Word In Your Ear

There’s a rich British tradition of well brought up young men from the leafier suburbs developing a fixation on music from a very different culture and somehow getting themselves a job playing said music on the radio. Nobody has done it more successfully and more unexpectedly than David Rodigan. For a part of the career he’s run it alongside his work as an actor. No wonder there’s so much interest...

We were delighted to be joined by two of the UK’s most respected providers of backing vocals and harmonies, who between them have sung with everybody from David Bowie at Live Aid on down. They showed us aspects of their vocal techniques, instructed us in the diplomatic arts required to rub along on tour when the members of the band aren’t speaking to each other and explain why the wordless refrain...

In this shortcast Jon Savage talks to David Hepworth about his new compilation album, “1967 - The Year Pop Divided”. Forty-eight tracks of psych-flavoured pop, rock and soul from the last year before music went off into its own ghettoes, from the Byrds to Captain Beefheart, from Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers to the Shag, from the Thirteenth Floor Elevators to Gladys Knight and the Pips, from t...

In Which Tony Fletcher tells us about Wilson Pickett, who was impossible as a child, inimitable as a singer and incorrigible as a success, and how he came to write “In The Midnight Hour”. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Barney Hoskyns talks to us about Woodstock and the part it played in the lives of Dylan, the Band, Albert Grossman and Van Morrison, as related in his book “Small Town Talk”. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Jeff Evans returns from researching the full history of "Rock and Pop On TV" for his new book and talks to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth about not just "Six Five Special" but also "Cool For Cats", not just Legs and Co but also Ruby Flipper, not just "The Tube" but also "The White Room", and wonders whether, now that we have You Tube, we have finally come to the end of music television as...

In which Paul Gambaccini, that son of New York who became an institution of British broadcasting, talks to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth about how the Beatles changed his life, how he got into broadcasting, what brought him to Britain, his experience of Radio One in the 70s, his recent ordeal at the hands of the Metropolitan police – fully documented in an amazing book "Love, Paul Gambaccini" – an...

In which Mick Houghton, the author of a book about the legendary folk-rock label Elektra, and Adam White, the man behind a huge tome about the history of Motown, talk to David Hepworth about the unique challenges faced by independent labels, the charismatic men who founded them, the occasionally difficult stars they had to deal with and what keeps both Jac Holzman and Berry Gordy going at an age w...

In which Richard Houghton, the author of “I Was There”, a collection of first-hand reminiscences from people who saw the Beatles back in the sixties, from under-attended dance halls in England to over flowing stadia in the United States, talks to David Hepworth about how he wrinkled out their stories. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com...

In which David Hepworth talks to legendary journalist and author Paul Morley about how David Bowie inflamed his young imagination and his new book The Age Of Bowie. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which David Hepworth talks to legendary journalist and author Hunter Davies about his time as a fly on the wall with the Beatles in the middle sixties and his newly-published Beatles Book. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we talk to the irrepressible Sylvia Patterson on how music provided some much needed structure in her chaotic teenage life and her career as a writer on Smash Hits, NME and beyond. Contains: Manics, Mick Hucknall, Happy Mondays, Blur and many more. Sylvia’s book is “I’m Not With The Band”. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wo...

In which we talk to Derek Ridgers, who began taking pictures at Eric Clapton’s Rainbow concert and was there to document the brief moment when punk was invented in London. Some of these pictures are collected in his new book “Punk London 1977”. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

In which we talked to the husband and wife team behind Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong: The Life And Times Of Randy Newman about this uniquely fascinating artist and whether he'll be remembered for"Short People" or "Toy Story". Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Harry Nilsson biographer Alan Shypton reflects on the man with the voice of an angel and the thirst of a medium-sized nation. We're a bit late with this, but Alan's book 'Nilsson: The Life Of A Singer-Songwriter' is such an absorbing account of a life packed with incident that it's better late than never. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://ww...

In which David Hepworth instructs Mark Ellen in the theory behind his best-selling book about the the annus mirabilis of the rock album, “1971: Never A Dull Moment”. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which friend of Word In Your Ear and Essex correspondent Zoë Howe talks about the Doctor Feelgood frontman, subject of her new book Lee Brilleaux: Rock’n’Roll Gentleman. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Word contributor and biographer of George Harrison Graeme Thomson talks about the short but action-packed passage of the “literally clubbable” Phil Lynott, the subject of his authorised biography “Cowboy Song”. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Savage has written celebrated histories of Punk Rock and the Teenager. Now he turns his attention to 1966, the year when pop went fuzzy at the edges, when psychedelic drugs, protest about Vietnam and anxiety about nuclear war helped inspire some of the greatest pop music ever made, by everyone from Bob Dylan to the Stones to Norma Tanega. He talked to David Hepworth about it in front of an aud...

Howard Sounes has already written revelatory biographies of Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney. Most recently he’s turned his attention to Lou Reed. In Notes from the Velvet Underground he recounts the extraordinary life and career of one of rock’s most memorably irascible characters, someone who occasionally pulled a gun on even close friends and allies. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversat...

Elvis Costello joins us to talk about his blockbusting memoir "Unfaithful Music And Disappearing Ink". The conversation takes in such vital issues as: growing up in a house full of acetates and publishers demos, the reason The Attractions ran on to the stage in 1977, Nick Kent’s tackle on display in the garden of the pub opposite Island Records, playing support to the Natural Acoustic Band in 1971...

David Hepworth and Mark Ellen talk bout Tracey Thorn’s Naked At The Albert Hall: The Inside Story Of Singing and John Seabrook’s The Song Machine: Inside The Hit Factory via the miracle of Skype. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Cavanagh, the author of “Good Night and Good Riddance: How Thirty-Five Years Of John Peel Help Shape Modern Britain”, and Trevor Dann, WIYE’s go-to guy on all matters radio, talk about John Peel: his radio style, his complicated personality, his contribution to the national heritage and where he would be broadcasting today if he were still around. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conve...

Chris Salewicz joined us to talk about “Dead Gods: The 27 Club” which deals with the rock stars who never got past their twenty-seventh birthday. His list includes: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and others. What they all had in common was a family background not as happy as you would like and a sub-conscious fear of dealing with adult life. Help us to keep The...

WIYE McCartney Special. Paul Du Noyer, who’s interviewed him more than anyone (much of which is reflected in his new book, “Conversations With McCartney), and Laura Barton, who need her cat after him, discuss a national institution with Mark Ellen and David Hepworth. Best look, best song, best story, it’s all here, including the answer to the perennial question - what was Paul McCartney’s best son...