Word In Your Ear

Guy Chambers was a teenager in Liverpool and at John Lennon’s old school - "same headmaster, Mister Pobjoy". He remembers the Beatles, Queen, Abba and Jesus Christ Superstar sparking his interest in the "perfect song package" and went on to work with Tina Turner, Rufus Wainwright, Kylie, Diana Ross and scores of others. He talks here about early shows he saw, records bought and his own tour in the autumn, "An Evening With Guy Chambers", stopping off at various points on the way, among them ...... how YOU can write a song with him. ... Bowie's reaction on discovering he was third on the bill below George Michael and Robbie Williams at Netaid. ... seeing XTC and Generation X at the teen shows at Eric's. ... Benny Hill's Ernie, the Scaffold's Lily the Pink and other singles bought at Probe Records.  ... "the great harmony bands" like the Eagles, Byrds and the Mamas & the Papas...."A Is For Banana", his song about dyslexia.  ... writing a string quartet aged 11 and the magic of hearing four people bring his sheet music to life. ... "the wastage": composers who write 50 songs and throw 40 away. .. the cinematic internal worlds of the Cocteau Twins and Lana Del Ray. ... the "subversive harmonies" on Strawberry Fields Forever and what makes Eleanor Rigby so perfect.... everything that now needs to be in place to get a hit record. ... mass song-writing teams and how he can't operate with more than three people in the room. ... and what you can expect from his upcoming tour. Tickets for An Evening With Guy Chambers here …https://www.guychambers.co.uk/liveWe've been podcasting since 2006 and every bit of support we receive helps us keep the conversation going. Find out more about how you can support Word In Your Ear into the future here: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

We’ve known Alan Edwards since the days when we’d ring him for a quote from Blondie or the Stranglers in the late ‘70s and he’s still one of the key figures in music PR. He’s looked after the Stones, Prince, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Amy Winehouse, the Beckhams and many others. No-one is better positioned to see how that world has changed, from the pre-Google days when you could invent a story and the press would happily buy it to a 21st century where his flat was burgled in pursuit of lucrative celebrity leads. PRs, he believes, "are not messengers but storytellers” and his memoir ‘I Was There: Dispatches From A Life In Rock And Roll’ is full of them. He looks back here at … … striking a £1m photo deal for the Beckhams’ wedding. … Midge Ure, Gen X and other prime examples of fake news. … hotel workers, waiters and airline pilots who sold stories to the press. … the days when a battery-operated portable phone gave you the edge.  … why he was hired by Blondie. … the chilly, manipulative and inscrutable Lou Reed. … Bowie’s disappearance in Berlin in the ‘70s and other things that would be impossible in the age of social media. … Keith Moon in mid-air. … and how it feels to be hacked. Order Alan’s book here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Was-There-Dispatches-Life-Rock/dp/1398525243 The Outside Organisation …https://outside-org.co.uk/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

This week’s items slapped on the rock and roll barbecue and lightly grilled include … … why Eurovision will never avoid political controversy. … when AI does David Hepworth! … what’s the secret of NTS radio? … “there are two types of wedding disco, ones that start with Abba's Dancing Queen and terrible ones.” … Tony Hall’s prophetic preview of Revolver in May '66 – “they shatter convention and may well have a far-reaching effect on the whole future of music”. … when listening to the radio was a group activity. … Daniel Kramer, Dezo Hoffman, Robert Freeman, Anton Corbijn and other photographers who shaped the way music looked. ... the rogue punctuation of "Paint It, Black". … songs that start with the chorus.  … Elvis’s unrepeatable train journey from New York to Memphis in 1956. … “there’s glass in the back of my head and my toenails don’t fit properly” – Dylan’s ’66 London press conference. …. and hurry hurry hurry to Lot 71 in Danny Baker’s record auction, a snip at only £70! Danny Baker’s record auction …https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/auction/details/a230a-the-danny-baker-collection/?au=162&g=1Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

