metal and is surprised to find that neither Black Sabbath nor Norse gods seem to have been involved

Why did Quiet Riot's cover of Cum on Feel the Noize succeed in the US, while the original didn't? Joe Queenan investigates

Joe Queenan ponders the Knack, a band who almost seemed to have compiled a checklist of everything needed to do in order to become one-hit wonders and then went out and did them

The entire history of the music industry is contained in the story of Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit Respect. The tale includes such showbiz staples as the neophyte who goes to bed unknown and wakes up the toast of Broadway; the fist fight in the studio; the genius mired in a going-nowhere career until she decides to change labels; the exhumation of a song that did nothing when recorded earlier by a more famous singer; the intervention of the legendary producer; and the pop song that unexpectedly achieves anthem status because it happened to be released in the right place at the right time. The saga is also tinged with a bittersweet note, because Respect marked Franklin's creative peak; she would release many more singles and many more albums over the years, and would even register a major hit with Annie Lennox as late as 1985. But none of these songs would have the enduring appeal or cultural import of the single she recorded in 1967. The snappy Lennox collaboration, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves, is a more explicitly feminist sequel to Respect, but by that time feminism was no longer a daring concept. Aretha Franklin was 25 when she recorded Respect, and her youth in itself is yet another fixture in the rags-to-riches saga the music industry knows so well; like Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and a host of others, she had done her best work before she was 30. In fact, like them, she had done her best work before she was 26.

Joe Queenan on a Lynyrd Skynyrd song that told Neil Young where he could stick it. But is it a white supremacist anthem?