We both first heard Graham Nash just over 60 years ago when the Hollies’ Just One Look was on the BBC’s swinging Light Programme and we’ve followed him ever since, not least his transformational shift in the late-‘60s from suburban Salford to the wood cabins of Laurel Canyon. He’s touring the UK in October, An Evening of Songs and Stories with Peter Asher in support, and looks back here at the first shows he ever saw and played, which involves …

 

… Bill Haley in 1958 – “he opened the curtains and said ‘See yer later, alligator!’, and I’ve never been the same since.”

 

… meeting his heroes the Everly Brothers when he was 18.

 

… the talent contest he won with Allan Clarke in 1959 beating Freddie Garrity, the future Billy Fury and Johnny And the Moondogs.

 

... the early days of the Hollies – “my acoustic was never plugged in”.

 

… supporting Little Richard the night he screamed at his soon-to-be-famous guitarist, “never play the guitar behind the back of your head again!”

 

…. making ‘Two Yanks in England’ with the Everlys, Reg Dwight, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.

 

… playing Woodstock – “it’s hard to reach the back row when it’s raining and two miles away.”

 

… the songs he always plays and talks about onstage, Marrakesh Express, Our House and Teach Your Children among them.

 

Order Graham Nash tickets here:

https://grahamnash.com/tour-dates/page/2/

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Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly across the sun, it is in fact just two old lags reviewing the current events, which this week include …

 

… the made-up scene in A Complete Unknown which Dylan apparently insisted was included.

 

… the Day of the Locust: do the LA fires spell the end of the Hollywood Dream?

 

… why does no-one write songs about world events anymore?

 

… the unwelcome return of AJ Weberman.

 

… can you date records made between 2000 and 2025?

 

… Sam & Dave, Booker T & the MGs, the Stax horns, Isaac Hayes and David Porter and their purple patch from ‘65-‘68.

 

… Led Zeppelin’s five song-stealing court cases – but hadn’t what they stole been stolen in the first place?

 

… why most biopics would be better as a six-part TV series.

 

… “where there’s a hit there’s a writ”.

 

… plus birthday guest John Innes and the best and worst bands names – from Roxy Music to Prefab Sprout.

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator

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It’s perishing cold in our frostbitten London HQ but we warmed our toes around a blazing conversational fire and roasted the following chestnuts …

 

… “the job of pop records is to be better than the year before”.

 

… the real reason new music tends to sound the same.

 

… Johnnie Walker – “his voice was his instrument”.

 

… The Kinks, The Shangri-Las, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, the Four Tops, the Righteous Brothers and the relentless change and variety of “the annus mirabilis” of the pop single.

 

… “Netflix rock documentaries are just there to stop the male member of the family cancelling their subscription”.

 

… the Byrds’ Mr Tambourine Man, a cornerstone of psychedelia and indie rock.

 

… the drum sound that “kicked open the door to your mind”.

 

… when novelty was 70 per cent of the appeal.

 

… the key moment in the career of Peter Waters Dingley was the day he changed his name.

 

… making records defensively.

 

… the only current match for the thrill and daily drama of the mid-‘60s pop charts is the Premiere League.

 

… plus a Lego record-player and birthday guest Andrew Slattery.

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Among the walnut shells, wrapping paper, dried tangerine peel and broken toys beneath the Christmas Tree Of News we found a few unopened presents, among them …

 

… Marine Homicide Unit solving murders in Scottish waters or former rock star dumping toxic waste? A crime drama Stackwaddy special.

 

… Roy Bittan, Duke Ellington: how musical “professors” date back to ragtime.

 

…’Suzanne’ and the other three songs Leonard Cohen gave away.

 

… Mary Martin, unsung connector and catalyst of folk-rock.

 

… how the spare, monochrome simplicity of John Wesley Harding flew against the prevailing wind of Disraeli Gears, Forever Changes and Magical Mystery Tour.

 

… “I’d rather be dead than wet my bed”.

 

… the invention of the “blockbuster album”.

 

… she’s only human: what Judy Collins thought when she met Leonard Cohen.

 

… Crowded House, John Fogerty, Ry Cooder, Ian Broudie, Patti Smith … when did having your kids in your band become almost compulsory?

 

… producer Richard Perry’s journey from Beefheart to the “surrealistic vaudeville” of Tiny Tim to the pure genius of ‘You’re So Vain’.

 

Plus a rare moment - something David Hepworth doesn’t know! - and birthday guest Sandra Austin.

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Deck the halls with beers and Stoli! The nutcracker of scrutiny was applied to this week’s noisettes of news and the following discussed over a glass of port …  

 

... are a lot of new song catalogues just blogs set to music?

 

… can any actor be convincing playing someone really famous?

 

… Robbie Williams’ Better Man: it’s the way forward! Who can his CGI’s monkey play next?

 

… why no-one writes songs with opinions anymore.

 

… Lola Young’s ‘charming’ press release.

 

... when Elvis met Nixon (and was “crackling with drugs”).  

 

… why we miss the one pound note!

 

… Dickens, Bing Crosby and why the concept of Christmas is rooted in the past.

 

… is part of the joy of Powerpop that it’s doomed to commercial failure? Big Star, the Shoes – perfect; Blondie – too successful!

 

… St James Infirmary, I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Stormy Monday – and other great songs about money - ‘These shabby shoes I'm wearing all the time/ Is full of holes and nails and brother if I stepped on a worn out dime/ I bet a nickel I could tell you if it was heads or tails’.

 

… the return of “a bankroll big enough to choke a donkey”.

 

… plus Hank Williams, Brenda Lee, Tom Waits and birthday guest Kevin Walsh wonders ‘what’s the classic Powerpop look and sound and who are its standard-bearers?’

