Word In Your Ear
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.
- Update frequency
- every 2 days
- Average duration
- 43 minutes
- Episodes
- 858
- Years Active
- 2007 - 2025
Word In The Park 2023 #2 – 60 years of the Bee Gees with Bob Stanley
Author, DJ, member of St Etienne and a regular on our podcasts, Bob Stanley was the second guest at our sun-baked garden party in the auditorium of Opera Holland Park on June 3 talking about his new …
Word In The Park 2023: 60 years of the Stones with Lesley-Ann Jones
It’s a barely believable sixty years since the Rolling Stones put out their first single, “Come On”, so we asked Lesley-Ann Jones, the author of “The Stone Age", along to talk about them and how they…
What bands are becoming unfashionable?
This week’s rock and roll gumbo includes the following spicy and nutritious ingredients …
… “the internet is designed to let middle-aged men think they’ve had the last word”.
… will the Royal Blood s…
Which is the most two-faced world - movies, music or daytime TV?
Fond and appraising enquiry of recent events, this week featuring …
… we now feel we have to approve of artists/musicians/writers before we can say we like what they do. When did all this start?
… a …
Farewell Tina Turner – “all you needed was Nutbush City Limits and a Watneys Party 7”
A special extra podcast recorded just after hearing the news. We can barely remember a time when we weren’t aware of her. This looks back at the Ike & Tina R&B hits of the ‘60s, the Ikettes dance rou…
Robert Johnson, Shakespeare and the rock star image of Martin Amis
Put through the boil-wash of enquiry and hung upon the washing line of truth this week you’ll find the following one-size-fits-all garments …
… which acts are fading from memory and who’ll be remembe…
Is there a more annoying rhyme than “arms” and “charms”?
Further nutritious items on the pod’s tasting menu this week include …
… the story of Tubular Bells and how the Exorcist sent its sales through the roof.
… beneath the surface of every band is a dram…
How a nine-year-old boy kick-started Rock’n’Roll (and other stories)
Where the Gold Bracelets of Sincerity and Wisdom and the Rod of Equity and Mercy meet the piping hot music news agenda in a weekly podcast and alight upon the following ….
… the greatest singer of sa…
Groups that look like a check-out line at B&Q? We have a winner!
Encountering the cheerful ping-pong bats of conversation this week you’ll find …
… the most unprepossessing rock band on God’s green earth.
… Ed Sheeran v Marvin Gaye – “the case continues”. But does…
“Well I walked up to her and I asked her if she wanted to dance.”
Items run up the flagpole this week include …
… our memories of the exquisite agony of teenage dances, especially Dave’s at the Mecca Ballroom in Wakefield, 1965.
... unforgettable things said and do…
Jack Nitzche, a “pleat-faced” guitarist and the time Sly Stone got married onstage
Dipping our shrimping nets this week into the ever-bountiful rock and roll rock pool we find …
… Dylan, Madonna, Pharrell Williams, Michael Jackson, Nick Cave and Keith Richards – which one didn’t wr…
John Cooper Clarke reveals “the performing poet’s worst enemy”
The “bargain basement Baudelaire” is setting out on a UK tour in April and tells Mark Ellen here about the earliest shows he saw and played, memories which happily include …
… the subtle art of crowd…
“Fred Flange”, Barry Cryer meets the Pretenders and what we’ve learnt about the Velvet Underground
This week’s trawl of the rock and roll outer limits alights, among others, on the following sizzling hot topics …
... a lost Beatles tape and the night they played Stowe School 60 years ago.
… the re…
The inscrutable King Crimson exposed by their documentary-maker Toby Amies
“Being on tour with King Crimson,” in the words of their film director, “is like being with the school rugby team and, at the last minute, the games teacher falls ill so they send them out with the m…
Paul Weller as a songwriter? Dylan Jones unpacks his “Imperial Phase"
Paul Weller’s been writing songs for 50 years now and he’s chosen over 100 of his lyrics for the new and gorgeous, picture-packed publication ‘Paul Weller: Magic – A Journal Of Song’, each accompanie…
What’s Paul Jones of the Manfreds learnt from 60 years onstage?
The Manfreds start their 60th Anniversary Tour in September with Paul, Mike D’Abo and Tom McGuinnness in the line-up. He talks to us here about the first and best shows he’s seen and …
… being told…
Do we still need film and album reviews? Plus Seymour Stein and Keith Reid’s last fandangos
In which we cast a warm but appraising glance in the direction of the week’s news and alight upon the following sizzling topics …
… the best media job in the world.
… the most played record in the hi…
Why Andrew Lauder is the unsung hero of the record business
Andrew Lauder started the Radar, F-Beat and Demon labels, worked at Liberty, Stiff and United Artists and signed (or licensed) and helped shape the careers of countess acts we’ve loved over the years…
Is U2’s new Songs Of Surrender album just plain *wrong*?
Whistling, clicking our heels, swinging round lampposts and lobbing the odd shiny florin to a flaxen-haired child, this week’s free-wheeling navigation of the rock and roll boulevard alights upon the…
15 minutes with Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake: it all started on Blackpool Pier (aged two) …
Teenage Fanclub are touring the UK in November. Norman tells us here about some of the first and best shows he’s seen and played and life in the group's early days. Which involves …
… the band that m…