Word In Your Ear

Mike Batt still wrestles with the emotional legacy of the Wombles, the act that simultaneously made him and cast a shadow over the rest of his career, not least his early days as a songwriter at Liberty Records, discussed here, hired after he’d answered the same ad as Elton John and Bernie Taupin, a time when A&R men wore kipper ties and had Picassos on their wall. He forged a path through psy...

Joe Boyd produced Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and many others, released acts from all over the globe on his Hannibal label and has just written a mighty and definitive account of the history of popular music, And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, tracing the way different sounds from different countries became interwoven. Nobody is better qualified to write this book as you’ll discover from this ent...

With Mark Ellen rambling in the West Country it’s left to David Hepworth to talk Alex Gold down from the ledge in the light of the Dave Grohl news and discuss: •⁠ ⁠just how many offers come the way of rich and famous rock stars •⁠ ⁠whether his recent admission will in any way detract from the most winning smile in rock •⁠ ⁠is this an opportunity for Jon Bon Jovi to step up? •⁠ ...

The Netflix series of David Nicholls’ worldwide hit novel One Day was Top Ten in 89 countries and he’s been heavily involved in its soundtrack album, a process as enjoyable, he says, as devising the compilation tape the fictional Emma made for Dexter in 1989 featuring the Smiths, Prefab Sprout and Public Enemy. We talk to him here about the glorious pitfalls of using pop music to broadcast your pe...

Old friend of the podcast, Nick Lowe has just released his 15th solo album, Indoor Safari, and he’s about to tour with Los Straitjackets. This absorbing conversation looks back at 60 years onstage and takes in the following …   … the secret of a long career.   … why he resolved “not to get that famous again”.   … touring Germany aged 15 in Brinsley Schwarz’s dad’s Dormobile.  ...

Louis Armstrong, Wild Man Fischer, Irving Berlin and Lucinda Williams all started out as buskers and Cary Baker’s ‘Down On The Corner’ traces the romance and influence of street players from Ancient Rome via Chicago’s Maxwell Street to Elvis Costello outside the CBS conference and beyond. Cary, David and Mark chuck coins in the conversational hat, among them …   … the turban and rollerbl...

We applied dynamic pricing to this week’s news and various stories trebled in value, among them …    … further adventures in the Oasis ticket fiasco.   … the greatest band name ever.   … the only rock star born under Adolf Hitler.   … Marianne Faithfull? Ian Anderson? Elvis Costello? Musicians you’d rather hear talk than play.   … rock stars telling jokes.   … “i...

David’s seventh book in his ‘orange series’ is just out and you’re guaranteed to love it. He and Mark discussed ‘Hope I Get Old Before I Die’ at a sold-out launch event at Waterstones in Piccadilly on the evening of September 3, recorded here. Among the highlights you’ll find …   … the rock career as a three-act play.   … the tour that started the Age Of Spectacle.   … why Live Aid...

David, Mark and our token bucket-hatted parka monkey Alex tackle the return of Oasis, its grip on the public imagination and why they’re the biggest band of the last 30 years, which includes …     … the Gallaghers’ mixed fortunes since 2009.    … who won the battle of the underdogs.   … “Noel has a thousand buttons, Liam has a thousand fingers”.   … why the ‘90s...

In a concerted effort to put the world to rights, David and Mark ruminate upon the following … … Kylie and the Wiggles? Canned Heat and the Chipmunks? Real or invented pop star/childrens’ entertainer collaborations. .. the charmed life of Greg Kihn. … will the BBC have any archive left if it keeps cancelling presenters? … why Inside Llewyn Davis works and so many other biopics fail. … the full sto...

Rock journalism as an occupation is rapidly heading in the direction of the watch-mender or lamplighter so Chris Charlesworth’s account of life at the Melody Maker in the ‘70s is already starting to feel like an historic document. ‘Just Backdated’ covers a time when the rock press set the agenda, sold over half a million copies a week and was courted by attention-seeking musicians of every rank, a...

With David asleep on a French sun-lounger beneath a copy of Summer Lightning, Alex and Mark pour themselves a cold drink and consider …   … the great ska floor-fillers.   … taking kids to rock concerts.   … the fate of all bands: “as musicianship improves, vocals decline”.   … left-field Beatles songs reworked as nursery rhymes.   … why 2-Tone had pop’s “triple threat” (an...

Love’s official biographer John Einarson tells David Hepworth the star-crossed tale of the band who made the least psychedelic album of the psychedelic era. Their conversation takes in: ….Lee’s growing up between Memphis and L.A., dealing with the problems of looking more like Johnny Mathis than Otis Redding. ….how being indulged as a youngster by his family made him a tyrant as a band leader. ….g...

As Mark Ellen goes shrimping at Frinton David Hepworth and Alex Gold links hands across the Atlantic to discuss: ….why a quick turn around Mount Hood in a Cessna should never be confused with pleasure ….why all the highly-rated albums are actually over-rated. ….why Timothee Chalamet has no hope of being able to capture more than one facet of Bob Dylan ….the name of the only music-related location...

A small Pastis, a game of boules and a conversation putting the rock and roll world to rights, which this week includes …   … why Debbie Harry and Mick Jagger worked so well on the small screen.   … Elvin Pelvin on the Bilko Show and how Elvis was modelled on Tony Curtis.   … An American Werewolf In London, The Birds, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Don’t Look Now, Nightmare On...

Rockfield is a converted farmhouse in the Welsh countryside where, for over 50 years, bands have lived while recording. In the ‘70s Tiffany Murray’s mum was the in-house cook, filling Motorhead to the brim with boeuf bourguignon and Black Sabbath with salmon en croute. Her touching memoir My Family And Other Rock Stars – hailed as “a rock and roll Cider With Rosie” – sees a succession of visiting...

Mark Blake calls Dreams: the Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac a “mosaic biography”, their almost six-decade saga presented as a series of enthralling short stories with titles like ‘Mick Fleetwood’s Great Epiphany’ and ‘Rumours: A Doomed Romance in Six Acts’. It opens in fact with a “cast of characters”, the 18 one-time members, as if dramatis personae in a play, a play that gets more outlandish and du...

Beloved Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, old pal of the pod, is touring the UK in November, two of the nights at the Palladium, and looks back here at the first shows he saw and played himself. Which delights include …   … what you learn playing Canadian bars aged 16.   … seeing Elton John in a 75,000-seater stadium when he was 12.   … early memories of the Kinks and th...

Passing the baton of discourse on the rock and roll racetrack, our Olympian hosts sprint in the following direction …   … watching Toumani Diabaté play in the pitch-black Malian night.   … Laurel Canyon, the Brain Damage Club and the great fire of ‘79.   … the Kinks in Fortis Green Road, the Beatles in Chiswick House and other alternative London rock landmarks.   … is Cerr...

Once again the ping-pong ball of conversation is batted across the rock and roll net and these are the scores on the doors …    … how to wreck the national anthem.   … cover versions that are better than the original.   … the genius of Bob Newhart - "nutty Walt", Abraham Lincoln and that gag about country music.   … virtue signalling in rock magazines.   … why we conn...

There’s something romantic about glorious failure and Will nails it perfectly in ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’. Over 40 years plagued by bad luck and self-sabotage with Felt, Denim and Mozart Estate, Lawrence has pursued fame and success while refusing to do what’s required to achieve them. Will spent 12 months wandering the streets of London with him to paint a fond, touching and...

Employing controversial VAR technology, we re-examine various events on the rock and roll pitch and suggest a new perspective. Those key moments include …    … the “bucolic frolic” at Knebworth 50 years ago as seen from 100 yards away just past the burger van and featuring Tim Buckley, Alex Harvey, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Van Morrison, the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band....

Broadcaster and music writer Ann Powers lives in Nashville and grew up listening to Kate Bush and Blondie. The siren call of Blue sparked a life-long and deep-rooted devotion and her new book Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell takes a different tack from the standard biographies, mapping the context of the songs, the forces that drove her, the steel will it took to succeed and the love affai...

The first EPs appeared in the late ‘40s and ‘50s (Frank Sinatra, Elvis) hitting a magical sweet spot between the album and the single and they’ve cast a spell ever since, an exotic reminder that record labels are part of the packaged goods business. Music writer Corey duBrowa stumbled across one by Oingo Boingo in the original Licorice Pizza store in Long Beach, California, when he was 13 and bega...

The rock and roll ballot-box is stuffed with votes and the exit polls suggest how this week’s debate might play out. Along these lines …   … is there still such a thing as British music?   … John Lennon as a lavatory attendant.   … Pink Floyd’s miming lessons.   .. how Neil Finn cheered up the All Blacks.   … the staggering difference in the UK album charts in the weeks th...