The Strange Brew - artist stories behind the greatest music ever recorded

Deep Purple play their last show of this run on 19 December in Mexico City. After two weeks at home for Christmas, Gillan goes straight back into work with the band, before leaving their Nashville sessions three days early to rehearse for a twenty five date speaking tour built around the practice that gives it its name: filling gaps with nonsense words until the real lyrics catch up.

Gillan covers The Javelins, Episode Six’s German club circuit, joining Deep Purple, the new album SPLAT!, Jesus Christ Superstar, the Ian Gillan Band and a year with Black Sabbath he still calls the longest party he ever went to. He also describes Ritchie Blackmore rejoining the band on stage for Smoke on the Water, and how a broken guitar string at the Lyceum turned into a stage habit he still uses today.

Talking Gib’rish tour
Deep Purple official site
Ian Gillan online

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Podcasts also available: Nick Simper – Deep Purple, Chris Slade – AC/DC, John Coghlan – Status Quo, Michael Schenker

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When Jimmy Webb first saw Joni Mitchell at the Troubadour, he sent roses to her dressing room with a letter asking her to tea. It went unanswered. The following decade, after they had become friends, she told him she had moved the couch while clearing out her Laurel Canyon house and found the letter, and asked if he would still like to go. Webb wrote ‘Simile’ for her.

He tells that story in a conversation I recorded in February 2022, ahead of live dates in the UK. Elsewhere he describes the organ sound in the fade of ‘Wichita Lineman’, which he calls “a stroke of pure luck”, sessions with Richard Harris on ‘MacArthur Park’ that ran until the Pimm’s was gone, and a paper aeroplane contest with George Martin.

This episode was one of those that did not transfer when my website failed. I have re-edited it and put it back online under the Second Brew series.

jimmywebb.com

Jimmy Webb – Second Brew – Podcast tracks

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Podcasts also available: Dan Penn, Michelle Phillips, Melanie (Safka), Judy Collins

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Randy Edelman is probably best known to British listeners for the records he made in the 1970s and early 1980s, including Uptown Uptempo Woman and Concrete and Clay. The Carpenters recorded his songs and took him on tour, and his records found an audience in the UK that he hadn’t found in America.

Then his career took a different turn. After working his way into film scoring, Twins led to a long run of Hollywood films including Ghostbusters II, Kindergarten Cop, Gettysburg and The Last of the Mohicans. Randy spent two decades concentrating on film music and didn’t write a song during that time. He’s now making records and performing again, with a new album, Green Park. We talked about his early records, his connection with London, The Carpenters, the move into film, and why he returned to songwriting.

randyedelman.com

Randy Edelman – Green Park

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Podcasts also available: Dean Friedman, Rick Wakeman, Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar

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From the dub sound systems of 1970s Ladbroke Grove to Killing Joke, The Orb, Paul McCartney’s Fireman project and Pink Floyd’s The Endless River, few musicians have moved through as many worlds as Youth (Martin Glover). In this conversation with Jason Barnard, Youth discusses the CHANT Artist Collective’s new release, Relics Of Tree Worship In Dub (Gaudi & Don Letts Roots Dub Plates), and explains why he still calls dub “an endless river” of reinvention.

He goes back to Gooseberry Sound Studios and the John Lydon-produced 4″ Be 2″ session that set him on a path into music, his departure from Killing Joke, the birth of The Orb and “Little Fluffy Clouds,” and what pulled him into the studio with Kate Bush, James, Crowded House, Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd.

Relics Of Tree Worship In Dub (Gaudi & Don Letts Roots Dub Plates)

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Podcasts also available: Trevor Horn, Dave Ball – Soft Cell, Andy Gill – Gang of Four, Glen Matlock

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Allan Clarke started The Hollies with Graham Nash as a teenager, copying other people’s records at Abbey Road. He left the group, came back, then left again, and along the way his voice carried the group through four decades.

Jason Barnard sat down with Allan again to talk through his new single “Walking On Still Waters,” a decades-long search through faith, the stroke he’s been recovering from, his wife Jenny who got him through the hardest years, and what the future holds for The Hollies and their legacy. Clarke also explains how “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” came together with Roger Cook in half an hour, why he’s glad Carl Wayne was first to front The Hollies after he left, and how he ended up singing lead on tracks for Steve Howe, Alan Parsons, and Carla Olson.

“Walking On Still Waters” by Allan Clarke is out now

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Podcasts also available: Allan Clarke – The Hollies (2023), Allan Clarke (2014) – Part 1, Allan Clarke (2014) – Part 2, Bobby Elliot – The Hollies, Mikael Rikfors – The Hollies, Roger Cook

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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John Leckie joins The Strange Brew to talk through the Dukes of Stratosphear story, from his first sight of a young XTC through to the new Dolby Atmos edition of the complete Dukes recordings.

