Word In Your Ear

Pauline Black was seen singing Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell songs in Coventry folk clubs and recruited by a local reggae band. Then converted to ska and joined the Selecter - back on tour this summer and with a box-set of live recordings, ‘The Selecter at the BBC’. She looks back here at … … their first gig with Madness for 47 years in Brighton – “very red fezzy!” … her Sliding Doors moment supporting Bert Jansch ... discovering the Pioneers, Prince Buster and the Skatalites through white skinheads in Coventry … the famous 2-Tone Brighton Beach photo of 1979 with the Specials and Madness … “there were three looks for a black girl singer back then – Tina Turner, the I-Threes Earth Mother … or invent something new. So I invented the Rude Girl” … seeing Pentangle playing the theme from ‘Take Three Girls’ in 1971 and then the MC5 and Arthur Brown with his “papier-mâché brain” … training as a bio-chemist and radiographer – “there isn’t an orifice I haven’t inspected” … the first Selecter gig – “flares, safari suits and me in pink spandex trousers like the girls from Chic” .. how Jerry Dammers created the cartoon 2-Tone look and the night radio played the first single … and “a black man with a gun and a stage invasion” on the BBC’s Pebble Mill. Order copies of ‘The Selecter At The BBC: The Complete Recordings 1979-1981’ here: https://theselecter.lnk.to/AtTheBBC Tickets here: https://theselecter.net/live-dates/

Tony Fletcher launched Jamming! when he was 13, wrote for the Face at 16, ran a label with Paul Weller at 17 and a year later was presenting the Tube. And was in a band signed to EMI. If anyone did more as a teenager, we want to meet them. It’s all in his coming-of-age memoir ‘Pow! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84’ - discussed here - which touches on … …the speed, the possibilities and the riches of success in the early ‘80s – and how it felt to be at the heart of it … “I knew nothing about running a label – and then discovered Paul Weller didn’t either” … Madness being interviewed by “spiky-haired, Harrington-jacketed, Ben-Sherman-shirted me” … when confidence meets ignorance … when bands went from selling 2,000 records to 20,000 and, in America, 200,000: “Phil Oakey always carried £500 in cash” … the research meetings that launched the Tube and his two-minute audition … the day Leslie Ash called in sick and he covered for her on live TV … Pete Townshend, 35, convinced the Who were finished ... discovering the inner circle within the inner circle … “to the Rainbow for the Mod Revival all-dayer!” … and memories of Wham!, Paula Yates and Pete Wylie and what he learnt from running labels and magazines.   Order copies of ‘Pow! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84’ here: US: https://www.trouserpressbooks.com/pow UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/pow-when-uk-punk-went-pop-1980-84-tony-fletcher/74b193de4c1dee68

Testing the temperature of this week’s news to see what trips the fire-alarm, which includes … … does having a Number One still matter? … Pauline Black’s sliding doors moment … rock stars you can’t imagine dancing … heatwaves, fire, rain, dust and thunderstorms: how extreme weather’s changing the festival circuit … when Jarvis Cocker was a fishmonger and Bryan Ferry taught pottery … is AI erasing our love of rock history? … Wuthering Heights Day: the lone fabulous amateur appeal of Kate Bush v the polished mass choreography of the 21st Century … all bands vividly remember first hearing themselves on the radio … and then rang their mothers … digital native or digital immigrant? … and when Mark met the Hells Angels in a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

This week’s news in a conversational cocktail-shaker and served with ice and a little paper parasol. Those Happy Hour highlights include … … six musicians who keep getting better looking … Plas Johnson RIP, a part of everyone’s life for 60 years   … the Odyssey and how Hollywood thinks the rest of the world has a foreign accent … why you couldn’t make Bugsy Malone today … Jonathan Richman’s genuine wide-eyed love of the modern world … Clare Torry’s Pink Floyd payday … “Styrofoam ice buckets full of ice”: the greatest song ever written about life on the road … Mick Jagger, the art of evasion and the exquisite boredom of Stones’ B-sides about America … the four rock stars who played the Artful Dodger … and what John Wayne said to ‘Jesus’.

