Music Talks

Rosie and I met in January 2019 when we both signed up for an 8-week course run by Action for Happiness (actionforhappiness.org).    Since then , I am delighted to say we have become good friends and not just because Rosie has been a vocal and active supporter of Music Talks since the very first episode (when she realised that my guest , Steve Clayton, had been taught by the father of one of her c...

Ian Shanahan – Quintessentially English (with attitude!)  A Cornishman by birth and from good working-class stock, Ian is someone who embraces life to the full whatever the situation. With a keen eye for detail, the serious and the ridiculous he has a finely honed sense of humour which, in my view, is quintessentially English.  As can be seen below Ian is an inveterate list maker and he uses these...

My guest in this episode is Jeffrey Bryan who is not only a music lover but also a professional musician.  Born and raised in Los Angeles his music career started at a young age in the 80’s, playing clubs like The Roxy, Whisky-a-Go-Go, Madam Wongs and everywhere on the famed Sunset Strip and beyond. During this time Jeff also landed various film and TV appearances (aka Jeff Fishman) including The...

John Noakes is a dear friend I have had the pleasure of knowing for over 20 years.  Like me he is a veteran of the I.T industry, but before joining IBM in 1988 he was a Merchant seaman for 14 years from the age of 16.    The title of the episode refers to the Andy Williams song about a seafarer finally making it home but it’s also a reference to the strong family man that John has always been. Joh...

Ewan is another long-time colleague and friend about whom I found out things I didn’t know, by having him on Music Talks. I knew he had a passion for many things including cars, antique watches and technology.  What I hadn’t realised was how deep his love for music is, nor that we shared a deep and common interest in the Space Program of the 60s. It’s a wide-ranging musical discussion that spans P...

I’m delighted that Becky is another listener who liked the show so much she agreed to be a guest on it  A proud Cornish girl from Hampshire farming and Geordie mining stock, life was never going to be dull for Becky and so it proved.  After an idyllic childhood growing up in Bude, Cornwall, she departed UK shores in 1992 for a gap year in New Zealand followed by 5 years at Manchester University. ...

Omar is a young Jordanian with a real passion and a compelling vision for the field he studied and now works in which is media and education.  In the chapters I have specifically pulled out a section were Omar paints his vision for Education in the future. He gives a great fun example about teaching what an eclipse is by using a song and Spotify data. You can find the video that accompanies that d...

"Renaissance Man" is a big tag to apply to anyone but in Andy's case it is completely justified. I have had the pleasure of knowing Andy for over 20 years and he is a remarkable man in so many ways.    Of Maltese/Welsh parentage he grew up in New Zealand before returning to the UK to go to Cambridge to study Maths & Physics. The proud father of two children , he is a self-confes...

I am marking the end of the year and the start of the New Year with a two-part "Best Of 2019" episode. My guest in this endeavour is a previous guest on Music Talks and now a good friend, Steven Routledge .  In the last epsiode Steven and I choose our favourite 10 songs from the year , talked through our choices and played a few clips from those songs. In this  episode we do the same but...

I am marking the end of the year and the start of the New Year with a two-part "Best Of 2019" episode. My guest in this endeavour is a previous guest on Music Talks and now a good friend, Steven Routledge .  In this Episode  Steven and I each choose our favourite 10 songs from the year , talk through our choices and play a few clips from those songs.  Full versions of our choices are ava...

This episode contains my favourite choice for each decade from the 12 episodes I have done this year and its a great introduction to the Music Talks format and the great musical choices and stories it generates.  As I say in the intro to this episode this one really is for me as I just wanted to see how it sounded if i put all the clips and intro's together. The good news is that , at least t...

Mike Blanchard was my guest on Episode 12 of Music Talks. As I keep telling anyone who will listen this man is a Podcasting machine and must be considered a veteran given he is now in his 12th year of Podcasting. During that time, he has produced over 2000 episodes of various Podcasts.   Given all of that I was very excited when he invited me onto his Geek Cast Radio show as a guest. In typical Mi...

