Word In Your Ear

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.

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.

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.

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.

Steering the supercar of enquiry round the rock and roll racetrack with the occasional stop for a tyre change. Foot-to-floor moments this week include… … why are the British so hung up about posh pop stars? … the 10-second moment of his stage routine that Springsteen must find addictive … the flaming bra, the flying dress, the human horse: Lady Gaga’s most OTT entrances .. would YOU want Madonna as a sister-in-law? … Fleetwood Mac, the Grateful Dead, the Bee Gees: bands the NME said were finished in 1975 … John Paul Jones in Marks and Sparks … musicians’ houses we’d most like to live in (actually one’s a lifeboat) … the goth/fantasy allure of Steve Nicks on TikTok … and the still-haunting times we died onstage “like a louse in a Russian’s beard”. Plus Noel Coward, Julie Andrews, Jem Finer, birthday guest Phil Turner and Tony Bennett’s favourite meal.Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

London’s Blitz club in 1980 had a huge impact on the way the decade looked and sounded, the launchpad for Boy George, Spandau Ballet, a new age of electro-pop and many writers, designers and photographers. The author and broadcaster Robert Elms was one of its cornerstones, “a place for people who’d outgrown the 20th Century”. We talk here about his book ‘Blitz: the Club That Created the ‘80s’ with all of this on the dancefloor …   … the Blitz Club rules, “unspoken until Steve Strange spoke them”. And the door policy: “Look at yourself, darling. Would YOU let yourself in?” … first nights “with a Space Cossack shirt and asymmetric wedge” and the origin of the term New Romantic … the rise of the “home-made Macaronis” (dictionary definition: “over-dressed popinjays of dubious sexuality”) … Bowie’s Starman, Roxy, soul, disco, Weimar, Max Ernst, Otto Dix, Edith Piaf, Swinging London, Andy Warhol and other keys strands of Blitz DNA … its anti-rock stance and impact on the mid-‘80s American charts … the news-friendly night Mick Jagger was barred entry … “I was spat at by an old lady at a bus stop for wearing eyeliner and a kilt” … when Island offered Spandau a deal after just three numbers   … the role of the Face, Smash Hits and the new full-colour media … the author’s “dilettante” passage through skinhead, suedehead, soul boy and punk … and the night Bowie appeared, “like Jesus walking into your local church and sitting in a pew”. Order ‘Blitz: The Club That Created the 80s’ here:https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blitz-the-club-that-created-the-eighties-robert-elms/e672041a84e0cde9?ean=9780571394180&next=t&next=tFind 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.

Prince’s commercial peak was Purple Rain but John McKie thinks Sign O’ The Times was his creative masterpiece and tracked down over 200 collaborators, girlfriends, “Prince whisperers”, assistants and admirers to piece together the story of its construction (without allowing himself to use the word “genius”). Which leads us up some colourful, spot-lit alleys, among them … … “a man in suspenders playing funk”: why a disastrous support slot on the ‘81 Stones tour was pivotal moment   … Mozart/Salieri levels of rivalry: he once told a Paisley Park engineer to stop singing Culture Club “as that’s the competition” ... battles with Warners president Lenny Waronker: “he believed he was right and the rest were wrong” … “creative incontinence”: an autocrat in need of an editor … bodyguard “Big Chick” Huntsberry, performative stunts and the BRITS moment that immortalised him … the controlling, manipulative nature of anyone who can play 27 instruments … “he changed his cars to match the colour of his album campaigns” … artistic parallels with his hero Joni Mitchell … why he loved comedians in the way he loved jazz musicians … what we know about his “secret” wives Mayte Garcia and Manuela Testolini … and the four acts with eternal mystery – Prince, Bowie, Dylan, Dolly Parton. Order ‘Prince: A Sign O’ The Times here:https://www.waterstones.com/book/prince-a-sign-o-the-times/john-mckie/9781785121944Find 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.

Paul Gorman, biographer of Malcolm McLaren and friend of the pod, tells the extraordinary story of the three young hipsters behind Granny Takes A Trip, the Kings Road store that was a magnet for rock’s glitterati in the late 60s.•⁠ ⁠Sheila Cohen, the first queen of cool; she invented the whole idea of vintage•⁠ ⁠Nigel Waymouth, who never went to art school but changed the face of London with his posters•⁠ ⁠John Pearse, who could make a jacket out of anything - and did•⁠ ⁠The days of aatering to the 200 fashionable people in London•⁠ ⁠Why the Beatles, Stones and Pink Floyd beat a path to Granny’s door•⁠ ⁠How the three walked away in 1969, the shops were exported to the USA•⁠ ⁠How GTAT became the outfitter of choice for the rock aristocracy•⁠ ⁠Some of its clothes are immortal thanks to album covers from Lou Reed, the Isleys and Todd Rundgren•⁠ ⁠All the rest are in secure storagePaul’s book, which is lavishly illustrated and contains a pictorial catalogue of the wardrobe of the Rolling Stones, is here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Granny-Takes-Trip-Fashion-Boutique/dp/1399623613You can read a preview here: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Granny_Takes_a_Trip/_SZSEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT6&printsec=frontcoverThe Rolling Stones London 1962-71 map can be found at: https://www.herblester.com/products/down-the-road-apiece-the-rolling-stones-londonFind 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.

