Word In Your Ear

The teenage Michael Cragg was obsessed with the “glorious shiny ludicrous pop” of the period that began with the Spice Girls, included Hear’Say, Five, Steps, Atomic Kitten, Blue and countless others and ended with the closure of Popworld and Smash Hits ten years later, a tale less about music than the media that covered it and the machinations of the industry. All the key leading players – bands,...

This week’s crackling logs on the conversational fire include …   … the attractively unchanging sound of Joe Henry’s 15 albums (the man PRs still sell as “Madonna’s brother-in-law”).   … the 45th anniversary of David and Mark’s first meeting – at an Earth Quake gig at Salford University on February 10 1978.   … Neil Tennant’s letter to Janice Long.   … the recommended TV tribul...

Of all the figures who built rock and roll back in the 1950s, Chuck Berry was arguably the most influential and certainly the strangest. In a new biography, which could never have been written when he was alive, R.J. Smith tells a story which is still hard to believe. His conversation with David Hepworth includes: * how the nerd Charles Berry discovered the key to impressing women * How a reckless...

Eels are touring the UK in March/April and E talks here about what he’s learnt about live performance from being onstage or in the audience. And this includes …   … a valuable lesson from watching Leon Russell’s deserted matinee at a racetrack in Maryland.   … his mum’s reaction to him singing Plastic Ono Band songs in the car when he was 10.     … seeing George Harri...

Given the once-over this week in vigorous pursuit of edification and amusement …   … should a Fawlty Towers sequel be illegal?   … over-refreshed audiences wrecking Jukebox Musicals.   … our hunt for the elusive album sleeve with the long-haired girl/Afghan hound.   … how acts signal their popularity now the charts no longer matter.   … critics who attacked people who atta...

The dazzling super-trouper of gentle enquiry is trained this week upon:-   … Sam Smith’s inflatable suit.   … “TV kills everything”.   … What do producers actually do? Old pal Kate Mossman joins us to talk about the inscrutable working methods of Rick Rubin, “the golden ratio”, the significance of his beard, the concept of being “Rubinised” and his transformation of Johnny Cash (and...

Midge Ure starts a UK tour in April (with Band Electronica) and talks here about bands that left an impression and what he’s learnt about live performance. This includes …   … audiences “wanting their pound of flesh”.   … lessons learned from watching Derek Nimmo in panto.   … “cheesy” stage effects - eg Bowie’s mirrorball in Space Oddity.     … Stan Webb of Chicken S...

Conversational footballs punted about the park this week include …   … why George Harrison’s trip to Benton, Illinois, in 1963 would make a great Netflix drama – the $400 Rickenbacker, the local gig billed as “the English Elvis”, the roller-skating waitresses. “I’m in a band called the Beatles back home and we’re doing quite well.”   … buskers being allowed to use amplification is a mons...

Ron Sexsmith starts a UK tour at the end of April and talks about what he’s learnt about live performance, which includes:-   … “notes from girls” after winning the High School Variety Show.   … playing for drunks in his local bar when he was underage and being hidden when the police arrived.    … Elton John at the Rich Stadium in Buffalo (and being a member of the Fan Club). &...

Joel worked for various labels - Mushroom, Atlantic and Sony among them - and was the man who signed the Darkness. Training to become a psychotherapist, he began trading in rare records, travelling all over the country to buy collections and, during Lockdown, starting a special “mystery vinyl” service where he’d send people albums he thought they’d like based on their musical taste.   &n...

Peter Asher started out as a child actor in films with John Mills, Alastair Sim and Boris Karloff. He was in the Adventures of Robin Hood with his sister Jane but they were eventually “demoted to peasant children”. He then formed Peter & Gordon, had a global number one with A World Without Love (written by his sister’s boyfriend who was living in the family home) and then began a career in pro...

Things featured this week in hot pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment …   … seeing Television in 1975 for £1.50 - support act, Blondie.   … Kaleidoscope, Country Joe & the Fish, Fairport Convention and other origins of the Tom Verlaine guitar sound.     … the mystery voices on The Dark Side Of The Moon, the Clare Torry story and how Pink Floyd used Abbey Road as...

The Long Ryders are touring in May and our old pal Sid Griffin tells us what to expect and looks back here at …   … Herman’s Hermits and the Dave Clark Five playing on a steamboat.   … his first live performance aged 16 in a glam-rock red dress at a barbecue in Kentucky (fee a colossal $100) playing Paul Revere, Kinks and Byrds covers.   … seeing Big Joe Turner with the Lee Allen Or...

