Word In Your Ear

… in which we remember the luminous music and diabolical life of the last of the old rock and roll guard standing. And this includes … the weird old America he came from (backwoods country, religious sects with their transporting songs), the career-cancelling British tour in 1958, the electrifying Live at The Star Club album, the Steve Allen Show breakthrough and the Seven Wives of Jerry Lee Lewis...

Sheila’s portraits of ‘80s musicians and the club circuit filled the pages of magazines like the Face and Smash Hits at the time and now feature in her book ‘80s: Sound And Vision’. You’ll know a few from album sleeves too. She talks here about some favourites – Nick Logan in the Face office, Bryan Ferry, Bowie with Marc Bolan, Martin Fry in the famous gold lamé suit, Siouxsie in ‘Japanese chic’,...

In the crosshairs this week …   Sampha, Skepta? Mercury Prize winner or Italian sports-shoe brand?   Was Revolver really the Beatles’ most “consequential” album?   James Corden v Balthazar: fame in the age of social media.   Liz Truss, Steven Gerrard, Bruce Springsteen and knowing “what it’s like to have failed with the whole world looking on”.   Danny Baker’s selling 12,0...

Craig was on the pod last year talking about his glorious Beatles book ‘One Two Three Four’ and he’s just published a collection of his writing called ‘Haywire: the Best of Craig Brown’ – Private Eye diaries, columns, reviews, essays and other assorted comic gems. It’s very good indeed. “Satirists,” he reminds you, “are on the side of things going wrong.” Here are just a few of the topics that stu...

One of them is Sympathy For The Devil. The Stranglers are in the Top Five too, as are the Strawbs. The best-selling historian and documentary-maker has spent the last three years working on his monumental, all-encompassing new book, ‘The World: A Family History’, much of it hammered out to the sound of very loud music. And he’s made a playlist to accompany it that connects with this vast human dra...

In which we waspishly suggest the odd nip and tuck is now standard practice - and name a few obvious suspects. And alight upon …   … Nick Hornby’s new book and the connections he’s found between Dickens and Prince.     … support acts we’ve seen who became household names.   … David’s dinner with Jess Phillips MP and what happened the day JK Rowling got a tour of the House...

Things picked up by the ankles this week and given a light shaking to see what falls out of their pockets …   … why King Crimson is like no other band on God’s green earth.  ... a sweet story about a Let It Rock writer David's just met at a book event.   … a McCartney Stackwaddy game.   … when did rock souvenir posters become a thing?   ... why Robert Crumb didn’t apologis...

Things given a grilling this week in hot pursuit of revelation and entertainment …   .. would YOU pay £45 to see Ian Brown and some backing tracks?   … the life of the late Joe Bussard, collector of 25,000 78s “who partied like it was 1929”. Joe thought real jazz ended in 1933 and the last great country record was Jimmy Murphy’s I’m Looking For A Mustard Patch. We love this man.   ....

In powerful pursuit of amusement and distraction we aim the piercing supertrouper of scrutiny this week in the direction of …   … why Ry Cooder MUST write a memoir.   … records that sounded like nothing you’d ever heard before, eg the Message by Grandmaster Flash and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love.     ... nighttime footage of the State Funeral rehearsal.   … why ‘Delhi C...

The Eiffel Tower dimmed its lights, the radio played “music for a solemn occasion” and this week’s pod is a reflection about the woman who’s been Queen all our lives (and we’re old enough to remember the national anthem being played in cinemas), why she looked so heroically bored, her diplomatic approach to clapping, whether she viewed life “through binoculars held the wrong way round” and how har...

Among the thoughts, theories and assorted old hokey in the firing line this week you will happily find …   … rock biopics someone ought to be making   … memories of Drummie Zeb and Aswad at Nottingham Boat Club   … the time British Forces radio turned down Whitney Houston   … the “awful fat man that spoilt Lady Di’s memorial for everyone”   … the slight return of the Stack...

Welcome to this week’s pod in which various white-hot topics are brought in for questioning, among them …   … Whatever happened to Dando Shaft?   … Alastair Sim, Terry-Thomas and flowsy saxophones in The Belles of St Trinian’s   … Does it matter if music-making acts are fictitious or that rappers are artificial and produced by computer graphics and AI?   … how many people were...

In bold and vigorous pursuit of entertainment we steer via the following topics …   … Thora Hird with a rifle.   … acts who wrote rejected songs for Bond movies.   … the legend of Van Duren.   … hilariously awful revelations about the private plane use of Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg etc on @CelebJets.     … is pop music now largely about an old thi...

