AtoZ

MAPS & LEGENDS
Forty years on from their third album "Fables Of The Reconstruction", Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills shine new light on their early years: Plus: Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy reveal all about their "Fables..." tour

AFTERGLOW
For SMALL FACES, 1968 was a year of extremes, from hit singles and a career-defining album to a final, onstage bustup. But while the bonds between them were strained by internal tensions and external dramas, the music they made in their last months together pointed tantalisingly in bold new directions. As an expanded version of their posthumous The Autumn Stone set reveals fresh treasures, Rob Hughes discovers what really transpired during the band’s final, tumultuous 12 months. “We were splitting up,” says Kenney Jones. “But we sounded so great.”

MEETING PEOPLE IS EASY
Thirty years ago, RADIOHEAD released The Bends – both a prickly, restless reaction to the sudden fame thrust upon them by “Creep” and their first experimental art-rock blockbuster. On assignment for Melody Maker, Andrew Mueller joined Radiohead on tour in America with REM, where Thom Yorke and co defied backstage pranks and on-the-road ennui to make sense of their place at music’s top table. “The thing that’s really freaked me out,” Thom Yorke revealed, “is seeing how being so famous can change the way everybody behaves towards you.”

“A new kind of rock’n’roll”
Together, ROBBIE ROBERTSON, RICK DANKO, GARTH HUDSON, RICHARD MANUEL and LEVON HELM forged a vision of American music, one steeped in its rich cultural history, and whose profound and far-reaching influence can still be felt today. Fifty years on from the release of The Basement Tapes, Uncut invites compatriots, aficionados and heads – including JASON ISBELL, RICHARD THOMPSON, LUCINDA WILLIAMS, ELVIS COSTELLO, VAN MORRISON, MARGO PRICE and STURGILL SIMPSON – to celebrate THE 30 GREATEST SONGS OF THE BAND.

LED ZEPPELIN