Cliff White (9 November 1945 – 25 January 2018) was a

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

-winning British music journalist, critic and researcher.

Biography

White became a fan of

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

music in his early teens. After leaving school in London, he worked briefly in a stockbrokers' office before securing his first job in the music business in 1964, as a salesman at the

HMV Sunrise Records and Entertainment, trading as HMV (for His Master's Voice), is a British music and entertainment retailer, currently operating exclusively in the United Kingdom. The first HMV-branded store was opened by the Gramophone Company ...

record store A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...

on Oxford Street. He regularly attended such clubs as

the Flamingo Flamingo Las Vegas (formerly The Fabulous Flamingo and Flamingo Hilton Las Vegas) is a casino hotel on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment. The property includes a casino along with 3, ...

, the Marquee and

the 100 Club The 100 Club is a music venue located at 100 Oxford Street, London, England, where it has been hosting live music since 24 October 1942. It was originally called the Feldman Swing Club, but changed its name when the father of the current owner ...

, and for a time sang in a band performing R&B covers, High Society, who toured in Germany. After returning briefly to work at HMV, he worked as a truck driver and for an engineering company before leaving in 1974 to pursue a writing career. He travelled to the US, where he was introduced to

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...

and, as a freelance journalist, started contributing to '' Black Music'' and then the ''

New Musical Express ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

''. "A Woodie Speaks", ''Tales from the Woods'', no.82, December 2014, pp.21-31
/ref> Charles Thomson, "Grammy-winning Ilford writer Cliff White - who interviewed Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson and James Brown - has died.", ''Yellow Advertiser'', 27 January 2018
Retrieved 30 January 2018 In the mid and late 1970s White interviewed many of the black musicians touring in Britain and developed friendships with some of them, including James Brown,

Screamin' Jay Hawkins Jalacy J. "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of s ...

, and

Johnny "Guitar" Watson John Watson Jr. (February 3, 1935 – May 17, 1996), known professionally as Johnny "Guitar" Watson, was an American musician and singer-songwriter. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, his recording career ...

. He wrote extensively on black music, interviewing such stars as

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

, Barry White and

Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...

, and also occasionally reviewed a wider range of records in the ''NME'' and other magazines including ''

Smash Hits ''Smash Hits'' was a British music magazine aimed at young adults, originally published by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006, and, after initially appearing monthly, was issued fortnightly during most of that time. The name survived as a brand fo ...

''. He was one of the first to review

the Sex Pistols ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

' " Anarchy in the UK", which he described as "lousy... laughably naive... a third-rate Who imitation."Johnny Sharp, ''Mind the Bollocks: A riotous rant through the ridiculousness of Rock'n'Roll'', Pavilion Books, 2012
/ref> In 1979 he joined Charly Records as press officer, and helped set up the subsidiary Charly R&B record label as well as contributing to archive reissues such as

Jerry Lee Lewis Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935October 28, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as "rock & roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made ...

' comprehensive box set '' The Sun Years''. In 1989 he joined

Demon Records Demon Music Group (DMG) is a record company owned by BBC Studios that is mainly concerned with back-catalogue rights and re-issuing recordings as compilations on physical media (CDs and vinyl) via supermarkets and specialist stores. History DM ...

. He left in 1990 to start writing a biography of James Brown, which was never completed, and for several years worked on discographical research for the

Mechanical Copyright Protection Society PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertake ...

(MCPS). White also continued to write

sleeve notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are descen ...

for various

soul music Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became po ...

compilations, including James Brown's '' Star Time'' box set, for which White won a

in 1993. From 2003 to 2008 he worked for the

Proper Music Proper may refer to: Mathematics * Proper map, in topology, a property of continuous function between topological spaces, if inverse images of compact subsets are compact * Proper morphism, in algebraic geometry, an analogue of a proper map f ...

distribution company as a label manager. White lived in Ilford, and died there in 2018, aged 72, from a

cardiac arrest Cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. It is a medical emergency that, without immediate medical intervention, will result in sudden cardiac death within minutes. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and possib ...

while in hospital undergoing tests for cancer.

References

External links

Cliff White's journalism
at ''

Rock's Back Pages Rock's Backpages is an online archive of music journalism, sourced from contributions to the music and mainstream press from the 1950s to the present day. The articles are full text and searchable, and all are reproduced with the permission of the ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:White, Cliff 1945 births 2018 deaths British music journalists British music critics People from Ilford 20th-century British journalists