Word In Your Ear

Natalie Merchant joined 10,000 Maniacs when she was 17, had a long and successful solo career and then began teaching children in New York State. Realising the value of rhymes and theatre, her adaptation of Mother Goose (played by herself) was expanded into a multi-media performance with 150 four-year-olds and recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She even made most of the costumes. And she’s never had an audience reaction as enthusiastic and emotional. It’s a magnificent project to give children experiences that modern life rarely affords “right down to the thrill of seeing people play real instruments”. She talks to us here from her New York home about ‘Cabinet Of Wonder’, along with … … her first stage appearances, aged seven … scanning record collections and thinking “if they don’t have a copy of Nico’s ‘Chelsea Girl’, we can’t be friends!”  … how improvising lyrics got her into 10,000 Maniacs (“who I wanted to call the Tunda Bunnies”) … seeing Styx, the Cars and the Clash playing ‘Combat Rock’ … how she and her daughter grew up in homes without TV … and the threat of future education run by avatars.  The Cabinet of Wonder website: https://cabinetofwonder.org And the multi-retailer link for the album: https://cabinetofwonder.lnk.to/album

The Proclaimers have only had a handful of hits but they’re songs that have kept expanding for nearly 40 years. And the World Cup was a reminder of how far they’ve reached. Craig and Charlie Reid talk to us here about first adventures onstage, talent shows, the tour circuit, the new album ‘You May Offend’ and … … the moment the Proclaimers took off … first records bought in Woolworths in Fife (including the less-than-prophetic World Cup anthem Easy Easy) … the fraternal voices of the Everly Brothers … seeing Joy Division supporting Buzzcocks and feeling “the heat and charisma” of Ian Curtis … the unique way they write songs … getting royalties when your hits are sung in televised football stadiums … their first gigs playing Stones, Kinks, Clash and Pistols covers plus a Talent Show in ’77 on a bill with “a lassie singing Scottish ballads and possibly a performing dog” … recording at Rockfield and the ghost of Bohemian Rhapsody ... their new video imagining John & Yoko as they might be today … how easy it is to offend Gen-Z … and hitchhiking 60 miles to see Hibs and writing ‘The Joyful Kilmarnock Blues’ about it. Order ‘You May Offend’ here: https://proclaimers.lnk.to/youmayoffend

The original rock podcast - now in its 20th year! – knocks the week’s news across the conversational net. Amid the top-spin, rallies and double-faults, you’ll find … … farcical developments in the Tupac trial … the shock-horror reaction to the Sam Mendes Beatles’ wigs! … Dave Marsh’s ‘1001 Greatest Singles’ in 1989: what 45s released since would make his Top 10? … ‘If the Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’s Me’, ‘I’ve Been Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart’: real or made-up Country song titles? … “People buy albums because they like the band. They buy singles because they like the song” … musicians who wrote a second memoir as the first one wasn’t all true … the Stones single that’s streets ahead of their others … the Hank Marvin Challenge: the correct facial expression when playing instrumentals! … are the greatest singles the ones with the most emotional depth? … and the mystery of ‘No Way Out’ by Joyce Harris.

Martin Simpson got backstage when he was 15 and met Jimmy Reed and Big Joe Williams and it changed his life forever. He’s been on the folk circuit ever since, still at the top of his game and with the wealth of knowledge and experience reflected in this extremely entertaining podcast. His ‘Some Kind Of Jubilee’ album celebrates 50 years since his first record and he’s on tour in September. And talks to us here about … … his operatic Dad born in the 19th Century … the message carved with a knife on the door of the Bodmin Trad Music Club  … hearing Paul Robeson aged four and thinking “I want to make people cry for a living” … ‘60s folk circuit snobbery and its disdain for “foreign songs” … signing Big Joe Williams’ walking stick in a space between Bob Dylan and Joan Baez … memories of Alex Campbell, Matin Carthy, Dave & Jo Ann Kelly and “that swarthy bunch of lunatics from Hull, the Watersons” … the Nun & Ice Cream Cone, the Frog & Afterbirth: imaginary pub venues cooked up with June Tabor … being managed by Tony Secunda, “an extremely unpleasant human being” … “the only damage you can do to a folk song is to not sing it” … supporting Steeleye Span and the night cash rained from the heavens … Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right, These Days by Jackson Browne, Mississippi John Hurt and other songs that never let you down onstage  … second-lining at a New Orleans jazz funeral: “the slow drag and the racing return” … and how folk songs travel abroad and evolve.   Order copies of ‘Some Kind Of Jubilee’ here: https://martinsimpsonmusic.com/pre-order-the-new-album/ Martin Simpson tickets here: https://martinsimpsonmusic.com/

The Shadows were the strongest brand in British pop, adored and widely imitated. When they went out of fashion, no-one wanted them to change. Bob Stanley salutes their enormous influence and creation of the guitar hero and unravels their rapid post-Beatles decline in his superb new book, ‘The Shadows: the Definitive Story’. And talks to us here about …  … Hank and Bruce arriving in London aged 15 when the 2i’s coffee bar was a labour exchange and a social club … entering a talent contest won by a Malayan opera singer … the magic of cowboy culture transported to British suburbia and their four cartoonish stage names … meeting Jacques Tati at the Paris Olympia and being asked to write a song for his upcoming movie … the rapid post-Beatles crash – bow-ties, panto and Cliff announcing his Christianity … “being thrown through a mangle twice a night by Arthur Askey in Stockton-on-Tees is not why they joined the music business” … getting Hipgnosis to design their album sleeve while stuck playing Batley Variety Club … the return of instrumentals with Albatross and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly … when Hank was asked to join the Move .. the Swedish vogue for “barbed wire groups” … and Neil Young’s ‘From Hank to Hendrix’ – which everyone assumed was about Hank Williams. Order copies of Bob’s book here: https://tr.ee/rSilFTJwfO

Stuff, nonsense, the white heat of debate and yesterday’s news today! Which this week involves … … which of these didn’t host a TV chat show – Ian Botham, Charlotte Church, Lily Allen or Harold Wilson? … if you’d paid £102 to see two-thirds of the Fugees show up an hour late, wouldn’t you SCREAM for a refund? … Britain’s most rock’n’roll hotel and why the idea of “excess” seems purely American … Dave and Stephane Grappelli at the Sunset Marquis … Reversing Into Tomorrow! We Came, We Saw, We Left! The genius of Stiff Records, “the Motown of Bayswater”, and the oddballs and misfits they signed … “there are only two types of record demand: too little and too much” … “Artistic breakthrough, the first double B-side!” The single that started the Indie boom … and why naked ballet doesn’t work.