'60s '70s '80s - Warm, Candid, Classic, Rock Interviews with Music Legends - A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

A career spanning 50 years, singer-songwriter, actress, recording artist, Grammy award-winning MELISSA MANCHESTER has multiple albums and counting. She has recently released her 25th album, Re:View for which she has re-recorded several of her charted hits. Melissa credits the stage for helping her grow and evolve as an artist and believes her songs have become reflections of that growth. She tells...

You may not instantly recognise the name Tony Newman but he’s a British drummer with a huge pedigree; perhaps best known for his work with the legendary '70s band T.Rex.  Tony started his music career in the early 1960s, playing with various bands in London. He quickly gained a reputation as a versatile and talented drummer, and in 1969 he was asked to join T.Rex, which was then led by the iconic...

The history of the iconic rock band CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL (CCR) spans from humble beginnings to their rise to fame and eventual breakup. Best known for a string of top chart hits, CCR has left a lasting impact on the music scene, inspiring fans and musicians alike. Throughout their journey, the band faced numerous challenges and internal conflicts, contributing to the bittersweet nature of...

Singer songwriter and actress TERRI DUNN is best known for being one of the creators and the front person for the 80s band BERLIN . One of the female pioneers in an industry so heavily dominated by men, Terri tells us how difficult it is to be a woman in the music industry due in part to the amount of traveling required. She says that the pandemic allowed her to spend more time with her daughter,...

He bears an uncanny resemblance to his father both in his looks and in his musicianship.  MUD MORGANFIELD  is the eldest son of blues great Muddy Waters and he shares the same perfect blues phrasing as his dad. Mud is a bit of a late bloomer. He didn't begin a professional career in his native Chicago until after his father died in 1983 and he was nearly 30.  Born Larry Williams in 1954, Mud grew...

SERGIO MENDES is an iconic pianist, producer, songwriter, band leader, Grammy winner and Oscar nominee.  He is widely considered the best known Brazilian musician of all time, having reinvented himself continually over the course of a 60 year career.  Since a very early age, growing up in a small town in Brazil, Sergio began exploring different styles of music and his unique sound, including his u...

No-one expected the '70s song "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" to endure. Least of all, ELLIOT LURIE who was the lead singer and main songwriter for the band Looking Glass, the group behind the hit song. The song has been on constant radio rotation since 1972 and has been featured in movies, TV shows and the Simpsons. Elliot is surprised by the song's staying power and admits it has certainly helped...

Singer BOBBY SHERMAN was a high school football star when Hollywood A-Listers Jane Fonda and Natalie Wood discovered him at a party in the mid-'60s. They asked him to sing at the party, and after he did, Jane Fonda arranged a meeting for him with a talent agent. That meeting  proved to be the start of an incredible career that lasted decades and turned him into one of the world’s most famous teen...

In the mid '70s, the SKYHOOKS shook and shaped Australian rock almost as much as The Beatles and Elvis Presley. They basically gave the Australian music industry the enema it had been needing. For too long many Australian bands had spent hours copying their American and English cousins and songs about local culture were unheard of.  When Skyhooks burst onto the scene, they were cheeky, brash, colo...

This week we feature an incredible story told by Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash survivor and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Artemis Pyle. Artemis was the drummer for the famed Southern Rock Band. He appeared on four of the original six albums recorded with frontman and founder Ronnie Van Zant before the band's plane went down and crashed on the way to a gig in 1977. You probably recall the tragedy; it m...

JOHN FORD COLEY is a Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum-selling singer-songwriter, best known for being half of the '70s duo E ngland Dan and John Ford Coley.  Considered a mid-'70s phenomenon, and often misidentified in peoples' memories as a one-hit wonder, the duo actually charted six Top 40 singles, four or them Top Ten, in just four years. The duo had met at at school in Dallas, Texas where John...

During the late '60s -a period distinguished as rock's most radical, innovative, and far-reaching - GARY PUCKETT and the Union Gap forged a series of massive chart hits that were full of melodrama. The group pioneered the hip-to-be-square concept two decades before the likes of Huey Lewis and the News. They were clad in Civil War-era get-ups (complete with fictitious military ranks) and they becam...

