The VVN Music Interviews

Dick Taylor started his career with school friends Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in a group they called the Rollin' Stones but left before they cut their first album to return to art school.   The next year, Dick and Phil May started the Pretty Things with whom he stayed until 1969 after the release of the now critically acclaimed but initially failed rock opera "S.F. Sorrow". Taylor went on to produce, most notably the debut album of Hawkwind in 1970, before returning to the Pretty Things in 1979.  He remains with the group today.  The Pretty Things recently announced that they would be retiring from playing electric shows by the end of 2018. 

On March 23, Procol Harum released an eight-disc box set chronicling the band's history both in the studio and live.  The one person who has been there for that entire history is lead singer Gary Brooker.  Brooker and Robin Trower came from the band the Paramounts, who had a couple of minor hits in Britain in the early-60's before forming Procul Harum in 1966.   The new band had a major international hit with their first single, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and led the way in the incorporation of symphony accompaniment with progressive rock music.   Procol Harum continues to record new material including last year's Novum.  Still There'll Be More: An Anthology 1967-2017

This time, we go back to 2012 for an archive interview with Tommy Roe. Tommy was one of the rare artists who was able to keep his songs in the top ten for most of the 60's, from 1962's "Sheila" through the late-60's and early-70's with "Dizzy" and "Jam Up and Jelly Tight". Roe also toured twice with the Beatles, once in the U.K. and once in the U.S. 

Rachael Sage is a true Renaissance woman of the arts. Over her lifeshe has danced with the New York City ballet, taught herself piano, painted, acted, started her own record company and become a successful singer-songwriter.  Since 1996, she has released fifteen full length albums and EPs including her LP of music for dance, Choreographic, and her new EP of holiday music, Joy!

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Glenn Hughes has had a long and very active career in music, first with the British group Trapeze and, starting in 1973, as a member of Deep Purple Mk. III and IV. It was with Deep Purple that he sang and played bass on the albums Burn, Stormbringer, Come Taste the Band and the live set, Made in Europe. After Deep Purple, Hughes recorded the first of over a dozen solo albums and went on to be a member of Phenomena, Black Sabbath (Seventh Star), Voodoo Hill, California Breed and his current band, Black Country Communion.  BCC, made up of Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Derek Sherinian and Jason Bonham, have just released their fourth studio album, BCCIV. 

Paula Cole started her career in the clubs around her native Boston before being asked to join Peter Gabriel's Secret World Tour.  Her exposure from that tour and her first album, Harbinger, got her signed to Warner Brothers where she released This Fire which went on to be nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys along with six other categories including Producer of the Year.  Cole has just released her new album, Ballads, which contains twenty songs from the Great American Songbook along with the world of Americana.  

According to Rolling Stone, Carl Palmer is one of the ten best drummers in music.   He started his career in the late-60's with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster before forming Emerson, Lake and Palmer with the late Keith Emerson and Greg Lake. Together, they created a rare mix of rock and classical music that was a cornerstone in the progressive rock movement.   After Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Carl was a founding member of Asia before striking out on his own with his own band.  He is currently on tour with Yes and Todd Rundgren on the Yestival tour, fronting Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy. 

Ross the Boss Friedman has been a mainstay of the music business for over forty years. In 1973, he was a founding member of the punk icons The Dictators and, in 1980, he started the hard rock band Manowar. Plus, he's been involved in recordings for a wide variety of other artists over the years.  We talk with Ross on the forming of both bands, his work with Bruce Springsteen, how he managed to get Orson Welles on two Manowar albums, his work ethic and his induction into the Hall of Heavy Metal History. 

Singer and guitarist Tommy Victor got his start in music working at CBGB in New York as a sound engineer and, in 1986, got together with a fellow employee, Mike Kirkland, and ex-Swans drummer Ted Parsons to form Prong.  Prong released their debut EP, Primitive Origins in 1987 and full LP, Force Fed, in 1989 before signing a deal with Epic Records where they recorded four albums including Cleansing and Rude Awakening. The band broke up in 1996 with Victor going on to play with Danzig and, later, Ministry, but in 2002, he reformed the band with a revised lineup for some touring and, in 2007, took it back full time.  Prong's latest album, Zero Days, is available now. 

Jett Williams was born just five days after her father, Hank Williams died at the age of 29.  Her birth mother gave her up for adoption and it wasn't until the early-80's that she researched her heritage and found out her father was a country icon.  After a court battle to be accepted as one of William's true heirs, she joined forces with her brother, Hank Williams, Jr., to assemble The Complete Mother's Best Recordings, a sixteen-disc box set that contained 72 15-minute radio programs that Williams recorded for WSM in Nashville. Jett is also a country performer in her own right with her latest being the 2017 set Mount Olive.