Word In Your Ear

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 thing on the planet. … what people paid for the wooden balls on the Rumours cover and one of Christine McVie’s dresses.  … Stackwaddy: Abba v Zappa song titles - spot the ringer! … a Marshall Crenshaw 40th anniversary covers album? The race to find the next bizarre obscurity. … Little Feat, Fragonard and a cake on a swing.   … plus Anthony Blunt, Elton John will never retire and new Patreon supporters (and their fictional jobs).Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. … appearing with the Millwall squad and Jimmy Tarbuck singing ‘New York New York’ in top hat and tails. … the joy of Keef Hartley’s Half-Breed. … arriving to see Frank Zappa to discover he’d been thrown offstage in the afternoon show “but Cochise were still appearing!” … his dad Spud’s amateur doctor who did a good sideline in racing tips. … why selling his 14,000 albums is like being “unchained from a lunatic”. … Black Sabbath playing ‘unplugged’ in a powercut at the Albert Hall. … and an honorary mention of the pith helmet full of saveloys. Tickets here: Danny Baker: At Last… The Sausage Sandwich Tourhttps://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/danny-baker @prodnose https://www.dannybakerstore.com/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Fleetwood Mac’s luckless mid-‘70s slog with the bank-breaking success to come. … records you never connected with that suddenly make sense 50 years later. … the deep-seated, underrated pleasure of ‘Electric Arguments’ by the Fireman (aka Youth and McCartney). … what your InstaFest line-up reveals about your listening habits. … and a rare mention of ‘Deed I Do’ by Blossom Dearie!Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world alongside a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Phil and his brother Steven started a market stall in Cheltenham in the mid-‘80s and made enough money selling rare records to open the world-famous Badlands (now occupying three floors of an old coach house). It’s been thriving ever since specialising in Springsteen and Dylan, collectible vinyl, books and box-sets and branching out into concert package tours all over Europe. Here he talks about the first records he ever bought, XTC at Cheltenham Town Hall, the cassette and CD booms, the return of vinyl, new threats to the record shop world, taking Steve Van Zandt round Cheltenham (in full Little Steven attire) and the Greatest Record Ever Made. https://badlands.co.uk/ @BadlandsUKSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

… in which we remember watching and talking to the magnificent Wilko Johnson and look back at extraordinary moments in his life – the hippie trail to India, his appearance on Question Time, the three albums the Feelgoods made in a year, how they discovered what made them unique and the effect on everyone from Television to the Clash, Gang of Four, Blur and Franz Ferdinand of the band “who could start a fight in an empty room”. Plus … Pet Shop Boys on the Archers. … the 40th anniversary of Thriller and Quincy Jones’ speech about how “we’re here to save the music business”. … the extraordinary - possiby incendiary - story of Bob Dylan and the faked autographs. … Lil Peep, Lil Flip, Lil Plum, Lil Dicky … spot the fictional rapper! ... and birthday guest Kevin Walsh on why everyone should hear ‘Electric Arguments’ by the Fireman (aka McCartney and Youth). And here’s our Word podcast with Wilko Johnson (plus guitar) from 2010 …https://shows.acast.com/word-in-your-ear-2/episodes/5fe229acf896715ee83196eaSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early access to every future Word Podcast alongside a whole world of additional and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ken’s a world authority and he’s been on the pod twice before, talking about his books about George Martin and the last days of John Lennon. He’s just revised and updated the one he wrote in 2007, ‘Long And Winding Roads’, partly to add new observations and material, especially in the light of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, and partly because the beleaguered world now needs the Beatles more than ever. It’s written like a literary biography, as much about the art as the story. This covers the waterfront - thoughts about their deal with EMI, pivotal events in their trajectory, the recent re-evaluation of McCartney (“the convenor”), the gorgeous “guitar embroideries in the margins of their music”, the key role of Mal Evans (“found crying in McCartney’s garden when he heard it was all over”), the artistic touchstones of I Am The Walrus and the sheer and comforting delight in hearing the Beatles’ music - “returning to the font” - when the world finds itself in times of trouble. As