33½ minutes with...Francis Rossi
Record Collector|March 2023
"Quo's last record got 3.5m streams... which is apparently fuck-all"
Mark McStea
33½ minutes with...Francis Rossi

Francis Rossi is about to embark on an extensive tour of the UK with his one man show, Tunes and Chat. Running from March through to November 2023, well over 100 dates, it follows on from a similar show Rossi toured with in 2019 and 2020, before the global shutdown brought everything to a halt. At 73, Rossi's enthusiasm for the performing side of the business remains undimmed, although he is less enthusiastic about the travel and logistics. Having achieved so much with Status Quo, it turns out that he does harbour one small regret when it comes to looking back on Quo's aborted attempt to crack America: they're huge in every territory bar the States.

Did being big in the US never appeal?

Well, we never plugged any of our 60s hits in America, but we did go over there in the early 70s. It seemed so daunting to break such a huge territory without management and record company support. California alone seemed like it would take a fucking lifetime to crack. It seemed that we could never do it justice without compromising our success in the rest of the world, so we didn't really pursue it.

Didn't you consider having another go in the wake of Live Aid?

I do think, in hindsight, that that was probably a mistake - maybe we could have really had a go at that point. It's funny at my age to be thinking about new areas to move into that we haven't really fully explored. Foghat were a Quo kind of band who did well, so maybe there would have been an appetite for what we were doing if we'd really pushed it.

You were there when Slade were trying to break America, weren't you?

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 2023 من Record Collector.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 2023 من Record Collector.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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Paperback Blighters - The books every record collector should read.
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The books every record collector should read. Vinyl, you may have heard, has made a big comeback. In 2022, sales of vinyl albums surpassed compact discs (CDs) for the first time in more than three decades in terms of global revenue, racking up more than $1.2bn.

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"Beware the Savage Lure/of 1984..." - David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods.
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"Beware the Savage Lure/of 1984..." - David Bowie is one of the most venerated musicians ever. But even he had his bad periods.

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7"  Heaven & Hell the Story of the 45 - The 45 turns 75 this year. Matthew Quinlan charts its history, recalling the RPM wars and two belligerent titans who went into battle over the speed of spinning sound
Record Collector

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Someone needs to come and empty the bins behind the Lloyds Bank branch in Kingston-upon-Thames. It’s been raining and flattened cardboard slumps next to a flytipped air conditioning unit and a rusting clothes rack. There are two signs at head height on the red brick wall. One warns that you’ll be clamped if you park here; the other, a stainless-steel plaque, marks Nipper’s 100th birthday. Nipper, the dog at the heart of the HMV and RCA Victor logos, was a white terrier with chocolate brown ears, maybe a Jack Russell, Smooth Fox, or Bull Terrier, more likely a mix. This is his final resting place. He was buried under a mulberry tree but, you know, urban sprawl, progress, etc. The plaque was unveiled by the Chairman of HMV Stores on 15 August 1984, while Captain Sensible, Janice Long, and a Nipper doppelganger looked on. Round the corner, at HMV and Our Price, George Michael’s Careless Whisper was flying off the shelves, and every copy turned at 45 RPM.

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STARS ON 45s
Record Collector

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Record Collector

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Young American
Record Collector

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Record Collector

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Record Collector

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Record Collector

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David Cassidy was arguably the biggest solo star of the immediate post-Beatles era, yet his fame as well as his boyish good looks and extracurricular excessesovershadow the excellence of his breathily intimate, musically accomplished records. Simon Goddard, RC contributor and author of an acclaimed series of books on David Bowie, hails the work of the tortured pop idol

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Record Collector

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