Archive links to More Vintage News, Reviews
and Photo Essays by Stephen K. Peeples
(1975-2015)
Rhino Entertainment (Archive)
My first pieces published online were on Rhino.com in 1996 and comprised a large chunk of the original site’s archive. I helped produce the site as project co-manager working with an upstart outside developer, and upon launch was Senior Director of Online Media, responsible for all online content.
After I left Rhino at the end of 1997 for a post with Warner Music Group’s New Media crew, the Rhino site went through a series of redesigns and most if not all that early archival content was eventually jettisoned.
However, thanks to the Wayback Machine at archive.org, there’s a motherlode of those Rhino news items, press releases and bios I wrote or edited now archived (as Rhino’s Editorial Director as well, I edited everything the Media Relations department sent out to the press and posted online). Here’s just one example:
09-20-96 Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Jimmie Vaughan & Dick Dale, Guitar Walk Induction (with SKP’s first digital pic on rhino.com, taken with a Kodak DC-40)
For tons more, check out the “Hot Press Releases & Pix Archives” and the “Warm Press Releases & Pix Archives.”
Between 1990-1992, as a freelancer, I had written liner notes for a few Rhino reissues and compilations and begun editing others’ liner notes as assigned by the A&R chiefs, Gary Stewart and James Austin.
1992 Firefall History (SKP’s liner notes for Rhino’s Firefall: Greatest Hits CD, used and updated since by band)
That eventually led Stewart to tag me as co-producer and liner book writer for the Monterey International Pop Festival box set, released in October 1992, just after I accepted a national PR director staff position at the label. The package earned a Grammy nomination for the eligibility year 1993.
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Audio-Video Revolution Album Reviews (Archive)
Fast-forwarding to this century, between 2005-2007, I reviewed 14 albums at length for the AudioVideo Revolution website’s music disc section before the publisher unceremoniously dismissed my editor.
There were no space constraints, so I could stretch out. These also may be of interest because as a music and news journalist, I was more reporter than critic, and if I didn’t like something, rarely wasted time and energy trashing it in a review. I’d rather write about something I like. I suppose that means
The site’s long gone, but thanks again to the Wayback Machine at archive.org, my reviews survive (minus photos): Paul McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full,” The Beatles’ “Love,” Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Last Man Standing,” Bob Dylan’s “The Best of Bob Dylan,” Jeff Healey & The Jazz Wizards’ “It’s Tight Like That,” The Beatles’ “Capitol Albums Vol. 2″ four-CD set, John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon” two-CD anthology, Les Paul & Friends: “American Made World Played,” Herbie Hancock’s “Possibilities,” Steel Pulse’s “True Democracy” and “Earth Crisis,” daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra’s “San Francisco Debut,” Loggins & Messina’s Sittin’ in Again Live…, and Cream’s “Live at Royal Albert Hall.”
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My Santa Clarita (Archive)
I wrote and edited prodigious local news and feature stories for MySantaClarita.com from May 2006 through late October 2007. By then, I’d established it as one of the top three most-visited news sites in the Santa Clarita Valley. Click the link for a Wayback snapshot from early October 2007.
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Santa Clarita Valley Signal (Archive)
The-Signal.com archive site, now dead, once included the hundreds of stories and features I wrote as a staff writer from May 2004 through May 2006 and then October 2007 through May 2011, when I was Online Editor for paper’s website (won two CNPA awards) and a contributor to the weekly entertainment tab, Escape. Check Newspapers.com.
When the paper “upgraded” to a new website a few years later, the tech geniuses in charge at the time failed to properly back up the archives, wiping out everything posted from the late ’90s to the mid-Oughts.
(More recently, I wrote a series of will-appears for a local club for The Signal, until a new, less experienced, unorganized editor took over and screwed up the whole deal. That’s the short version; someday maybe I’ll be bored enough to share the long version.)
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Peeples Place on KHTS-AM/Santa Clarita Hometownstation.com
From 2011 to 2016, I wrote a weekly column and assorted features spotlighting the Santa Clarita Valley music scene for the local radio station’s website. My “Peeples Place” and “SCV Rock Beat” columns are still archived here.
