Richard Williams (journalist)

Last updated

Richard Williams (born 13 March 1947) is a British music and sports journalist.

As a writer, then deputy editor, of the weekly music newspaper Melody Maker (MM), he became an influential commentator on the rise of new forms of rock music at the end of the 1960s. Williams and MM, as it was known, helped promote and contextualise the progressive in pop music. In particular, Williams wrote several key articles around 1970 that increased UK attention to the (then disintegrating) Velvet Underground. Melody Maker still covered jazz and Williams wrote about the more progressive developments in this field also.

The magazine's serious approach to rock music and culture, under the editorship of Ray Coleman, secured MM a huge circulation by the close of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s. It left New Musical Express , a more pop-orientated weekly, in its wake as MM caught the mood of rock followers at a time when the music had transcended its Top 40 roots to become a powerful symbol of social and cultural change. Williams was a vocal and influential supporter of Bob Marley during the early seventies. He wrote several key features at Melody Maker which resulted in Marley's first important cover stories.

Williams moved on to new challenges in the early 1970s. Beginning in May 1970 he contributed to The Times and continued to write for that paper until October 1989. He also wrote regularly for Radio Times . He left journalism to join Island Records' A&R department in 1973, becoming department head. For two years, he signed and developed artists including Pete Wingfield, Stone Delight, Bryn Haworth and John Cale.

The first presenter of the BBC rock show The Old Grey Whistle Test (launched in 1971) while still a member of the MM team, and shortly thereafter its producer, Williams later became editor of the new London listings guide Time Out and returned to MM as editor from 1978 to 1980. [1]

After a period as features editor at The Sunday Times , he became editor of the Independent on Sunday 's Sunday Review. His music journalism has been gathered in the volume Long Distance Call: Writings on Music and biographies of Bob Dylan (A Man Called Alias), Miles Davis (The Man in the Green Shirt), and Phil Spector (Out of His Head) are among his list of other publications.

Williams remains an active journalist and is the former chief sports writer of The Guardian , covering a full array of sports. He has written several books on Formula One, including The Death of Ayrton Senna , Racers (an analysis of the main participants of the 1996 F1 season), Enzo Ferrari: A Life, and The Last Road Race (a study of the changing balance in Formula One between British and Italian teams, using the 1957 Pescara Grand Prix as the backdrop).

Williams' comments about music and related film, photography and art topics are published in the form of his blog, The Blue Moment. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ziggy Marley</span> Jamaican reggae musician (born 1968)

David Nesta "Ziggy" Marley is a Jamaican reggae musician. He is the son of reggae icon Bob Marley and Rita Marley. He led the family band Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers until 2002, with whom he released eight studio albums. After the disbandment, Ziggy launched a successful solo career by having released eight solo studio albums on his own record company, Tuff Gong Worldwide. Ziggy continues his father’s heritage to record and self-release all of his music. Marley is an eight-time Grammy Award winner and a Daytime Emmy Award recipient.

<i>The Old Grey Whistle Test</i> British music television programme

The Old Grey Whistle Test was a British television music show. The show was devised by BBC producer Rowan Ayers, commissioned by David Attenborough and aired on BBC2 from 1971 to 1988. It took over the BBC2 late-night slot from Disco 2, which ran between September 1970 and July 1971, while continuing to feature non-chart music. The original producer, involved in an executive capacity throughout the show's entire history, was Michael Appleton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music journalism</span> Journalism genre

Music journalism is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what is now regarded as classical music. In the 1960s, music journalism began more prominently covering popular music like rock and pop after the breakthrough of The Beatles. With the rise of the internet in the 2000s, music criticism developed an increasingly large online presence with music bloggers, aspiring music critics, and established critics supplementing print media online. Music journalism today includes reviews of songs, albums and live concerts, profiles of recording artists, and reporting of artist news and music events.

<i>Melody Maker</i> Historical British weekly pop/rock music newspaper (1926–2000)

Melody Maker was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.

Omnibus Press is a publisher of music-related books. It publishes around 30 new titles a year to add to a backlist of over 250 titles currently in print.