Ben Sidran was in a teenage band with Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs, a session pianist with the Stones in 1969 and carved a brilliant career as a jazz musician, producer, author and broadcaster. He’s just written ‘Cool Cat Blues’ about his old friend and collaborator Georgie Fame and the brief, luminous, pre-rock London blues and jazz scene that launched him. This enthralling conversation looks at the “heavy lift” of being a piano player and Georgie’s unique position in the organic, unhyped, pre-youth scene before the arrival of rock. And covers … … the “coal smoke” London of the late ‘60s and Ben recording with the Stones at Olympic … the romance and “elephant paths” of the great jazz legends … why British musicians were more sophisticated than Americans obsessed with authenticity  ... the influence of Mose Allison, “a white jazz and blues intellectual with storytelling and social commentary” … GI’s bringing black American records to the Flamingo Club … how Georgie Fame was “raised by wolves” and the Larry Parnes and Light Entertainment worlds that helped shape him … and Yeh Yeh, Get Away and the Ballad Of Bonnie and Clyde, the hits that damaged his reputation.   Order ‘Cool Cat Blues’ here: https://www.equinoxpub.com/projects/cool-cat-blues

Steve Hackett’s seven years in Genesis get re-explored when he tours in October, along with ‘solo gems’ from the records he’s made since, the latest ‘the Roaring Waves’, a collaboration with old pal Steve Rothery. He looks back here at defining moments in the Genesis story such as the stage props, the early American tours and Phil Collins when he met him having just auditioned for Zeffirelli and being “all fur coats and girlfriends”. Along with … … when bands stood on fishboxes if there wasn’t a stage … playing harmonica through his nose and “open wounds” from American guitars .. Cream, John Mayall and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band on Eel Pie Island  ... what Lennon said about Genesis “in the days before we could tweet it, sadly” … Apache, Man Of Mystery and the guitarists Hank Marvin inspired … how Phil Collins got to be the band’s singer and the days when Phil and Peter Gabriel did Alan Whicker impressions onstage ... Guy Garvey at the Prog Proms … the last time the five of them were together and the chance of a reunion … and the new album with Steve Rothery, inspired by Whitby and the legend of Dracula. Order copies of ‘The Roaring Wave’ here: https://stevehackettsteverothery.lnk.to/TheRoaringWaves-Album Order Steve Hackett tickets here: https://myticket.co.uk/artists/steve-hackett   and https://www.hackettsongs.com/tours

Mari Wilson has drunk deep of all that London nightlife has to offer, from a London Transport social club in Wembley to a posh venue in Chelsea via the Cooks Ferry Inn in Edmonton, and she remembers it well. Here she marks the release of her new album “Girl About Town” by talking about:•⁠ ⁠making bacon sandwiches for Mott The Hoople•⁠ ⁠entertaining her dad’s mates with her Alma Cogan impression•⁠ ⁠Half of Scotland coming to stay for the Home Internationals•⁠ ⁠touring in a Commer van•⁠ ⁠taking her “Klute” hairstyle to watch Stray and the Pink Fairies•⁠ ⁠playing Dusty Springfield on the musical stage•⁠ ⁠audiences who want to get home in time for Antiques Road Show•⁠ ⁠bringing it all back home to the Cadogan Hall, Chelsea, on October 4th:⁠ ⁠https://cadoganhall.com/whats-on/mari-wilson-girl-about-town/

Another over-heated week put through the conversational air-conditioner, which involves … … the man who got rich writing words that could never be sung … Anna Bullock? Stefani Germanotta? People who’d never have made it if they hadn’t changed their names … and the best stage name ever! … Marco Pirroni’s jukebox … when the Rock'n’Roll rulebook declared ‘Thou Shalt Not Dance!’ … how David Dundas made a fortune from just four notes … Ringo, Dylan, Hank Marvin, Bill Wyman and the magic of cowboy culture … who lost out on ‘It’s Only Rock’n’Roll’ and ‘Jessica’? … and the biggest star of the 20th Century and how he got his name Plus the Bingville Bugle and birthday guest Gianluca Tramontana looks back at when dance music came in for a kicking.

Marco Pirroni’s moment in the sun was big, lucrative but incredibly short. It was under a year from Adam & the Ants’ first hit to their last and immediate break-up. Adam, he remembers, was the perfect writing partner – driven, intensely competitive and with “a pathological fear of only being Number 2”. He’s got no regrets, hasn’t had to do day’s work since, and looks back here at …… being the first band writing songs for the video age… “you can’t confuse fans buying records with love, it’s nothing personal”… Telstar, Fireball XL5, Roxy Music and the “moon-stomping hits of Slade”… playing covers of songs they didn’t like with Siouxsie at the 100 Club: “punk rock and my part in its downfall”… Adam’s “Shakespearian tirade” at the legal meeting with Rolf Harris when he sued over Prince Charming and War Canoe… Malcolm McLaren’s jukebox: the Flamin’ Groovies, Alice Cooper, the Troggs, “songs that weren’t very good”… “we stopped being a punk band or a pop band or a glam band – or any sort of band at all”… never tour America when you don’t have a bank account.Order ‘Your Money Or Your Life’ here: https://tr.ee/P2_qxNZ6jC