Word In Your Ear

Roger Armstrong co-founded the legendary Rock On record shop and was running the Chiswick label long before the punk rock explosion of independents, a believer that you could license rare R&B, soul and rockabilly classics while cutting new records with rising stars (Shane MacGowan, Kirsty MacColl and Joe Strummer among them). He then co-founded Ace Records and talks to us here about the thrill of trawling through American label vaults, locating vintage tracks and finding them a whole new audience. Along with … … seeing Ella Fitzgerald and the Beatles in Belfast in the early ‘60s ... inventing a new Irish rock circuit and turning showbands into soul bands … how American Graffiti, Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues and the mod revival all chimed with Ace Records’ re-issues … promoting ‘Tin’ Lizzy (“that’s what it sounded like on the phone”) and being immortalised in one of their lyrics (“I get my records at the Rock On stall”) … Joe Strummer in the 101-ers – “sensational, full-tilt, as if playing a stadium” … releasing Dylan’s Theme-Time Radio Hour box-sets and the size of his record collection … finding a Little Richard demo and making an Elvis Presley speech album a money-spinner … being a pioneer tape rat and crate-digger and Ace Records quality control – “Stack ‘em low, sell ‘em high!” … “think of the strapline, then choose the tracks”: making compilations with Jon Savage, Bob Stanley, Bobby Gillespie and Paul Weller … plus reflections on John Martyn, Carol Grimes, Brinsley Schwarz, Rocky Sharpe, Irma Thomas, Arthur Alexander and the Count Bishops (“like the Stones at 78”). Order ‘Chiswick Records 1975 - 1982 Seven Years At 45 RPM’ here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/chiswick-records-1975-1982-seven-years-at-45-rpmFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the menu at the rock and roll state banquet … … Into the Mystic, Meet On The Ledge, In My Life, Tom Waits’ Take It With Me and other perfect songs for a last farewell … the day we joined the world’s best band … Robert Redford’s blinding handsomeness and the greatest moment – all three seconds of it – in Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid … best-looking rock stars … were the Shadows really a UK Eurovision entry? … “very special guests” and the new age of the stadium rock “bring-on” … how John Prine and Iris DeMent won the big door prize … “the movie camera is the biggest lie-detector in the world” … strange double bills of our time - the Foo Fighters and Rick Astley, Bo Diddley and the Clash Plus Cary Grant smoking, watching Brad Pitt do ordinary things and birthday guest Steven Way on the subtle billing of support acts.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Novelist and journalist Tom Piazza struck up a friendship with the irreplaceable John Prine in the last years of his life. This relationship, which began as a profile for a magazine, almost blossomed into an autobiography and involved a road trip in an inadvisable vehicle, has resulted in a new book “Living In The Present With John Prine”. Which involves:•⁠ ⁠setting off in a 1977 Coupe De Ville and driving “until the engine burns up”.•⁠ ⁠sitting up all night playing old country songs.•⁠ ⁠remembering how he came to write some of the greatest songs of the last fifty years•⁠ ⁠an evening’s swapping stories with Elvis Costello which ends with the alarming word “the jukebox is on fire!”•⁠ ⁠what Prine’s last album “The Tree Of Forgiveness” has in common with Beethoven’s late quartetsBuy Living In The Present With John Prine: https://amzn.eu/d/9vWv9rgFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Having disposed of the surprising history of pop stars who posed for Playboy, discussing whether the universe really needs another album called "Play", come up with a couple of nominations for Best Album Title Of All Time, we hear about Alex's experiences seeing Oasis in the midst of 90,000 who have never been to Manchester and how he "used the force" to get some face time with Jack Black and Dave Grohl.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Hammill, adored by Bowie, Mark E Smith and many others, co-founded Van Der Graaf Generator when he was 19. And he’s made 47 albums since, powered by “hubris, enthusiasm and sheer bloody-mindness” and celebrated in a new 18-CD box set. He talks to us here from Somerset about … … supporting Hendrix at the Albert Hall and being ‘the Shirley Bassey of the Underground’ … meeting David Bowie - who asked for Hammill’s new music to be sent to him all his life … Van Der Graaf Generator being bottled off by medical students in the days when you rang from a phone-box to see what gigs you were playing … the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, Champion Jack Dupree and Jimmy James & the Vagabonds at the Locarno in Derby … Tony Stratton-Smith and the Six Bob Tour – 30p! – with Lindisfarne and Genesis … Nut Rocker, Theme Of Exodus and other teenage keyboard staples  … the value of “Boswellian superfans” who know more about you than you do … breaking the £100 barrier for a live performance … writing blues songs, aged 16, with “a gnat’s experience of life” … the unsettling lyric to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘You've Got to Be Carefully Taught’ … and his new young audience via the internet and “that right of passage, your parents’ records” Order The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971 - 1986’ here: https://peterhammill.lnk.to/CVRecordingsPRPre-order 'ROCK and ROLE: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator' here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingmakerFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Has there ever been a group like Talking Heads? Jonathan Gould’s Burning Down The House explores their affluent background, the root of their ambition and the springboard of the New York scene of the late ‘70s (he was a regular at CBGB). Along with … ... the romanticised image of CBGB and the reality … their black music roots: “the same instrumentation as Booker T & the MGs” … the influence of the Modern Lovers: “Jonathan Richman and Byrne were both oddballs, appealing but peculiar” … how the economy of New York’s real estate let them rent a 2,000 square foot loft for $289 a month … bands from affluent backgrounds take greater commercial risks: “there was always a Plan B” … the art-school drop-out lineage that began John Lennon and Keith Richards … how different they were from the CBGBs acts, a band that sang verses in French and “didn’t dress like the New York Dolls”  … the band’s dynamic, Chris and Tina “effectively one person” ... did Byrne really make Tina Weymouth “re-audition”? … the success of the Tom Tom Club and the tension that caused … Byrne’s invention of his own “white choreography” … Stop Making Sense, as big a part of their legacy as any album … and why there can never be a reunion Mentioned in dispatches: Brian Eno, Adrian Belew, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Ramone and Fela Kuti.   