Rob Hughes

Iconic Beatle John Lennon's solo albums are full of timeless pop, but be prepared for avant-jazz, birdsong, politics and primal screaming too

In 1965 the musicians who'd become Pink Floyd were searching for a sound: then they ditched their R&B repertoire for much freakier fare

Bolstered by the genius songwriting and production of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys' best albums contain some of the greatest music you’ll ever hear

Gregg Allman's ghosts drove him to do terrible things to himself; they also helped drive people who cared for him away. But without those ghosts he might never have been the artist he became

In October 1972, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page travelled to Bombay to jam with Indian musicians. This is what happened

Norwegian proggers Motorpsycho are very much a law unto themselves and in 2017 released the epic double album The Tower

Banned by the BBC, Roxanne put The Police on the road to superstardom when a radio station in Texas embraced Sting's song about love in a red light district

Dumped by a girlfriend, Justin Hayward remembered a gift she had given him and started writing a song that became a multimillion-selling, era-defining classic – and earned him not a penny

In 2020, Classic Rock sat down with late ex-Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden to talk fistfights with UFO, patching things up with David Coverdale and meeting James Bond

Two Sides Of The Moon cost $200,000 to record, but no amount of money could fix the real problem: it was an absolute mess

Rod Argent was the founding member of The Zombies and Argent and collaborated with some of the best-known names in music, including Phil Collins and The Who. And now the Zombies are reanimated and ready for another bite of success…

Even The Beatles’ most overlooked songs are better than many other bands’ best numbers

2023's unlikeliest duo discuss art as inspiration, Hendrix's guitar and the forthcoming Kevin Ayers’ reissues

Shape-shifting Norwegian proggers Motorpsycho discuss the creation of their 2022 album Ancient Astronauts, a lockdown album like no other

They both left the pioneering band in 1975, but for dancer and lifelong artist Stacia, the connections were never broken

The Woodstock Festival became part of rock'n'roll folklore as half a million hippies descended on a farm in upstate New York in 1969

Few artists, if any, have captured rustic, earthy Americana as well as the mostly non-American quintet The Band

He’s glad he never reached a level of success where someone offered to make him a star

The eclectic drummer has been the jokey one in some bands and the serious, grown-up one in others - but it all comes down to the same approach

Music as movement, speakers in teapots and laughing with Robert Fripp are all part of the great experimenter’s process

10 live albums that remain a career pinnacle for 10 legendary bands

Vivian Stanshall and his conspirators aimed to “play as loudly and badly as possible until someone took notice” – and it actually worked

During prog’s earliest days, their 1968 US tour saw them treated like messiahs, aliens and harbingers of doom - and left them terrified

Revered music series ran for nearly two decades after Thijs van Leer’s band played two-song set during its first year

Since their dramatic arrival in the UK via TV screens in the early 70s, Sparks have continued to make extraordinary music on their own terms. Now they’re enjoying a late-career renaissance