News, rants, theories, stories and assorted old hokum which this week stumbles into … … Kate Bush, Thunderbirds, Tim Buckley, the Blind Boys of Alabama … the magical bass adventures of Danny Thompson (and the time he headlined over the Beatles) … how Claudia Cardinale wound up on the sleeve of Blonde On Blonde … would Roxy Music have made it if their albums had been released in brown paper bags? … how TikTok is destroying the “superfan” … do late night TV hosts need us more than we need them? … Boris Johnson chose the Clash? Charles Kennedy chose Toploader? Theresa May chose ‘In These Shoes’ by Kirsty MacColl? MPs on Desert Island Discs … packaged goods: how CDs removed music’s greatest marketing tool … the peculiar life of Johnny Carson … have you ever bought an album solely on the strength of its cover? … and Carmel, Andrew Ridgeley, Jay Leno’s pay packet and birthday guest Jon Pickles on high-impact sleeve art.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.

We’ve always liked Thea Gilmore who once crossed America with Joan Baez in a pre-Election campaign tour and has released 21 albums (“I’ve got musical ADHD!)”. She looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves …   … a deep dive into Jake Thackray – “Last Will And Testament still makes me cry” … spotting her dad in the crowd in the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival movie and why “My dad treated Dave Pegg’s dog” jump-started her career… … what Joan Baez did on their pre-Election American tour the night George W Bush won a second term … “Thea Gilmore looks Borstal-bound”: her first review, in Mojo in 1998 … two weeks’ life-changing work experience at Fairport’s Wormwood studios … “there’s no point writing songs if you don’t perform them” … which are easier, small gigs or big ones? … Ani DiFranco getting the audience to harmonise on When Doves Cry, “an epiphany” … intense stage fright versus the “precocious teenage belief that I was interesting” … the impact of first hearing It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) … and when someone leaving “reduces your audience by a fifth” Tickets for Thea Gilmore’s tour here: https://www.theagilmore.net/live Order ‘Thea Gilmore - My Own Private Riot 2008-2015,' 7CD Box Set here: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/thea-gilmore-my-own-private-riot-2008-2015-7cd-box-setFind 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.

Roger Armstrong co-founded the legendary Rock On record shop and was running the Chiswick label long before the punk rock explosion of independents, a believer that you could license rare R&B, soul and rockabilly classics while cutting new records with rising stars (Shane MacGowan, Kirsty MacColl and Joe Strummer among them). He then co-founded Ace Records and talks to us here about the thrill of trawling through American label vaults, locating vintage tracks and finding them a whole new audience. Along with … … seeing Ella Fitzgerald and the Beatles in Belfast in the early ‘60s ... inventing a new Irish rock circuit and turning showbands into soul bands … how American Graffiti, Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues and the mod revival all chimed with Ace Records’ re-issues … promoting ‘Tin’ Lizzy (“that’s what it sounded like on the phone”) and being immortalised in one of their lyrics (“I get my records at the Rock On stall”) … Joe Strummer in the 101-ers – “sensational, full-tilt, as if playing a stadium” … releasing Dylan’s Theme-Time Radio Hour box-sets and the size of his record collection … finding a Little Richard demo and making an Elvis Presley speech album a money-spinner … being a pioneer tape rat and crate-digger and Ace Records quality control – “Stack ‘em low, sell ‘em high!” … “think of the strapline, then choose the tracks”: making compilations with Jon Savage, Bob Stanley, Bobby Gillespie and Paul Weller … plus reflections on John Martyn, Carol Grimes, Brinsley Schwarz, Rocky Sharpe, Irma Thomas, Arthur Alexander and the Count Bishops (“like the Stones at 78”). Order ‘Chiswick Records 1975 - 1982 Seven Years At 45 RPM’ here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/chiswick-records-1975-1982-seven-years-at-45-rpmFind 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.

