"It's like being in therapy," Paula Yates said to me at one point during this, the second of three podcasts based on an interview we did in Dublin in 1993.  She then went on to say "I don't usually talk to people about..." before falling silent. My belief that she was going to say something like "what I truly feel" is fired, in. part, by what Paula then said. "This is bizarre. This is the first interview where I talk about anything!" Either way, this conversation proves to me that Bob Geldof was talking bullshit when he said, angrily, during an interview we did in 2000 after I asked why he mocked Paula in a song from his latest album "you don't know anything about Paula and me apart from the guff you read in newspapers." Am I right to say this? You decide.

Tom Jones, said to me, near the end of this 1989 interview, "talking to you is dangerous. It's like talking to a mate in a pub. I have to remind myself that you are an interviewer and I better watch what I say." I now suspect he was maybe referring to exchanges such as this when I repeated comments Elvis apparently made about the explicitly sexual nature of Tom's stage act circa 1968. Listeners, be warned. This chat is itself explicit, and may offend - if you lack a sense of humour!

I love the music of BB King, have, since I was a teenager. I also happen to be indebted to some black people in New York who befriended me, and fed me, when I was down and out as a student in New York. All of this, plus a profound sense of the racism perpetrated on blacks in America,  made me determined to open the eyes of readers of The Irish Times to such subjects in 1993. Incidentally, I met BB in Dublin and he joked "I thought any guy with a name like 'Joe Jackson' was going to be black!" This is a fun and one of my fave phone interviews with a hero of mine

This is an interview I did over the phone in 1993 for The Irish Times. I had to take Jon Bon Jovi top task for using the word "faggots" during a stage show, but we also talked about his gay fans, gangs, male bonding, Elvis, Bono, becoming a father and the greatest high of all, he says, finishing writing a song!

This is a section from my upcoming podcast, Neil Diamond The Joe Jackson Interview 2002 Part Three. I am working on editing the master tape but feel that many fans of the movie 'The Jazz Singer' would like to hear Neil talk, with barely suppressed anger, about how much he hated making that movie! He also talks about "Larry" Olivier, whom he describes as "the greatest actor of his time." Me, I'd opt for Brando! Enjoy.

As one of my Podcast singles, coming in at less than five minutes, here, from a 1996 interview I did with Noel Gallagher in Dublin, while Oasis was here to do gigs, we have Noel and me talking about the social importance of rock 'n' roll working-class heroes such as John Lennon and himself. If on,y for that reason Oasis should get back together!

It is claimed that I helped 'break" Garth Brooks in Ireland, thanks to a series of interviews we did from 1989-2003. But who am I to say if I did or not! Either way, this is a phone interview we did for The Irish Times and in it, he discusses becoming a father, music snobs. country music, critics and the songs of Mick Hanley.

This is the master tape - minus music - of an interview I did with Neil in his recording studio in 2001. Neil may as well be in a psychiatrist's chair! He talks about his music as a travelling salvation show, if he is a hard task master, I Am I Said, keeping the heart open, moodiness, songwriting as a balm, failure at marriage, the pain he feels and pain he causes, the love for his children and father, Angel Above My Head, and the war with Sony, and much more.

While working on the master tape of the second of three podcasts in my series, Neil Diamond 2000: The Joe Jackson Interview, I came across this clip which as a stand-alone may be of interest to not only fellow Neil Diamond fans but also to songwriters. It tells of the genesis of one of his greatest songs. 

This chat grew out of an interview I was having with Tom Jones in 1992, for The Irish Times. It was more about Elvis than Tom at least at the start, so it has never been published or heard until now. I knew Tom had been a friend of Elvis I asked him about recent rumours that Elvis had an incestuous relationship with his mother, that Elvis was secretly gay and discovered peddling pills to black musicians at Sun Records. Then we talked about the mob in terms of Las Vegas. This is Tom Jones as you never heard him before - unless it was in my interviews with the man!