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Flashing back again, here are a few more Peeples archive highlights:
Circus
06-01-76: Tanya Tucker: Country Baby
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Rock Around the World (Archive)
1976-1977 “L.A. GETAWAY,” my exclusive rock news and interviews column for Rock Around the World, a monthly print mag tied in with the nationally syndicated radio show of the same name. In L.A., it aired on KWST-FM (K-West).
I named the column after an obscure solo album by session drummer Johnny Barbata, and wrote it for a little more than a year, also editing several of the issues before starting my record label career at Capitol in October 1977.
Here are links to a few sample columns and features from the RATW archive (the scans are sometimes slightly mangled):
10-01-76 John Mayall interview; Bob Dylan’s Malibu house; Bruce Springsteen at the Santa Monica Civic; Jeff Beck, Aerosmith and Rick Derringer; Spirit, Firefall and Neil Young; and J.J. Cale at the Roxy, more.
11-01-76 Heart, Jefferson Airplane-Starship at The Forum; Flo & Eddie at The Roxy; The Who-Grateful Dead at Oakland Coliseum; Sea Level studio scoop; Poco at the Santa Monica Civic; Steeleye Span and Maddy Prior Chateau Marmont interview; Led Zeppelin.
05-01-77 Martin Mull; Alice Cooper; Styx; Bryan Ferry; Phil Manzanera; Little Feat; Little River Band; Gregg Allman; Dickey Betts; Elvin Bishop; Atari and Malibu Grand Prix; Steely Dan; Dennis Wilson; Tangerine Dream; Lynyrd Skynyrd; Fleetwood Mac, Chick Corea/Return to Forever and Kenny Loggins at Miami Stadium; Peter Frampton album release party at Chasen’s with Don Snowden and Dusti Rhodes.
07-01-77 Dickey Betts & Great Southern feature, Page 1 and Page 2
09-01-77 Heart; John Klemmer; VSOP; Nils Lofgren; Bo Diddley; Jerry Lee Lewis; Ron Wood; Bryan Ferry; John Lee Hooker; Frankie Miller; Outlaws;, Booker T.; Willie Nelson (exclusive interview); Jan-Michael Vincent and Gary Busey (“Big Wednesday”); Mark Hamill (“Star Wars”); Al Stewart; Emmylou Harris; Sons of Champlin; Randy Newman; Rod Stewart; Chuck Leavell and Sea Level; Bruce Gary before The Knack; Del Shannon; Iggy Pop; Crusaders; Average White Band…
10-01-77 Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Hogtown Boys Make Good feature – My memorable interview with TP at the ABC Records office on Beverly Blvd. in Hollywood, just after the band returned from their breakthrough tour of the UK and Europe, as they were prepping to record their second album, “You’re Gonna Get It.”
Holy ^%$#&^, those were the (analog) days. Special thanks to Danny Lipman for the scan.
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Cash Box Magazine 1975
My first job as a professional music journalist, April-December 1975. My very first feature interview was in May, with Waylon Jennings at the RCA offices at 6363 Sunset in Hollywood. We talked about everything from “MacArthur Park” to “The Epic of Gilgamesh.”
He invited me to join him that night when he visited Jimmy Rabbitt on KMET-FM, which was one wild night, and led to many more.
07-12-75: Waylon Jennings: Ramblin’ Man
09-28-75: Grateful Dead-Jefferson Starship at Lindley Meadows
02-14-76: Lone Star Beer: Texas Music and Texas Beer Join Forces
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Stephen K. Peeples was raised in suburban Chicago, small-town Neenah, Wisconsin, Miami, and Los Angeles in the ’50s and ’60s by career newspaper journalists and music lovers. Based in Santa Clarita, California, since 1987, he marked his 50th anniversary in media in May 2025 as a writer/producer and editor for print, records, radio, TV, and the web. Along the way he earned several awards and honors including a Grammy nomination in 1994 as co-producer of the “Monterey International Pop Festival” box set (Rhino/MIPF). For more info, see the “Stephen K. Peeples – About” page on his website. You’ll find more archival and recent original stories and exclusive interviews posted on Peeples’ website and on his YouTube channel.
Article: Peeples Story Archive Links: Cash Box, Circus, RATW, Rhino, AvRev, Signal, More
Category: Stephen K. Peeples – About
Author: Stephen K. Peeples
Article Source: stephenkpeeples.com