Mike Blanchard is the founder of the Geek Cast Radio network and a Podcast veteran.  In the past decade, he has been involved in over 2000 Podcasts and as you will hear in the episode has interviewed some pretty famous people in the gaming, movie and TV worlds.  With that sort of background and experience, I am incredibly pleased and flattered that Mike has become such a vocal and active supporter...

I am delighted that Ian Braisby, my guest in Episode 11, is another listener who has decided they would like to be a guest - long may that trend continue ! Ian was born in 1972 in a mining town near Nottingham , in the U.K. Inspired by a certain Mr, Springsteen Ian decided in 1991 to "get out while he was still young and run" 50 miles to the SW and attend Birmingham University where he g...

Chris Bloom was born in Cambridge in 1970 and that's where he grew up and lived until 1990. He then decided to give up the historical splendour of his hometown and his job at Kodak to go and see some of the world. Due to family connections his first port of call was South Africa but as is often the case it became his permanent home. That was an interesting and sometimes very challenging choic...

This is a ground breaking episode for me and one I am excited by and proud of. . Jen is the first guest who I got to know because she is a listener. She is also the first woman to be a guest and I hope she will be the first of many ( although to be clear middle aged guys are still very welcome :-)) Jen has over 16 years experience in marketing and communication. That experience and the innate desi...

Richard is a dear friend, a dedicated muso with an incredibly wide range of musical tastes and most importantly, at least for me, he's the man who introduced me to the delights of the Austin City Limits Festival each October.   He's also from Jersey but unfortunately in his case it’s the small island which is a British Crown dependency located near the coast of Normandy, France not the s...

Paul is a dear friend, an ex-colleague, an accomplished musician and singer , a member of my favorite Seattle band The Professors , a proud family man and a thoroughly nice guy! He also has a host of stories to tell and to give you an indication of the depth of stories , we didn't even get to his stint as a nude portrait model in his youth ! Maybe we will revisit that as a B sides episode at...

Steven and I met last year after we were guests on Jesse Jackson's Springsteen Podcast Set Lusting Bruce (Setlustingbruce.com) I started following Steven's excellent blog (powderfingerspeaks.com) and a dialogue was struck up. Having connected digitally over a love of music in general we then realized that we only lived about an hour apart. Subsequent discussions and listening sessions ha...

The title of this episode reflects Paul’s lifelong passion for technology and the creative arts, and most significantly the common themes that exist between them.  With over 30 years’ experience in the technology industry and as the CTO of Accenture and the Chairman of Avanade, Paul is uniquely placed to see emerging technology trends, such as AI, and help us understand the impact they will have o...

Hrishikesh Hirway is a musician, composer, and podcast host/producer. In 2014 he created one of my very favorite Podcasts Song Exploder where musicians talk about the creative process behind an individual song while "deconstructing" the song into its component parts. Two years later he started T he West Wing Weekly podcast, which he co-hosts with Joshua Malina who played Will Bailey for...

Larry is a dear friend, a fellow music nerd, the inspiration behind this Podcast, Social Worker, Screen Printing Svengali, Author, Woodstock attendee and a New Yorker to his absolute core.  In discussing how New York has changed post 9/11 Larry, in typical style, came up with the eloquent summary that New York has indeed softened and it has moved “from a smirk to a smile”. Put that on a t-shirt an...

Search on Thomas Power , and you will see him variously described as Entrepreneur, Author, Business Adviser, Professional Speaker, and an expert on Social Media, Technology and the world of Digital.  He is also a fun character who always has an interesting and different view on things. In this episode, using his song choices, we plot his journey from suburban Solihull: through the early days of UK...

I hope these show notes will enhance your enjoyment of this episode. If there are additional things you would like included here then please let me know. SPOTIFY PLAYLIST   https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42mUeDCht8T7gvzHumJELh?si=S3cOBe5eR5Op2pKAjpapIw The playlist contains Steve’s five choices for each decade as well as 20 other songs referenced in the Podcast.  THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISOD...