A couple of weeks back, we posted a video profile of our Deputy Editor, Art Dudley, and received overwhelmingly positive feedback for Art—and deeply nostalgic comments about Listener Magazine, which he founded in late 1994, and which ceased publication after the September/October2002 issue.
Listener's writers included Herb Reichert, Michael Fremer, Alex Halberstadt, Rob Doorack, Adam Sohmer, and the late Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg, as well as guitarist Duck Baker, trombonist Roger Oyster, poet Robert Kelly, and a host of others. Features included equipment reviews, how-to articles, regular columns, record reviews, and original interviews with a great many musical artists, including Andy Partridge, Gary Brooker, Roger McGuinn, John McEuen, and Scotty Moore.
Art also pointed out—not necessarily with pride—something he and his wife, Janet Dudley, came to know as "the Listener curse": They published the very last interviews with at least two musicians of note: Rick Danko of the Band and Randy California of Spirit. ("There might have been more," Art says today. "It kinda weirded me out, so I stopped counting after two.") In fact, Listener was in the news recently, when their interview with Randy California, by writer Jeff McLaughlin, was introduced as evidence during the copyright suit against members of Led Zeppelin, who were accused by California's estate of basing "Stairway to Heaven" on a riff from the Spirit song "Taurus."
In this video, shot in Art's listening room, Art and Herb Reichert reminisce together about Listener and its legacy.
Before signing off on this, Art pointed out two errors: He describes the last issue of Listener as having been published in 2003—it was actually 2002—and he refers to listening with his dog to Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd when he meant to say Peter Grimes.