well as being a writer and historian, Ken is Professor of Popular Music at Monmouth University in New Jersey and you’d kill to be in his class. The revamped ‘Long And Winding Roads: the Evolving Artistry of The Beatles’ is just out and he’s working on a new book about Mal Evans which should appear in June 2023. Long And Winding Roads …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Winding-Roads-Evolving-Artistry/dp/0826417469The Mal Evans book ...https://kennethwomack.com/mal-evans-the-biography-archives/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for a whole world of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Further free-wheeling conversational detours include … … “like the consequences of mating Patti Smith with a Hoover vacuum cleaner”: barbed reviews in the Rolling Stone Record Guide.… ‘Bowie and Bing in a bauble’? The Taylor Swift ‘Merry Swiftmas’ t-shirt? Real or fictional Christmas accessories.… the four tracks by women - and there are only four! – among the 66 records Bob Dylan considers in The Philosophy Of Modern Song.   … “and any eye for detail caught a little lace along the seams”: exquisite descriptions of clothes in Joni Mitchell songs. … the NME Encyclopedia Of Rock revisited, that well-thumbed, much-loved and indispensable bible from the world before the internet. … who were Sons of Champlin, the Butts Band and Michael Fennelly?… magnificent rock books, Nik Cohn’s A Wop Bop A Loo Bop A Lop Bam Boom and Barney Hoskyns’ Hotel California among them. … and playing Mozart on a ukulele. Plus birthday guest Simon Poulter.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world, alongside a whole host of additional content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Things run up the flagpole this week in pursuit of entertainment … … Irish/American punk rock group or 19th Century criminal gang? … the eternal dependability of the first Stones album. … does ANYONE not like ska? …. seven “legends” you can still see for under £30. ... the now-for-sale cache of ‘50s love letters by a besotted Bob Dylan (and would you want anyone reading your teenage correspondence?). … the story of Bill Wyman trying to leave the Stones 30 years ago and the rest of them refusing to take him seriously.   … do audio books with a stellar cast really work? … why Elvis and the Beatles never did encores. … butt-dialling Boo Hewerdine. … and if you want to know why rock stars keep in touring read ‘No More Champagne: Winston Churchill And His Money’. … plus birthday guests Mike Sketch and Peter Petyt.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon to receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world... and with full visuals!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the radar this week in an enquiring, celebratory or goat-getting capacity … … has the World Cup balloon already been unmendably punctured? … and is the same thing happening to Twitter? … “if social media had come along earlier would Sergeant Pepper exist?” … Richard Osman-created fictional sleuth or rock stars’ real names: you decide. … a chance meeting with Jaco Pastorius. … speaker-testing moments of bass guitar brilliance. … the general public armed with a mouse are infinitely crueller and more aggressive than the very worst journalists: discuss.   … plus two thousand years of gruesome mortal combat.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world - and with full visuals!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The teenage Trevor Horn could be found playing bass in dance bands on the Top Rank circuit supporting acts like Tommy Cooper (and singing Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool and Hi-Ho Silver Lining). He began writing songs for Tina Charles, had a worldwide hit with Buggles and went on to produce Dollar, ABC, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Malcolm McLaren, Grace Jones, Pet Shop Boys and countless others. In this terrific exchange he talks about life in covers bands (“big money, £150 a week”), how the Fairlight changed the landscape, the diplomacy all producers require, his “pictorial sense” of how ABC should sound, his regrets about Frankie, bands’ paranoia about their record companies, Rod Stewart and the “farting post”, why he’d like to work with Bob Dylan and the drama of making Owner Of A Lonely Heart. Worth it for his uncanny impersonations of Dylan and Rod Stewart alone, and further stories from his just-out memoir ‘Adventures in Modern Recording: From ABC to ZTT’. Which you can buy here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventures-Modern-Recording-ABC-ZTT/dp/178870603X @Trevor_Horn_Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world - and with full visuals!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.