Of all the ways to start your career in music, having a future legend turn up at your parents’ doorstep isn’t the usual path. But that’s...

Before stadium tours, before MTV, and long before digital sampling made it possible to fake a perfect drumbeat, one man played the real thing, thousands upon thousands of times. His name was Hal Blaine, and if you’ve listened to virtually any American pop song from the 1960s or early 1970s, chances are you’ve heard his work. Without ever becoming a household name, he laid down the foundation of pop and rock’s golden age. His career spanned more than 25 years, during which he

When The Beatles returned to Hamburg in April 1962 for what would be their third stint in the city, they were expecting long nights,...