Timothy White was an American rock music journalist and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Marley (musician)</span> American musician (born 1972)

Stephen Robert Nesta Marley is a Jamaican-American musician. The son of Bob Marley, Marley is an eight-time Grammy Award winner, three times as a solo artist, twice as a producer of younger brother Damian Marley's Halfway Tree and Welcome to Jamrock albums, and a further three times as a member of his older brother Ziggy Marley's group Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hepworth</span> British music journalist

David Hepworth is a British music journalist, writer, television presenter, and publishing industry analyst. He was instrumental in the foundation of a number of popular magazines in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Along with the journalist, editor and broadcaster Mark Ellen, he turned the pop magazine Smash Hits into one of the most popular UK music magazines of the 1980s. A presenter of The Old Grey Whistle Test in the 1980s, he co-presented the BBC broadcast of Live Aid in 1985.

Crawdaddy was an American rock music magazine launched in 1966. It was created by Paul Williams, a Swarthmore College student at the time, in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music. The magazine was named after the Crawdaddy Club in London and published during its early years as Crawdaddy!.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Harris (radio presenter)</span> British broadcaster

Robert Brinley Joseph Harris, popularly known as "Whispering Bob" Harris, is an English music presenter. He is well known for being a host of the BBC2 music programme The Old Grey Whistle Test and as a co-founder of the listings magazine Time Out. He currently presents Bob Harris Country on Thursdays on BBC Radio 2 at 9 pm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stir It Up</span> 1972 single by Johnny Nash and Bob Marley & The Wailers

"Stir It Up" is a song composed by Bob Marley in 1967 and first recorded by the group Bob Marley and the Wailers that year and issued as a single. It was later covered by American singer Johnny Nash on his 1972 album I Can See Clearly Now. The following year, Marley and the Wailers re-recorded the song for their album Catch a Fire.

Colin Lester Irwin was a British music journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers</span> Jamaican-American reggae family group

Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers were a Jamaican-American reggae family group whose line-up consisted of the children of musicians, Bob Marley and Rita Marley, which includes lead singer Ziggy Marley with Sharon Marley, Cedella Marley, and Stephen Marley. Formed in 1979 in Brooklyn, New York, Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers members began their musical endeavours in their pre-teens under the name the Melody Makers.

<i>Hey World!</i> 1986 studio album by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers

Hey World! is the second album by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, released in 1986.

<i>Joy and Blues</i> 1993 studio album by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers

Joy and Blues is a studio album by the reggae band Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, released in 1993 on Virgin Records. The first single was "Brothers and Sisters", which was promoted to modern rock radio.

Paul Lester is a British music journalist, author and broadcaster from Elstree, North London.

Simon Price is a British music journalist and author. He is known for his weekly review section in The Independent on Sunday and his book Everything .

Chris Salewicz is a journalist, broadcaster and novelist who lives in London. He was as a senior features writer for the New Musical Express from 1975 to 1981, where under tutelage of editor Neil Spencer he and other journalists were said to have re-written the book on music journalism. The period Chris spent at NME is regarded by some as a 'Golden Age of Music Journalism', where, fuelled by the punk rock explosion, the whole genre changed into a complex revolutionary socioeconomic critique rather than the fan club–style journalism of the previous decades. Along with other NME alumni of that period, Chris's work soon found its way into serious mainstream publications the Sunday Times, the Independent, The Daily Telegraph, Conde Nast Traveller, Q, Mojo and Time Out; he also wrote for The Face magazine.

Progressive pop is pop music that attempts to break with the genre's standard formula, or an offshoot of the progressive rock genre that was commonly heard on AM radio in the 1970s and 1980s. It was originally termed for the early progressive rock of the 1960s. Some stylistic features of progressive pop include hooks and earworms, unorthodox or colorful instrumentation, changes in key and rhythm, experiments with larger forms, and unexpected, disruptive, or ironic treatments of past conventions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Sims</span> American journalist, music critic and magazine editor

Judith Sims was an American journalist, music critic, and magazine editor. She was the first editor of the rock magazine TeenSet in the 1960s. Later she was the Los Angeles bureau chief for Rolling Stone.

References

  1. Old Grey Whistle Test DVD Vol. 3; Bob Harris speaking before Track 3.
  2. Williams, Richard. "The Blue Moment" . Retrieved 25 May 2015.