On the menu at the rock and roll state banquet … … Into the Mystic, Meet On The Ledge, In My Life, Tom Waits’ Take It With Me and other perfect songs for a last farewell … the day we joined the world’s best band … Robert Redford’s blinding handsomeness and the greatest moment – all three seconds of it – in Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid … best-looking rock stars … were the Shadows really a UK Eurovision entry? … “very special guests” and the new age of the stadium rock “bring-on” … how John Prine and Iris DeMent won the big door prize … “the movie camera is the biggest lie-detector in the world” … strange double bills of our time - the Foo Fighters and Rick Astley, Bo Diddley and the Clash Plus Cary Grant smoking, watching Brad Pitt do ordinary things and birthday guest Steven Way on the subtle billing of support acts.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.

Novelist and journalist Tom Piazza struck up a friendship with the irreplaceable John Prine in the last years of his life. This relationship, which began as a profile for a magazine, almost blossomed into an autobiography and involved a road trip in an inadvisable vehicle, has resulted in a new book “Living In The Present With John Prine”. Which involves:•⁠ ⁠setting off in a 1977 Coupe De Ville and driving “until the engine burns up”.•⁠ ⁠sitting up all night playing old country songs.•⁠ ⁠remembering how he came to write some of the greatest songs of the last fifty years•⁠ ⁠an evening’s swapping stories with Elvis Costello which ends with the alarming word “the jukebox is on fire!”•⁠ ⁠what Prine’s last album “The Tree Of Forgiveness” has in common with Beethoven’s late quartetsBuy Living In The Present With John Prine: https://amzn.eu/d/9vWv9rgFind 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.

Having disposed of the surprising history of pop stars who posed for Playboy, discussing whether the universe really needs another album called "Play", come up with a couple of nominations for Best Album Title Of All Time, we hear about Alex's experiences seeing Oasis in the midst of 90,000 who have never been to Manchester and how he "used the force" to get some face time with Jack Black and Dave Grohl.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.

Peter Hammill, adored by Bowie, Mark E Smith and many others, co-founded Van Der Graaf Generator when he was 19. And he’s made 47 albums since, powered by “hubris, enthusiasm and sheer bloody-mindness” and celebrated in a new 18-CD box set. He talks to us here from Somerset about … … supporting Hendrix at the Albert Hall and being ‘the Shirley Bassey of the Underground’ … meeting David Bowie - who asked for Hammill’s new music to be sent to him all his life … Van Der Graaf Generator being bottled off by medical students in the days when you rang from a phone-box to see what gigs you were playing … the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, Champion Jack Dupree and Jimmy James & the Vagabonds at the Locarno in Derby … Tony Stratton-Smith and the Six Bob Tour – 30p! – with Lindisfarne and Genesis … Nut Rocker, Theme Of Exodus and other teenage keyboard staples  … the value of “Boswellian superfans” who know more about you than you do … breaking the £100 barrier for a live performance … writing blues songs, aged 16, with “a gnat’s experience of life” … the unsettling lyric to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘You've Got to Be Carefully Taught’ … and his new young audience via the internet and “that right of passage, your parents’ records” Order The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971 - 1986’ here: https://peterhammill.lnk.to/CVRecordingsPRPre-order 'ROCK and ROLE: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator' here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingmakerFind 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.

Has there ever been a group like Talking Heads? Jonathan Gould’s Burning Down The House explores their affluent background, the root of their ambition and the springboard of the New York scene of the late ‘70s (he was a regular at CBGB). Along with … ... the romanticised image of CBGB and the reality … their black music roots: “the same instrumentation as Booker T & the MGs” … the influence of the Modern Lovers: “Jonathan Richman and Byrne were both oddballs, appealing but peculiar” … how the economy of New York’s real estate let them rent a 2,000 square foot loft for $289 a month … bands from affluent backgrounds take greater commercial risks: “there was always a Plan B” … the art-school drop-out lineage that began John Lennon and Keith Richards … how different they were from the CBGBs acts, a band that sang verses in French and “didn’t dress like the New York Dolls”  … the band’s dynamic, Chris and Tina “effectively one person” ... did Byrne really make Tina Weymouth “re-audition”? … the success of the Tom Tom Club and the tension that caused … Byrne’s invention of his own “white choreography” … Stop Making Sense, as big a part of their legacy as any album … and why there can never be a reunion Mentioned in dispatches: Brian Eno, Adrian Belew, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Ramone and Fela Kuti.   Order ‘Burning Down The House’ here:https://www.waterstones.com/book/9780063022980Find 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.