During his lengthy international songwriting career, ROGER COOK has had more than 80 top 30 hits, including classics such as Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart – Gene Pitney, Something Tells Me – Cilla Black, Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress – The Hollies, and You’ve Got Your Troubles – The Fortunes. However, Roger is perhaps best known for his song I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing, which was...

Join me to learn the story around legendary English group, SUPERTRAMP as told by founding member JOHN HELLIWELL. John Helliwell was a small-town computer programmer-turned-musician who embarked on an unexpected journey of success and musical exploration, during which he encountered a dramatic juxtaposition between his musical success and his shy personality. John is a saxophonist and founding memb...

GINA SCHOCK: From Working-Class Baltimore to Drumming for the Go-Gos  After a lifelong journey of believing in the power of positive thinking, Gina Schock, the baby of a middle class family, is shocked to experience the fruits of her ambition when she joins the iconic all-female punk rock band, The Go-Gos, and finds unprecedented success. Gina is the galvanising force behind the Los Angeles all-fe...

THE RASCALS were the pinnacle of '60s blue-eyed soul.  It’s been said that they were the first rock band in the world. Led by FELIX CAVALIERE , the band drew much of its inspiration from British Invasion bands, psychedelic rock, gospel, and even a bit of jazz and Latin music. They were at their best on classic singles like "Good Lovin'," "How Can I Be Sure," "Groovin'," and "People Got to Be Free....

It’s all about the ‘Wizard of the Keyboards’ this week, with one of the last podcast interviews that famed Englishman, RICK WAKEMAN has agreed to. It took me months to get him to agree but finally I have him here for you and he chats happily with us about his life, career, and his favourite musical creation, King Arthur. Rick Wakeman, of course, is best known as a former member of the progressive...

His granddaughter refers to him as the Justin Bieber of the 60s. And for very good reason. He was the king of Bubblegum music, and hugely popular the world over. But TOMMY ROE didn't set out to father a whole new genre of music. He actually managed to cut some pretty decent rockers along the way too. In this week’s episode Tommy tells us how he got into music in the first place, what drove him to...

Scottish musician DAVID PATON led the band Pilot to huge success in the 70s, with two major hits, Magic and January. David talks about how he came up with the idea for both songs, what it was like working with Kate Bush and Elton John and how he gets a buzz each time his grandson reacts to hearing them. We all know MELANIE SAFKA as the singer who became famous for her performance at the Woodstock...

 A smorgasbord of talent this week. The world’s most notorious ‘one-hit-wonder, NORMAN GREENBAUM shares his experience writing ‘Spirit in the Sky’. The song was a huge success, selling over 2 million copies and appearing in 65 movies. In my conversation with him he talks about his orthodox Jewish upbringing and what his family thought about his hit song that was all about Jesus.  Rocker...

The OAK RIDGE BOYS are a country and gospel vocal quartet that originated in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The group was founded in the 1940s as the Oak Ridge Quartet and became popular in Southern gospel during the 50s. Their name was changed to the Oak Ridge Boys in the early 60s, and they remained a gospel group until the mid-1970s, when they changed their image and concentrated on country music. The b...

Let's head to Sweden to meet that country’s most famous songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work playing with the smash hit group, ABBA . In our interview from Stockholm, JANNE SCHAFFER talks of his experience building his own guitar in school when he was just 12 years old. He tells us stories of how his disapproving father came to a gig one night to haul him off the stage and how he had...

British musician and prolific songwriter GRAHAM GOULDMAN has been at the forefront of the music industry for more than 50 years.  Best known as the founder, lead singer and bassist for art rock band 10cc , Graham has written countless hit records for  bands including The Yardbirds, Herman's Hermits and The Hollies for whom he penned the song"Bus Stop” in 1966. That song became their first American...

There could have been no DEXY'S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS without violinist HELEN O'HARA . She has an amazing story to tell and she’s written it all into a memoir titled ‘What’s She Like’, named after the Dexy’s Midnight Runners song that she herself inspired. It’s an exuberant, joyful account of a classical musical student who suddenly finds herself on Top of the Pops. What’s She Like takes in Helen's tim...

American rock band JOURNEY has a style that’s hard to define and pigeonhole. The group was formed in San Francisco by members of Steve Miller Band and Santana in 1973. Journey had its biggest commercial success between 1978 and 1987 with Steve Perry as lead vocalist. They released a series of hit songs, including 1981’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ which in 2009 became the top-selling...