Lenny Kaye on How the Original ‘Nuggets’ Compilation Changed Rock — and Reviving That ’60s Garage Spirit With an L.A. Tribute Concert
variety.comChris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There has never been a compilation album in the history of rock as influential as “Nuggets,” a 1972 double-LP that revived a period and style that was seen as having ended about five years before.
It was nostalgia of a sort for the very recent past — as opposed to the very distant past that’s now being celebrated with fondness as “Nuggets” itself surpasses the half-century, arguably no less central to a certain rock ‘n’ roll ethos than ever.
Lenny Kaye, now best known as the guitarist for Patti Smith’s band, but then highly regarded as a rock critic, compiled the original “Nuggets” for Elektra and may have saved an early wave of garage-rock for the ages … although some would give the collection even more credit, for helping invent, or at least bring into focus, the burgeoning punk-rock movement in the 1970s.
Now, Kaye is participating in a “Nuggets” 50th anniversary concert Friday night at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, on the heels of his having produced a five-LP “Nuggets” boxed set that came out for Record Store Day last month.
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