Leckie was the Abbey Road staff engineer who cut XTC’s 3D EP in three days, then White Music at the Manor, then Go 2 and the dub experiments released as Take Away / The Lure of Salvage under Andy Partridge’s Mr Partridge alias (later gathered on the Explode Together compilation). He explains how that dub habit of pulling a mix apart and rebuilding it shaped his production work and the Dukes sound years later.

He talks through the years between, freelancing after leaving Abbey Road in 1978, work with Simple Minds and Bill Nelson, the Lost Jockey orchestral project, a spell in the Rajneesh commune, and how a collapsed Mary Margaret O’Hara session left Andy Partridge with six spare weeks of studio time, which became 25 O’Clock. Leckie recalls the Chapel in Hampton Bishop, the sound effects tape run live during mixing so nobody knew what would come up when a fader was raised, and the move two years on to Psonic Psunspot at the boat-access-only Sawmills in Cornwall.

Psurroundabout Ride (Dolby Atmos)

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Podcasts also available: John Leckie on producing Be Bop Deluxe, Terry Chambers, Colin Moulding – Part 1, Colin Moulding – Part 2, Dave Mattacks

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Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery discuss their joint album The Roaring Waves. They explore creative process behind it, their individual artistic histories in Genesis and Marillion, and their respective plans for future work. The conversation ranged from the nautical themes of the album and how it was assembled, to the broader philosophy of progressive music, the influence of early prog and blues-rock guitar heroes, and the personal and professional circumstances that shaped their life in music.

The Roaring Waves

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Podcasts also available: Steve Hackett – The Lamb Stands Up interview, Steve Hackett on Genesis Revisited and Hackett Highlights, Steve Hackett – on solo career and Genesis, Steve Rothery – Marillion

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Mari Wilson was the beehived voice behind “Just What I Always Wanted”, the Neasden Queen of Soul who fronted the Wilsations, supported Roxy Music and appeared on Top of the Pops. Then a second album stalled, and she could see where pop stardom was heading: cabaret, built around a medley of her hits. So she turned her back on it and walked away, into jazz clubs, Ronnie Scott’s, the West End stage, and eventually a solo career that has outlasted the pop machine she left behind.

Four decades on, Mari joins Jason Barnard to talk about Girl About Town, her first full album of original songs since 2008, written with longtime collaborator Adrian York. They trace that reinvention from Top of the Pops to Ronnie Scott’s, with Mari talking openly about being pigeonholed by the beehive and why she still believes leaving pop at that time was the right call.

mariwilson.co.uk

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Podcasts also available: Judie Tzuke, Kiki Dee, Dave Ball – Soft Cell, Martin Fry – ABC

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Ten years on, Jeremy Clyde is back. Chad Stuart left behind decades of unfinished Chad & Jeremy recordings. Jeremy and guitarist Jo Meacham have now finished them off, and the results are being crowdfunded as When All Is Said and Done. Jeremy calls it the album they always wanted to make and never got round to finishing.

Before any of that, Jeremy takes us back to 1960 and Central School of Speech and Drama, where he met Chad, and to Tina’s Bar in London, where John Barry heard them and took a chance on Yesterday’s Gone. He talks about the mic technique lesson that gave them their sound, handing the Tina’s Bar residency over to Peter and Gordon, watching Paul Simon play songs in his flat before anyone knew who he was, and Peter Asher introducing him to a young James Taylor. Jeremy also covers the late 60s shift into psychedelic material, his second career as a British TV actor, plus the nine albums of solo work he made with lyricist David Pierce, the Bottom Drawer Sessions.

When All Is Said and Done – Kickstarter (closes 25 September 2026)

chadandjeremy.com

Jeremy Clyde 2016 podcast tracks

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Podcasts also available: Jeremy Clyde – 2016, Peter Asher, Chris White – The Zombies – Inside The Vaults, Mike Vickers – Manfred Mann, Jenny Boyd

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Devo co-founder Gerald V. Casale joins us for a career spanning conversation, starting with his new protest single “Just Do It” and moving through nearly every chapter of Devo’s story.

Casale explains his view on the current American administration and discusses the limits of music as a force for political change. From there the conversation moves through his collaboration with Czech act Die alten Maschinen, the songs taking shape for his forthcoming solo album Wetiko, and contributions from Steve Bartek and guitarist Steve Stevens.

Casale traces Devo’s story from the Kent State killings in 1970 through the founding principles of de-evolution, the band’s run of producers (Brian Eno, Ken Scott and Robert Margouleff), the writing of “Whip It” via Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, David Bowie’s fascination with the group, and Casale’s video work alongside Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. Casale is direct about where Devo lost its way too, naming Shout and the Fairlight CMI as the point of “Devo suicide,” before explaining how a 2004 Dell commercial brought the group back to life.

Gerald V Casale’s new single “Just Do It” is out now

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Podcasts also available: Kimono My House at 50, Prescott Niles – The Knack, Ellen Foley, Terry Chambers – XTC

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