Our weekly stroll through the sunlit uplands of rock and roll visits the following topics … … Bob Dylan’s worst lyrics … musicians in movies, actors who made albums (Judi Dench?) and the slight return of the Stackwaddy game … why Hole in The Ground is the greatest comedy record ever made, plus the staggering versatility of Bernard Cribbins … the contents of the basket at the beginning of Two-Way S...

While Mark Ellen is away in his French chateau, David Hepworth goes off on one about Bruce Springsteen tours and why you can't use "dynamic pricing" in the world of live music and why the concert-going audience can always be divided into the bringer and the brung. Plus Alex Gold explains why he chose to go to southern Italy in the middle of an unprecedented heat wave with not one but two pairs of...

In which we paddle our conversational canoe through the rock and roll backwaters, stopping off this week at …   … the closure of Word magazine ten years ago and what we miss – and don’t miss - about it.   … who in their right mind in this day and age would possibly want to be famous?   … Bruce Findlay, the country’s only famous record store owner.   … the energetic sexual activ...

High in the conversational mix this week …    … the return the Stackwaddy game! - do Ben & Jerry’s do a Bohemian Raspberry? Are there really Apple Music genres called Pillow Talk and Countrypolitan?   … Errol Flynn and his dachshund water-skiing.  … James Caan’s opening scene in Misery. … is Nick Kyrgios the first ‘rap’ tennis star?   … why ‘Indie’ doesn’t tolerate non...

Nearly every Island act seemed impossibly hip, characterful and charismatic and much of that was down to the vision and long-term belief of the man who founded the label and ran it for 30 years. Chris Blackwell beams in from Goldeneye, the Ian Fleming estate he bought in Jamaica, to remember Errol Flynn and his dachshund waterskiing, the wit and charm of Noel Coward, record-buying trips for the lo...

On June 18, along with four guests, we held a party for Paul McCartney on his 80th in front of a big crowd in the magical tented arena at Opera Holland Park in West London. This was a lot of fun from start to finish, fond memories, forgotten songs, new angles, personal meetings, fresh theories and fascinating unknown tales. In this second part of the show Danny Baker talks about a lost masterpiece...

On June 18 we laid on a celebration of all things McCartney on his 80th in the magical tented arena at Opera Holland Park in West London. People came from all corners of the globe. It turned out to be a feast of fond memories, forgotten songs, fresh perspectives, personal encounters, original theories and fascinating unknown tales.   In this first half, David and Mark talk to the broadcaster...

Appetising items on our lavish tray of conversational hors d'oeuvres this week include:-   Billie Eilish, 20, (“the youngest at headliner at Glastonbury”) and pop stars who started even younger – “Little” Stevie Winwood, Stevie Wonder, Ranking Roger, Annabella Lwin, Alex Chilton and Peter Frampton.   “The poison of criminal violence and gang warfare” (supposedly Brighton in 1948) and oth...

Among the things of great import we ran up the flagpole this week:-   Why Baz Lurhmann’s new movie will do for Elvis what Get Back’s done for the Beatles.   Highlights of our Word In Your Park show – what happened on Geoff Lloyd’s McCartney radio special involving a flugelhorn? What was Andy Miller wearing and why? What obscure McCartney track did Danny Baker say was a masterpiece? What...

Topics off the leash this week include …   The Talent v Charisma pie chart you can apply to any act.   “Double-concentrated Liam” versus “diluted Noel”, an update on the Oasis land-grab.   A second helping of the “Pete Doherty swaps crack for Camembert” story.  Liverpool taxi-driver, 25, claims to have never heard of the Rolling Stones: could this be possible?   Pop stars...

We give the week a spirited shakedown to see what falls out of its pockets. And this includes …   The late Ronnie Hawkins – road hog, stunt diver, bootleg liquor smuggler!   Who’s the only original rock and roller now still alive?   If you went to see Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp lumbered on to “jam”, how monumentally hacked off would you be?   Kiss have handed in their lunchpails...

Framed in the piercing super-trouper of perusal this week …   The highs and lows of Danny Boyle’s new Sex Pistols biopic.   The best in-car music for road trips (Paul Simon, Steely Dan, Rufus Wainwright …).   How do Thom Yorke’s children feel about their father’s brilliant new album (the Smile) still sounding like the work of a bleating teenager?   The late Alan White (of Yes),...