 

Happy Christmas, all! … from us and ‘Bob Dylan’:

https://x.com/FallonTonight/status/1597460887446900736?lang=en

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The tremendous Bill Bailey is staging “a magical, musical mystery tour of the mind, along with other pressing matters” for 42 nights in London from December 28, a celebration of what makes us human in an age threatened by AI. There'll be “a laser harp”. There’ll be electronic drum balls played by audience members. There'll be extracts from Kraftwerk’s lost album of children’s songs. He talks to Mark here about the first live entertainment he ever saw and first shows he played himself, which happily involves …

 

 … “a lightbulb moment”, James Robertson Justice breaking the fourth wall, the genius of Les Dawson’s deadpan piano playing, OMD, the Cure, the Banshees, how TikTok changed song writing, Jean-Jacques Burnel whacking a skinhead with his bass, A Flock of Seagulls, the Undertones, seeing John Hegley’s mandolin-driven comedy act and thinking “I could do that”, Victor Borge and the invention of the disco bass line by a 17th century German composer.

 

Order tickets for Bill Bailey’s Thoughtifier show here:

https://www.billbailey.co.uk/live

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The 17 year-old Al Stewart played electric guitar in a dance band in Bournemouth in 1963. When he borrowed an acoustic and sang Masters Of War in the break, he heard the sweet sound of applause. The next night he played three Dylan songs and sensed which way the wind was blowing. He talks here about moving to London, playing at Bunjies and becoming the compere at Les Cousins as his now 60-year career began to lift off. And about his Farewell Tour which kicks off in the UK in October 2025, a combination of songs and story-telling coloured by two great heroes, Peter Ustinov and Alistair Cooke.

 

This cracking exchange steers by way of Bert Jansch, Bob Dylan, Helen of Troy, Stalin, Hitler and the Battle of Moscow, the Weeley Festival of 1971, the three songs he always plays, the young Cat Stevens and what he told Paul Simon he should do with the just-composed Homeward Bound.

 

Order Al Stewart tickets here:

https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/al-stewart

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Gary Kemp has been posting reels of his recent visits to old haunts in Soho where he and his early bands used to rehearse, this in the run-up to releasing a third solo album, ‘This Destination’, in January. We talk to him here about how records were made and promoted in the ‘80s and how radically that’s changed today. Which includes …

 

… “all media is now about getting and keeping people’s attention”.

 

… the first time he heard one of his songs on the radio.

 

… Bowie, Bolan, Queen and Elton John at Trident Studios.

 

… how bands copy the groove of a track.

 

… technology and the curse of too much choice.

 

… why TikTok’s changed the way songs are written.

 

… how the first Spandau Ballet album was made.

 

… the phone call from Richard Hawley that kick-started a song.

 

… the craft of 10cc and Steely Dan and why it doesn’t work on 2024 radio.

 

… the male attitude to bands who are largely followed by women.

 

… cunning ways to infiltrate the NME in the early ‘80s.

 

… plus Robert Elms in jodhpurs and “fly dentists” in the Saucerful Of Secrets audience.  

 

Pre-order This Destination here:

https://lnk.to/GaryKempThisDestination

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We ran our patent heat-sensing Scrutiniser®️ over the week’s news and here’s what set the bells off …

 

… are buskers now more expensive live entertainment than Taylor Swift?

 

… a Dickensian oik in Chapel Market and other riddles of modern etiquette.

 

… ‘Holiness and horniness’: how Hallelujah rebooted Leonard Cohen and became a one-song industry.

 

… the teenage self-promotional flair of Robert Plant and Marc Bolan.

 

… are singles a social experience and albums a solitary one?

 

… “Would you like a fruit gum?”: the 1950s in a single phrase.

 

… highly recommended: Wendy Waldman, Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band and ‘The Room’ by Fabiano do Nascimento.

 

… rock snobs’ alarm about the revelations of their Spotify Wrapped.

 

… why the Sherman Brothers are as enduring as Lennon-McCartney.

 

… Hallelujah cover versions - from kd lang and Rufus Wainwright to Johnny Mathis and the Osmonds.

 

... how King David removed ‘love rival’ Uriah the Hittite.

 

… reconnecting with records you haven’t heard for 40 years.  

 

… whatever happened to She Sherriff?!

 

… Loudon Wainwright’s early inference about the YMCA.

 

… plus Lindsey Buckingham, Hugh Lloyd, Tony Hancock and fond memories of “stolen cheese guy”.

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Paddling the three-man conversational kayak across the rock and roll rapids this week involved …

 

… Olive Mess, Candied Yams, Gorilla Biscuits …? Challenging indie act or seasonal vegan recipe?

 

… the amount YMCA earned through Donald Trump and why the man who wrote it is complaining.

 

… Tom Hanks’ valuable words of wisdom.

 

… Neil Tennant’s favourite bridge in a pop song (and it’s not We Can Work It Out or I Will).

 

… musicians and the modern world of the “one-night stand” circuit.

 

… Baker Street, Money, Careless Whisper, Giant Steps, Jungleland … and the sax solo that outranks them all.

 

… the genius of Henry Mancini and the powerful DNA of film music.

 

… the lost world of small ads – eg this pasted by Roxy Music: “The perfect guitarist for avant rock group: original, creative, adaptable, melodic, fast, slow, elegant, witty, scary, stable, tricky. Quality musicians only.”

 

… Beatles ’64 - “randomly assembled and directionless”, a listener declares!

  

Here’s Plas Johnson playing the Pink Panther theme with Henry Mancini:

 https://youtu.be/jBupII3LH_Q?si=brjVwsPlmcnii1Md

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