The Music Show

Tony Wellington, an author and music writer focused on popular music history, dives into the enchanting chaos of 1980s music. He explores the impact of MTV on the British Invasion and unpacks Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' as a game changer for music videos. Wellington discusses Madonna's rise through provocative imagery and traces the roots of house music and rap's entrance onto mainstream platforms. From charity rock anthems to protest music reflecting Cold War fears, he captures the decade's musical contradictions brilliantly.

JJJJJerome Ellis styles their name with five Js because it’s the word they stutter on the most. The artist, writer, composer and multi-instrumentalist has released a new album Vesper Sparrow which layers spoken word, vocals, saxophone, hammered dulcimer, organ, electronics and more. JJJJJerome speaks to Andrew Ford about the musical opportunities that speech disfluency provides, and what we can learn from the spaces and clearings between words.And we get a chromatic harmonica masterclass from musician and composer Ariel Bart, who blends European jazz traditions with Middle Eastern music. She’s about to begin her debut Australian tour, teaming up with a local cellist and pianist.

Reed and Oak - composed and performed by DOBBY, words by Cate Kennedy.One of two winning poems from our Middle of the Air competition, run in collaboration with Red Room Poetry.

The Arbour - composed and performed by Leah Senior, words by Giles Watson.One of two winning poems from our Middle of the Air competition, run in collaboration with Red Room Poetry.

In August, ABC Radio National and Red Room Poetry put out the call for Australian poets to submit new poems to be set to music by two great local musicians, DOBBY and Leah Senior. Now, to mark the end of AusMusic Month, the two winning poems, and the songs that they have become, are premiered on The Music Show. Andy talks to DOBBY, Leah, and the two winning poets Cate Kennedy and Giles Watson, as well as David Stavanger and Nicole Smede of Red Room Poetry to celebrate the alchemy of song: how music and words combine to affect each other's meaning and make something completely new.Plus, to mark Jane Austen's 250th anniversary, a dive into Austen's relationship with music, with academic Gillian Dooley. And we remember Guy Ghouse (1969-2025), the Western Australian musician who, with his collaborator and wife Gina Williams, brought Noongar language music and opera to the fore. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this program contains the voices of people who have died. As a post-war kid, Leo Sayer first heard rock & roll on Radio Luxembourg on a radio late at night. His career has taken some major swerves: he was an illustrator, a graphic designer (he worked on album covers for Bob Marley), then a blues harmonica player. Most famously though, he's a singer, songwriter, and showman. He sits down with Andrew Ford after a big run of shows to talk about performing at the age of 77, his enduring love of poetry, and how he's found new audiences through remixes and collaborations with up-and-comers.Yawulyu: Art and Song in Warlpiri Women’s Ceremony is a new book that examines the dances, songs and body designs of the Warlpiri community in the early 1980s in Willowra, Northern Territory. Andrew speaks to three of the book's co-authors, Helen Napurrurla Morton (a Warlpiri teacher and translator), Megan Morais (an ethnochoreologist and teacher), and Professor Myfany Turpin (musicologist and linguist), about the role of music in women's ceremonies, and how documenting it is helping to pass it along.

Lolita Emmanuel is a creative researcher. She’s a musician, a storyteller, and an academic (moments away from finishing her Doctor of Musical Arts) and she’s part of this year’s ABC Top Five Arts residency. That's early career researchers in the arts who’ve come to Radio National to make shows about their work. Lolita is Assyrian and Armenian, and her creative practice, which forms the basis of her research, is engaged with the process of creative reassembly: building cultural resilience, strengthening cultural memory and empowering Assyrian artists and voices around the world. She joins Andy to talk about assembling fragments of a culture that has been ethnically cleansed, displaced, and dispersed. 

Most people would think of Paul Grabowsky as a jazz pianist. And they wouldn't be wrong, except he's much more than that. He's a composer of film scores, orchestra works and operas, a band leader (he founded the Australian Art Orchestra) and an inveterate collaborator. Just this year, he's released three albums: a recording of standards with singer Michelle Nicolle; a duo with guzheng player Mindy Meng Wang; and, with Peter Knight, a remarkable celebration of the manikay of Ngukurr songman Daniel Wilfred. In other words, it's time we had Paul back on the show.undead. is a new album of contemporary operatic arias by living composers - almost all of whom are Australian. “Opera's greatest stories are still being written, here and now”, say singer Jessica O'Donoghue and pianist Jack Symonds, performers on the record, and they would know, being a founding member and artistic director of Sydney Chamber Opera, which has platformed living composers throughout its decade in action. Jess and Jack perform some highlights from the album live in The Music Show studio.

Both Sides Now was written by Joni Mitchell in 1966, when she was just 21 years old. She wasn't the first artist to record it though - in true folk tradition, the covers began before her own version was released in 1969, and they haven't stopped since. Both Sides Now is our most covered Cover Story song so far, with over 1,700 versions in as many styles as you can think of. Including, of course, Joni's return to the song from the other side of her career in 2000 (cue Emma Thompson's single tear in Love Actually). For the final episode of this series of Cover Story, we will be looking at 9 versions of Both Sides Now with guests jazz musician Alex Raupach and composer Alice Chance.

Senegalese kora master Seckou Keita's relationship with the West African string instrument is delicate, thoughtful, and expansive. Through developing his own tunings, and taking his music further than the traditions of Casamance, the region of southern Senegal he's from, he's connected his instrument with jazz, classical, and other African musical traditions. He's in Australia playing a series of concerts and drops into the Music Show studio to perform live.Rowena Wise and Didirri are both successful Australian indie artists in their own right. Their personal and creative partnership has led to a couple of singles, as well as a tender duo reinterpretation of their own solo works. They're on the road doing a series of gigs in churches and offer up a couple of beautiful live performances in the studio with Andy.Plus we hear new music from Paul Grabowsky and Mindy Meng Wang, and mark Sir Charles Mackerras' centenary.