M is for Music. Nailing Dave’s sound was important for me: think of a British take on American rock, leaning more to country rock than blues and to melody more than bombast. The best triangulation I managed to find was the Faces or early-70s Who crossed with the Band. Dave is strong on rootsy ...

Mal Evans was the Beatles’ road manager, from their post-Hamburg days at the Cavern club, through their whole recording career and beyond. I picked up Living the Beatles Legend: the Untold Story of Mal Evans by Kenneth Womack hoping for another angle on the familiar subject of the Beatles. Ins...

L is for ‘Let You Go’: the one Dave Masters original song that exists as more than just a title, the one that I actually wrote some lyrics for. I did so with some trepidation – I’m not a songwriter – but I knew what I needed the song to be for the role it plays in Dead ...

Jon Landau once famously wrote, ‘I have seen rock and roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.’ A couple of nights ago I didn’t so much see rock’s future as revelled gloriously in its past. The Country Tones play Americana classics, and at the Thomas Trip in Chr...

Christmas doesn’t start in our house until two things have happened. First of all, I have to hear Bruce Springsteen’s version of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ on the radio, and secondly the family has to gather to watch the Muppet Christmas Carol. The second of those is cur...