My guest this week is the fabulous musician, turned award-winning author, Daniel Rachel.

He wrote his first book, Isle of Noises: Conversations with Great British Songwriters after spending his twenties as the lead-singer in Rachels Basement. The book featured interviews with the likes of Paul Weller, Jimmy Page, Robin Gibb, Ray Davies, Annie Lennox, Noel Gallager and many more.

His 2017 Book Walls Come Tumbling Down: the music and politics of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge - which won the Penderyn Music Book prize - charts the pivotal period between 1976 and 1992 that saw politics and pop music come together for the first time in Britain's musical history; musicians and their fans suddenly became instigators of social change, and 'the political persuasion of musicians was as important as the songs they sang'.

The follow up in 2019 Don't Look Back in Anger: The rise and Fall of Cool Britannia was an Evening Standard and Metro Book of the Year.

Daniel and I dig in to these incredible historical documents to talk about some key periods in the career of Paul Weller with stories of Red Wedge from the 1980s and Cool Britannia and his return to the top of the charts in the 1990s.

You can buy these brilliant books and support independent bookshops here https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/danielrachel or head to Waterstones or Amazon. 

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