Word In Your Ear

Sauntering in carefree, conversational mode down the rock and roll bridleway this week, pausing briefly to lean against a tree and tootle upon a mouth-organ, we came across the following …

… bands wi…

Things in the crosshairs this week include …

… why it took 34 years to get De La Soul on a streaming service.

… Radio 2’s ham-fisted handling of the departure of Ken Bruce – and are R2 and Greatest H…

Karen Carpenter died 40 years ago at the age of 32, a life mapped out in a new biography by Lucy O’Brien called Lead Sister. It’s a chilling, cautionary tale of how she and her brother became interna…

The teenage Michael Cragg was obsessed with the “glorious shiny ludicrous pop” of the period that began with the Spice Girls, included Hear’Say, Five, Steps, Atomic Kitten, Blue and countless others …

This week’s crackling logs on the conversational fire include …

… the attractively unchanging sound of Joe Henry’s 15 albums (the man PRs still sell as “Madonna’s brother-in-law”).

… the 45th anniver…

Of all the figures who built rock and roll back in the 1950s, Chuck Berry was arguably the most influential and certainly the strangest. In a new biography, which could never have been written when h…

Eels are touring the UK in March/April and E talks here about what he’s learnt about live performance from being onstage or in the audience. And this includes …

… a valuable lesson from watching Leon…

Given the once-over this week in vigorous pursuit of edification and amusement …

… should a Fawlty Towers sequel be illegal?

… over-refreshed audiences wrecking Jukebox Musicals.

… our hunt for the e…

The dazzling super-trouper of gentle enquiry is trained this week upon:-

… Sam Smith’s inflatable suit.

… “TV kills everything”.

… What do producers actually do? Old pal Kate Mossman joins us to talk…

Midge Ure starts a UK tour in April (with Band Electronica) and talks here about bands that left an impression and what he’s learnt about live performance. This includes …

… audiences “wanting their …

Conversational footballs punted about the park this week include …

… why George Harrison’s trip to Benton, Illinois, in 1963 would make a great Netflix drama – the $400 Rickenbacker, the local gig bi…

Ron Sexsmith starts a UK tour at the end of April and talks about what he’s learnt about live performance, which includes:-

… “notes from girls” after winning the High School Variety Show.

… playing …

Joel worked for various labels - Mushroom, Atlantic and Sony among them - and was the man who signed the Darkness. Training to become a psychotherapist, he began trading in rare records, travelling a…

Peter Asher started out as a child actor in films with John Mills, Alastair Sim and Boris Karloff. He was in the Adventures of Robin Hood with his sister Jane but they were eventually “demoted to pea…

Things featured this week in hot pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment …

… seeing Television in 1975 for £1.50 - support act, Blondie.

… Kaleidoscope, Country Joe & the Fish, Fairport Convention…

The Long Ryders are touring in May and our old pal Sid Griffin tells us what to expect and looks back here at …

… Herman’s Hermits and the Dave Clark Five playing on a steamboat.

… his first live per…

David Crosby was famous for nearly 60 years, a celebrity sustained by records, tours, brushes with the law and serial disagreements with old pals and collaborators (he was the very definition of a no…

Suzannne Vega is touring throughout the UK in February. Here she talks to David Hepworth about what she’s learned about live in the course of:

….starting off on stage with Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall

…

Our old pal from Word magazine Kate Mossman adored Jeff Beck and the whole range of his recordings and interviewed him recently for the New Statesman. This pod features the outlandish techniques he d…

Tony King was there when it all started, working for Decca in the late ‘50s, plugging records on Housewives’ Choice and Family Favourites and looking after visiting Americans like the Ronettes, Roy O…