Order ‘Burning Down The House’ here:https://www.waterstones.com/book/9780063022980Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freddie Mercury had an affair with a close friend’s wife and, in 1977, became a father. He’s now a grandfather. That’s the foundation of a new book ‘Love, Freddie’ by his highly respected biographer Lesley-Ann Jones which details a four-year, detailed exchange with his daughter ‘B’, now 48, and the contents of the 17 notebooks he gave her before he died in 1991. We talk to Lesley-Ann here about this gripping new tilt on his story which covers … … the 41-page document B sent her in 2021 and how the author assumed it was a hoax … why B was outraged by his portrayal in the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic … how the notebooks Freddie gave her are legally owned by Sony “and she would burn them if they tried to collect them” … Freddie’s turmoil at the time of her conception - engaged to Mary Austin, a love affair with David Minns … B’s secret life in Kensington and Montreux and her father’s “scary knitwear” disguises … “in the age of AI, even a real photo of Freddie and his daughter would be reckoned a scam” … the unheard – surely priceless - recordings Freddie made of the two of them singing together … how B’s existence stayed a secret and the members of Queen’s inner circle who might have known about her  … the photo of B, aged four, with her dad and David Bowie … and how there were no denials about B’s existence from Queen or any Cease & Desist demands when the book extracts published. Order ‘Love, Freddie’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Freddie-Mercurys-Secret-Life/dp/1916797962Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All the leaves are brown and the sky’s a bit unruly but mellow fruitfulness abounds in this week’s pick of the rock and roll news. Add to basket …   … is Morrissey hacked off, broke or just desperate for attention? … are stadium gigs the new tourism? … bucket hats, Man City, lads culture … how did America finally ‘get’ Oasis? … singles that weren’t on albums … are we sated by an overabundance of music? … how Gary Numan got a record deal … why Gene Loves Jezebel are the new Sam & Dave!  … the new age of the rock and roll pilgrimage … did Slade record the Hokey Cokey? The Dave Clark Five did Neil Young? The Troggs did Foxy Lady? … the Jam, the Yardbirds, The Nice, the Smiths: bands who broke up because they couldn’t crack America … selling Barry White records to Middle Eastern airline pilots Plus Tubeway Army, the Scaffold doing Ging Gang Goolie, “Mister Ferry’s diction” and birthday guest Jelltex.Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Immortalised by Hendrix, ‘Hey Joe’ had its roots in 18th century murder ballads, ‘60s folk and rock clubs before the world got to hear it. Jason Schneider unravels its twisted genesis in ‘That Gun In Your Hand’, and talks to us here about the miracles that allowed it to happen and the sad fate of Billy Roberts, the man who claimed he wrote it. Along with … … “all pop records are built on the back of other pop records” … the allure of violent songs: “we get our kicks from real-life murder” … the bit-part players in the story – David Crosby, Dino Valenti, Tim Rose, Cass Elliot, the Byrds, the Leaves, the Creation and Bob Dylan … the final twist: how Chas Chandler was looking to make Hey Joe a hit when Linda Keith pointed him at Hendrix … “a song with no chorus and a circle of fifths”: why it was a rock staple alongside Gloria and Louie Louie … the cruel fate of Billy Roberts who never recorded Hey Joy as couldn’t bear to give away 50 per cent of the royalties … the girl murders the man? “It’s a song still in evolution” … how Andy Summers was the first person to hear Hendrix play in the UK … 1,881 guitarists mass-performed Hey Joe in 2007 but could you even release a version of it now? You can order ‘That Gun In Your Hand: The Strange Saga of Hey Joe and Popular Music’s History of Violence’ from Anvil Press here: https://www.anvilpress.com/books/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence And from the US distributor Asterism here: https://asterismbooks.com/product/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence-jason-schneiderFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maddy Prior – folk royalty, an absolute hero of ours – is touring with Steeleye Span again this autumn 66 years after they started, a life someone should make into a movie. She talks to us here about her undimmed love of live performance and …   … when the height of your ambition is a £3 ticket to Blackpool Pleasure Beach … “Rod Argent, the first boy I ever kissed” … her fox-fur-trimmed Lambretta when a teenage mod … the night Steeleye Span showered their audience with £4,000 … seeing Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Josh White and Sony Boy Williamson in St Albans clubs … driving Rev Gary Davis round Britain in a Triumph Herald: “Miss Maddy, you’d make a great nurse! Was that a compliment or an insult?” … “Traditional music is great material to work with. It’s like steel – you can bend it but you can’t break it” … hearing Dylan for the first time (with Donovan) and thinking “this man can’t sing”  … memories of her father who wrote Z Cars … life with Tim Hart: “Living in sin? No, we’re living in Archway!” … Tony Secunda, his spray-can and his promotional stunts – “Win 24 hours with a member of Steeleye Span” … Alan Partridge and the great ‘Gaudete’ moment … the new Steeleye Span album Conflict “about the rip and tear relationship we have with the planet that hosts us” … and Singing For The Uncertain, her course for singers who think they can’t Steeleye Span tour dates here: https://steeleyespan.org.uk/sample-page/tour-dates-2025/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.