This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find … … Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop videos turned into tourist attractions … the appeal of D’Angelo’s Voodoo: “he made albums with no disdain for the listener” …. David Hepworth and “the single most exciting thing that ever happened to me in my entire life” … bands whose story means more than their music … Nick Drake, Hendrix, Portishead, Nirvana: why three albums is the perfect back catalogue … when Morrissey was just “Steve from Stretford” and Bowie “some bloke in Beckenham” … Elvis Costello, the Nashville Rooms and how Mark escaped being “killed to bits” … is there a better sign of obsession than being able to name all a band’s members? … Your challenge: listen to the Dead’s Dark Star for the first time. Discuss! … esoteric tracks played by mobile coffee vans … “Gor Blimey, hello Mrs Jones. How’s old Bert’s lumbago?” … plus JJ Cale, Canned Heat, Cameron Crowe and Fred Neil’s The Dolphins.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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48:30
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48:30
The Zombies’ Colin Blunstone – a psychedelic showpiece then ‘washed up’ aged 21
The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now gets ranked beside Revolver and Pet Sounds. Colin Blunstone has a solo tour in 2026 and looks back here in his wood-panelled den at the first shows he played, the people he met and being No 1 in America aged 19. This too … … when your career starts at 16 “and you think it’s over at 21” … seeing the Beatles at Luton Odeon and the Stones at Studio 51 Leicester Square “sitting on stools playing acoustic R&B” … winning the talent contest that got them a record deal and a worldwide hit with “the third song Rod ever wrote” … playing Murray the K’s Christmas Show when No 1 in America with “all our heroes” - the Shirelles, Patti LaBelle and Ben E King … his father’s warning when he wanted to go to Art School … the misspelling of Odessey And Oracle and its rushed recording at Abbey Road – “in mono when everyone wanted stereo!” … “only Kenny Everett and Penny Valentine liked it”: the album’s afterlife, “now ranked alongside Revolver and Pet Sounds” … how he still hits “my suicidal top notes” and the old trick of pointing the mic at the audience if you don’t want to sing them … life in an insurance office when the Zombies split and “the three writers had made all the money” … and Al Kooper, Denny Laine, Russ Ballard, Rod Argent and the time Mike Hurst inexplicably relaunched him as ‘Neil MacArthur’. Order tickets for the Believe In Miracles Tour here: https://www.colinblunstone.net/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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36:59
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36:59
Led Zeppelin’s fight for attention and how they fudged their backstory
This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent from the days when the Kidderminster Shuttle would spell their name wrong and print their parents’ address. Richard Morton Jack, author and compiler of ‘Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly’, looks back here at …. … the fact that there was already a group called ‘Lead Zeppelin’ in 1967 … the way Page has fudged early details of his and the band’s career … why 1968 was Last Chance Saloon for Plant, Jones and Bonham … the second British Invasion and why America was so ready for them … “the Hindenburg was only 30 years earlier. Imagine using the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on a cover now!” … their claim that critics always hated them in the face of massive evidence to the contrary … Plant’s publicity stunts before he joined the band – Harold Macmillan, Legalise Pot, the Noise Abatement Society … … the ‘60s Birmingham scene v the London scene… their eternal grievance about the press sparked by the “Ground Zero” moment of Rolling Stone’s 1968 review … the venues they played - the Toby Jug in Tolworth, Pirate World, an aqua theater, an ice rink in Vegas … and the bands they shared bills with - Frosty Moses, Kimla Taz, the Ladybirds. Order a copy of Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly here: https://lansdownebooks.com/Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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39:42
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39:42
Stones, Blondie, Iggy and songs that make a movie & why we loved Diane Keaton
Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here … … will rock bands get offered the Saudi money? … “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030” … Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted … the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats … “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads” … did Easy Rider invent the music video? … Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous – soundtrack moments that made their movies … 12 million more UK tickets were sold than in 2019 yet 150 small venues closed in two years: “scale is now part of the appeal” … the genius of John Sebastian … the end of MTV UK and how video changed the landscape … “Here’s to you Mrs Roosevelt”: how Simon & Garfunkel got into the Graduate … can anyone fathom Ghost Town Blues by Prefab Sprout? Plus Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and birthday guest Matthew Elliott on why three is the magic number.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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54:06
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54:06
Ringo and why the Beatles wouldn’t have worked without him
The look, sound, story and dynamic of the Beatles can’t be imagined without him. Nor can their success. Tom Doyle, author and drummer, examines the unexplored depths of the one at the back from 70 different angles, one per chapter, in his new memoir ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ and talks to us here about …. … how he learnt to read by looking at his Dad’s Beatles singles and the one that first made him notice the drumming ... what you learn re-watching him in Peter Jackson’s Get Back … why Ringo gave them universal appeal and his key role in their conquest of America … supernatural brilliance: exceptional moments such as the un-slowed original Rain and “the way he makes the sound of the holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” … the delicious Britishness of comparing Rishikesh to Butlins and the mantra the Maharishi gave him he still uses every day … the pre-Beatles time he applied to emigrate to Texas and what stopped him doing it … the only Beatle who could dance: the proof! … the Lost Years and the day he had his head and eyebrows shaved … the mortifying fate of the first recording of the four Beatles together (in 1960) … how all four spent the rest of their lives in recovery … what Sam Mendes might accentuate in his upcoming portrait of Ringo ... and the clip that’ll be all over the news on the day he bows out. Plus our campaign to buy the Sentimental Journey pub starts here! Order Tom Doyle’s ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Ringo/Tom-Doyle/9781917923132Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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 "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1.Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience. Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit wiyelondon.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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