Freddie Mercury had an affair with a close friend’s wife and, in 1977, became a father. He’s now a grandfather. That’s the foundation of a new book ‘Love, Freddie’ by his highly respected biographer Lesley-Ann Jones which details a four-year, detailed exchange with his daughter ‘B’, now 48, and the contents of the 17 notebooks he gave her before he died in 1991. We talk to Lesley-Ann here about this gripping new tilt on his story which covers … … the 41-page document B sent her in 2021 and how the author assumed it was a hoax … why B was outraged by his portrayal in the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic … how the notebooks Freddie gave her are legally owned by Sony “and she would burn them if they tried to collect them” … Freddie’s turmoil at the time of her conception - engaged to Mary Austin, a love affair with David Minns … B’s secret life in Kensington and Montreux and her father’s “scary knitwear” disguises … “in the age of AI, even a real photo of Freddie and his daughter would be reckoned a scam” … the unheard – surely priceless - recordings Freddie made of the two of them singing together … how B’s existence stayed a secret and the members of Queen’s inner circle who might have known about her  … the photo of B, aged four, with her dad and David Bowie … and how there were no denials about B’s existence from Queen or any Cease & Desist demands when the book extracts published. Order ‘Love, Freddie’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Freddie-Mercurys-Secret-Life/dp/1916797962Find 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.

All the leaves are brown and the sky’s a bit unruly but mellow fruitfulness abounds in this week’s pick of the rock and roll news. Add to basket …   … is Morrissey hacked off, broke or just desperate for attention? … are stadium gigs the new tourism? … bucket hats, Man City, lads culture … how did America finally ‘get’ Oasis? … singles that weren’t on albums … are we sated by an overabundance of music? … how Gary Numan got a record deal … why Gene Loves Jezebel are the new Sam & Dave!  … the new age of the rock and roll pilgrimage … did Slade record the Hokey Cokey? The Dave Clark Five did Neil Young? The Troggs did Foxy Lady? … the Jam, the Yardbirds, The Nice, the Smiths: bands who broke up because they couldn’t crack America … selling Barry White records to Middle Eastern airline pilots Plus Tubeway Army, the Scaffold doing Ging Gang Goolie, “Mister Ferry’s diction” and birthday guest Jelltex.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.

Immortalised by Hendrix, ‘Hey Joe’ had its roots in 18th century murder ballads, ‘60s folk and rock clubs before the world got to hear it. Jason Schneider unravels its twisted genesis in ‘That Gun In Your Hand’, and talks to us here about the miracles that allowed it to happen and the sad fate of Billy Roberts, the man who claimed he wrote it. Along with … … “all pop records are built on the back of other pop records” … the allure of violent songs: “we get our kicks from real-life murder” … the bit-part players in the story – David Crosby, Dino Valenti, Tim Rose, Cass Elliot, the Byrds, the Leaves, the Creation and Bob Dylan … the final twist: how Chas Chandler was looking to make Hey Joe a hit when Linda Keith pointed him at Hendrix … “a song with no chorus and a circle of fifths”: why it was a rock staple alongside Gloria and Louie Louie … the cruel fate of Billy Roberts who never recorded Hey Joy as couldn’t bear to give away 50 per cent of the royalties … the girl murders the man? “It’s a song still in evolution” … how Andy Summers was the first person to hear Hendrix play in the UK … 1,881 guitarists mass-performed Hey Joe in 2007 but could you even release a version of it now? You can order ‘That Gun In Your Hand: The Strange Saga of Hey Joe and Popular Music’s History of Violence’ from Anvil Press here: https://www.anvilpress.com/books/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence And from the US distributor Asterism here: https://asterismbooks.com/product/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence-jason-schneiderFind 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.

Maddy Prior – folk royalty, an absolute hero of ours – is touring with Steeleye Span again this autumn 66 years after they started, a life someone should make into a movie. She talks to us here about her undimmed love of live performance and …   … when the height of your ambition is a £3 ticket to Blackpool Pleasure Beach … “Rod Argent, the first boy I ever kissed” … her fox-fur-trimmed Lambretta when a teenage mod … the night Steeleye Span showered their audience with £4,000 … seeing Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Josh White and Sony Boy Williamson in St Albans clubs … driving Rev Gary Davis round Britain in a Triumph Herald: “Miss Maddy, you’d make a great nurse! Was that a compliment or an insult?” … “Traditional music is great material to work with. It’s like steel – you can bend it but you can’t break it” … hearing Dylan for the first time (with Donovan) and thinking “this man can’t sing”  … memories of her father who wrote Z Cars … life with Tim Hart: “Living in sin? No, we’re living in Archway!” … Tony Secunda, his spray-can and his promotional stunts – “Win 24 hours with a member of Steeleye Span” … Alan Partridge and the great ‘Gaudete’ moment … the new Steeleye Span album Conflict “about the rip and tear relationship we have with the planet that hosts us” … and Singing For The Uncertain, her course for singers who think they can’t Steeleye Span tour dates here: https://steeleyespan.org.uk/sample-page/tour-dates-2025/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.