We’ve followed Paul Carrack for 50 years, a big hit single – How Long – when he was with Ace, 19 albums, countless sessions (the Smiths, Eagles and Pretenders among them) and a touring band member with Squeeze, Roxy Music, Roger Waters and Nick Lowe. He once put out an album called ‘I Know That Name’ as for so many people he’s still under the radar. His newsagent assumes he’s called “Mike” as he was the singer in Mike & the Mechanics. He's touring the UK in the autumn and looks back here at … … seeing the Beatles, Chuck Berry, the Stones, Dylan and the Shadows at Sheffield Town Hall. And Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band at Mojos promoted by Pete Stringfellow. … playing Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg clubs in the early ‘70s. … his time with earnest prog adventurers Warm Dust – “please don’t look them up”. … the value of having your own label in the world of streaming. … when Elvis Costello got him to sing the vocal on Tempted by Squeeze. … supporting Fleetwood Mac and Free. … playing Ray Charles, Nat King Cole and Sinatra tunes with a big band. … how it feels to be “dropped like a stone” by Radio Two when you no longer fit the demographic. … the real meaning of the song How Long and what he has in common with Troy McClure of the Simpsons. Paul Carrack tour dates here …https://paulcarrack.net/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Nige Tassell used to go to school in full donkey-jacket-and-woolly-hat ensemble to express his boundless devotion to Dexys Midnight Runners. Forty years later he set out to find and interview everyone who’d ever been a member. For some, their time in the ranks was a joyful, career-launching delight. Others felt it was like a slightly chilly and controlling cult. They all took a while to recover and they all had extraordinary stories to tell in his latest book ‘Searching For Dexys Midnight Runners’. Here’s a flavour of what gets discussed … … ‘No drugs or alcohol! No smiling! No eye contact with the audience!’ and other unsettling Dexys mantras. … examples of Kevin Rowland ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’. … the many ways the band made themselves deliberately different’. … the event supporting Bowie that got their power cut onstage in Paris and had them thrown off the tour. ... the heavy-handed recruitment of Helen O’Hara. … Geno Washington and other strands of the Dexys DNA. … the ad they took in the NME that soured their relationship with the music press. … and how Rowland’s approach today remains resolutely unchanged.   Order Nige’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Searching-Dexys-Midnight-Runners-Tassell/dp/178512059XSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Missing being on tour and exasperated by internal disputes, Nick Mason set out to tour small-scale venues with his band Saucerful Of Secrets in 2018. They’re mid-way through another world tour (Gary Kemp’s the main singer and one of the guitarists). He doesn’t miss the stadium circuit where “you need a golf cart to get from one side of the stage to the other” and they play only the early psychedelic Floyd material, from their first singles up to (but not including) the Dark Side of the Moon, which audiences are less inclined to want to be note-perfect versions of the records. And he talks mid-set about the origins of the songs and his memories of Syd Barrett and life at the time. This podcast looks back at the first live shows he saw and played himself and how Saucerful of Secrets came about. Which includes … … Tommy Steele at the Hackney Empire – “I came straight from school in short trousers with my satchel”. … seeing the Rolling Stones on a ‘63 package tour.   … performing Beatles songs at parties in Cuban heels and Oliver Goldsmith shades. … playing the International Times launch party at the Roundhouse in ‘66 on the back of a cart. …. early gigs at the Countdown Club, Regent Street Poly and the Albert Hall (with Alan Price and Peter & Gordon). … the difference between Saucerful of Secrets and the stadium circuit – and the time Roger Waters played with them in New York. … and the ‘60s demos of unreleased Floyd songs they’re hoping to add to the set. Saucerful of Secrets tour dates here …https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kjkhMKXv4wPaR2XVbZ6h3WVMJ4ivesVn/view?usp=drivesdk  Buy tickets here …https://myticket.co.uk/artists/nick-mason-saucerful-of-secrets Nick’s re-released solo albums here …https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uwB_CYLuszOUNqsfeiWQH3nXd2TxGVf7/viewSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

We were at the Curzon Mayfair on May 7 for the premier of the rebooted Let It Be in all its burnished finery and came away with a ton of things to unravel, among them … … what we never knew when the film came out 54 years ago. .. seeing it in the shadow of Peter Jackson’s Get Back. … how the edit was overtaken by events and the tangled reasons it turned out the way it did. … why Lindsay-Hogg’s amphitheatre concept would never have worked. … the divine symbolism of the Beatles v the police. … why it’s a perfect social document of late-’60s London. … the band’s three-film film contract. … was the world really as distraught about their break-up as the 21st Century assumes? … herringbone coats, red plastic macs, hairy black jackets: why someone should open a Beatles ‘69 clothes emporium. Plus … the noble philosophies of the late Steve Albini expressed in a letter to Nirvana in November 1992. … and what happens when rock stars don’t leave wills: Exhibit A - Steve Marriott. Read Steve Albini’s letter to Nirvana here: https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/nirvanaSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

We stuck a few coins in this week’s Wurlitzer and these were the tunes that got played … … when records became all about sound not songs. … Fonzworth Bentley, Puff Daddy’s butler, the man who held an umbrella over him on the beach at Cannes. … what Henry Kissinger, Martha Stewart and Leonardo DiCaprio kept very quiet about. … Manchester’s Co-Op, a tale of unprecedented hopelessness. … what’s the definition of a song? And can you steal a record? … the magical skill of Aston Barrett on I Shot The Sheriff and James Jamerson on You Can’t Hurry Love. … ‘Duane Eddy Does Bob Dylan’ and its ingenious sleeve. … does anybody still want pop posters? … “I'd watch Jeremy Clarkson boil an egg.” … Moneybagg Yo & DaBaby, Cigarettes After Sex and other acts playing the O2 and Wembley Arena we’ve ever heard of.   … the ultimate autograph. … and New Whirl Odor, Road To Rouen, Sax And Violins, Lead Me Not Into Penn Station and other tortuous album titles.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Steve Diggle met Pete Shelley when the Pistols played Manchester in 1976 and the Diggle-fronted Buzzcocks are now on a world tour that began in Mexico and takes in North and South America, Europe and Australasia before winding up at the 100 Club where they played the Punk Festival 48 years ago – “we’ve come full circle”. He looks back here at the first shows he saw and played himself and talks about Silverhead, Status Quo, Leo Sayer dressed as a clown, George Best, the Groundhogs, The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells, the Buzzcocks as “Lennon and McCartney in a blender”, “Led Zeppelin for Comprehensive schoolkids, Deep Purple for Grammar schoolkids” and a great story about Patrick Moraz of Yes with a bank of keyboards like a telephone exchange and an alpine horn. Buzzcocks world tour dates here: https://www.buzzcocks.com/eventsSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear