Word In Your Ear
Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold
Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1.Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience. Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit wiyelondon.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 30, 2017 • 58min
Word Podcast 267 - Miranda Sawyer and Barry McIlheney
David Hepworth started at Smash Hits in the late 70s, Mark Ellen joined in the early 80s, Barry McIlheney arrived in the middle of the decade and Miranda Sawyer came along in the late 80s. Therefore they were well placed to talk about such key Smash Hits experiences as being pinned to a door by Jimmy Pursey, taking Bananarama to Burger King, asking U2 to draw a duck and getting a bit tired and going home halfway through a Stone Roses interview. All this and more in this bumper ish. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 30, 2017 • 44min
Word Podcast 266 - Tom Doyle on Elton Hercules John
“Captain Fantastic” is Tom Doyle’s account of Elton’s most tumultuous decade, the 70s, during which time he assumed every role from bedsitter poet to intercontinental hell raiser, from singing frontiersman to singing hornet, from Pinner to Philly and back. He came along to Word In Your Ear to talk to us about the eternal puzzle that is Elton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 6, 2017 • 50min
Word Podcast 265 - David “Ram Jam” Rodigan
There’s a rich British tradition of well brought up young men from the leafier suburbs developing a fixation on music from a very different culture and somehow getting themselves a job playing said music on the radio. Nobody has done it more successfully and more unexpectedly than David Rodigan. For a part of the career he’s run it alongside his work as an actor. No wonder there’s so much interest in turning his book “My Life In Reggae” into a film. It’s a story rich in humour and packed with incident, some of which he recounted to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 29, 2017 • 51min
Word Podcast 264 - Tessa Niles and Gina Foster talking BVs
We were delighted to be joined by two of the UK’s most respected providers of backing vocals and harmonies, who between them have sung with everybody from David Bowie at Live Aid on down. They showed us aspects of their vocal techniques, instructed us in the diplomatic arts required to rub along on tour when the members of the band aren’t speaking to each other and explain why the wordless refrain has gone the way of the whalebone corset. You can find the full story in Tessa’s book “Backtrack”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 7, 2017 • 18min
Word Podcast 263 - Jon Savage shortcast
In this shortcast Jon Savage talks to David Hepworth about his new compilation album, “1967 - The Year Pop Divided”. Forty-eight tracks of psych-flavoured pop, rock and soul from the last year before music went off into its own ghettoes, from the Byrds to Captain Beefheart, from Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers to the Shag, from the Thirteenth Floor Elevators to Gladys Knight and the Pips, from the Monkees to The Mickey Finn. “Do the lyrics have anything in common? Yes. Drugs." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 19, 2017 • 1h 5min
Word Podcast 262 - Tony Fletcher
In Which Tony Fletcher tells us about Wilson Pickett, who was impossible as a child, inimitable as a singer and incorrigible as a success, and how he came to write “In The Midnight Hour”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 13, 2017 • 56min
Word Podcast 261 - Barney Hoskyns
In which Barney Hoskyns talks to us about Woodstock and the part it played in the lives of Dylan, the Band, Albert Grossman and Van Morrison, as related in his book “Small Town Talk”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 9, 2017 • 53min
Word Podcast 260 - Jeff Evans
In which Jeff Evans returns from researching the full history of "Rock and Pop On TV" for his new book and talks to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth about not just "Six Five Special" but also "Cool For Cats", not just Legs and Co but also Ruby Flipper, not just "The Tube" but also "The White Room", and wonders whether, now that we have You Tube, we have finally come to the end of music television as a genre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jan 29, 2017 • 1h 16min
Word Podcast 259 - with Paul Gambaccini
In which Paul Gambaccini, that son of New York who became an institution of British broadcasting, talks to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth about how the Beatles changed his life, how he got into broadcasting, what brought him to Britain, his experience of Radio One in the 70s, his recent ordeal at the hands of the Metropolitan police – fully documented in an amazing book "Love, Paul Gambaccini" – and how this experience has changed his view of the BBC and the Labour Party but not the British people. It's an extraordinary listen, one that goes the full distance from hilarity to horror. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 11, 2016 • 1h 16min
Word Podcast 258 - Mick Houghton & Adam White
In which Mick Houghton, the author of a book about the legendary folk-rock label Elektra, and Adam White, the man behind a huge tome about the history of Motown, talk to David Hepworth about the unique challenges faced by independent labels, the charismatic men who founded them, the occasionally difficult stars they had to deal with and what keeps both Jac Holzman and Berry Gordy going at an age when most people are happy just to look at their great-grandchildren. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
