Share

Word In Your Ear

Light Entertainment for Dark Times

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 "R
Tuesday, May 9, 2023

How a nine-year-old boy kick-started Rock’n’Roll (and other stories)

Ep. 527
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 sad songs we’ve ever heard. … the extraordinary tale of the B-side of ‘13 Women And Only One Man’. … songs you couldn’t record these days. … Rufus Wainwright’s re-recording of Neil Young’s Harvest – but CAN modern technology possibly make it sound any better? … Noel Coward in the Italian Job.  ... the mystifying UK pop charts at the time of the last Coronation. … old records we’ve re-discovered: this week, Bonnie Raitt’s magnificent Give It Up (and especially Love Has No Pride). … John Prine’s Angel From Montgomery. … Gordon Lightfoot: why Dylan adored him and the tale of The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald. … the return of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the excellent current occupation of Brian ‘Nasher’ Nash.------Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-happy-return-of-word-in-the-park-tickets-576193870377------Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/yourear to get up a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 months for free! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!------Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Groups that look like a check-out line at B&Q? We have a winner!

Ep. 526
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 anybody genuinely copy anyone else these days? … Springsteen and Michelle Obama and their irresistible thirst for publicity.   … the return of the Stack Waddy game: Spencer Birtwistle? Wilfred Mott? … Bernard Cribbins sitcom character or former member of the Fall? … Santana’s Caravanserai still sounds like it was made yesterday. … what Paul McCartney and Coldplay were paid to play Glastonbury. … if you tell people they’ll like things they tend to look for reasons to disagree but can we (cautiously) recommend the Australian comedy Colin From Accounts? … Happy 70th, Bill Drummond. We remember his deafening ‘retirement’ exit at the BRITS in 1992 and his exotic activities since. … the delicate rhythms of the funniest lines by PG Wodehouse.   … a chilling stat involving football academies. … Harry Belafonte, the original “singer and activist”, and the time he was in a drama class with Walter Matthau and Marlon Brando. … plus Shakespeare, a light-fingered Noel Gallagher and amplified busking.------------Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-happy-return-of-word-in-the-park-tickets-576193870377------------Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/yourear to get up a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 months for free! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!------------Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early and ad-free access to all of our content!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Jack Nitzche, a “pleat-faced” guitarist and the time Sly Stone got married onstage

Ep. 524
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 write a children’s book? … S Club 7, Miles Davis’s sessionmen and others apparently ripped off by the heartless, skinflint music industry. … the unsung story of Jack Nitzsche, “the man with the golden touch”, his part in the Stones’ baroque period and the recordings he made in Barking Town Hall and St Giles Cripplegate. … when Sly Stone got married onstage and the couple who got hitched at a Taylor Swift show. … a “short-fingered vulgarian” and a “beaky, crow-coiffed, pleat-faced” guitarist. … the Gershwin score to Woody Allen’s Manhattan. … how two thirds of NBA players are bankrupt in 10 years. ... Jimmy Page’s Shirley Bassey session.  … Rlchard Branson picking up women. … how Jay Craydon’s still living off a Steely Dan guitar solo. … can any musician hope to make it if they start aged 37? … and somewhat irritatingly Jamie Oliver attaches himself to the celebrity children’s author gravy train. Plus birthday guests Stephen Lambe –“that adolescent moment when pop music stops being just a nice noise and becomes Something Important: discuss”. And Chuck Loncon recommends Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs’ Under The Covers compilations and the Stay Awake album of songs from Disney films.Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-happy-return-of-word-in-the-park-tickets-576193870377Grab your EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal by going to https://nordvpn.com/yourear to get up a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 months for free! It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!