David Crosby was famous for nearly 60 years, a celebrity sustained by records, tours, brushes with the law and serial disagreements with old pals and collaborators (he was the very definition of a non-team player). We look back fondly at various stops along the way - his upscale background, his role in the Byrds, his ‘Will Scarlet in Robin Hood’ haircut and unsexy cape ensemble, CS&N as the so...

Suzannne Vega is touring throughout the UK in February. Here she talks to David Hepworth about what she’s learned about live in the course of: ….starting off on stage with Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall ….taking her sister to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden …learning about communication from the jazz bassist Richard Davis …laying in sufficient snacks for the rehearsal period ….playing your o...

Our old pal from Word magazine Kate Mossman adored Jeff Beck and the whole range of his recordings and interviewed him recently for the New Statesman. This pod features the outlandish techniques he developed, his cars and Afghan hounds, his “six wives”, his unchanging look (with occasion detours into “satin leggings and boxing boots”), the “Clapton is God” myth, his job offer from the Stones, fall...

Tony King was there when it all started, working for Decca in the late ‘50s, plugging records on Housewives’ Choice and Family Favourites and looking after visiting Americans like the Ronettes, Roy Orbison and Phil Spector. He went on to become a close friend of many of the acts he worked with and his memoir ‘The Tastemaker’ is full of wonderful tales and revelations about all of them. As is this...

… in which we amble fearlessly into the New Year in tireless pursuit of amusement, stopping off at various stations along the way, among them …    … can any song be completely original?   … meeting Sun Ra.   … the time Gianluca Vialli kissed David’s wife’s hand.   … does streaming make us more adventurous?   … did Frank Zappa ever appear in Miami Vice?   … tortuo...

Things explored this week in pursuit of entertainment and diversion …   … Neil Tennant interviews Malcolm McLaren and other delights in Smash Hits, January 1983.   … “there’s no such thing as a finished record!”   … the link between Cliff & the Shadows and the Merry Pranksters.   … a touching interview with Jim Morrison’s father and sister about the son/brother who cut them...

The full and extraordinary story of “the Zelig-like” Cutler – poet, performer, broadcaster, playwright, surrealist, humorist – is mapped out in Bruce Lindsay’s exceptional new book, ‘Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Living Room’. Most of us discovered him through the patronage of fans like John Peel – or first saw him as part of the Magical Mystery Tour cast – but this fascinating conversation cove...

Army greatcoats, plastic trousers, cowboy boots, scoop-neck t-shirts with bell sleeves … the list of laughable clobber and accessories we briefly thought were acceptable because rock stars wore them is delightfully long and shameful. Also in the crosshairs this week … … the rudest line the Beatles ever wrote.  … Randy Newman – ‘the poet of the unworthy thought’. … do bands with comic lyrics g...

Gordon Raphael was the sonic architect of arguably the two most important and influential albums of the noughties - The Strokes' 'Is This It' and its follow-up 'Room On Fire', and in this special Word In Your Ear chat with 'Magic' Alex Gold he talks about the creation of those seminal records alongside other key moments in his life as told in his memoir 'The World Is Going To Love This: Up From Th...

In which we boldly tackle the burning issues des nos jours in our restless forage for entertainment. Nutritious items on the tasting menu this week include …   … albums whose cover was over half the sell.   … was Jet Black older than all the Beatles and Stones? Dave Greenfield and Edgar Allan Poe – separated at birth.   … that brief moment when Creedence Clearwater were the biggest...

Danny’s done two hysterically funny, cartwheeling canters round the UK in the last few years and sets out again in February for 49 nights with ‘At Last …The Sausage Sandwich Tour’, another ‘panjandrum of unstoppable anecdote’. His memories of old rock and roll and theatre shows are high in the mix in this crackling exchange. Among the highlights …   … Anita Harris at the ABC in Yarmouth. &nbs...

In which the piercing searchlight of conversational scrutiny points in the direction of …   … Christine McVie’s early adventures, our burning love for Chicken Shack’s ‘40 Blue Fingers’, her Sliding Doors moment in a Dickins & Jones window display, supporting the Shadows at the 2I’s coffee bar in ‘59, writing Songbird, the forgotten years of Kiln House and two film clips that point up Flee...