Word In Your Ear

Ron Sexsmith starts a UK tour at the end of April and talks about what he’s learnt about live performance, which includes:-

… “notes from girls” after winning the High School Variety Show.

… playing for drunks in his local bar when he was underage and being hidden when the police arrived.

 … Elton John at the Rich Stadium in Buffalo (and being a member of the Fan Club).

… his first performance, singing ‘Ben’ by Michael Jackson.

… the influential low-key stagecraft of Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen, “people who just stood there”.

… the rigours of long tours.

… being “on Cloud Nine for a year” after seeing the Who.

… and watching Cat Stevens from the best seat in the house.  

All details about Ron’s upcoming tour here …

https://ronsexsmith.com/tours/

@RonSexsmith

https://ronsexsmith.com/

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Joel worked for various labels - Mushroom, Atlantic and Sony among them - and was the man who signed the Darkness. Training to become a psychotherapist, he began trading in rare records, travelling all over the country to buy collections and, during Lockdown, starting a special “mystery vinyl” service where he’d send people albums he thought they’d like based on their musical taste.  

He talks here in fascinating detail about what an emotionally charged world this is, seeing people’s entire life stories mapped out in records, becoming a “temporary custodian” of their past, learning about whole new areas of music and obscure genres that suddenly come into vogue and every aspect of what makes a record valuable. And the thrill of finding the odd “holy grail” (Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day, rare Bowie first pressings etc), a process that involves “kissing an awful lot of frogs”. He even pulled out an album by a band neither of us knew, the 1970 psych-folk act Justine. Also featured – buying Roger St. Pierre’s record collection, the magic “fallibility” of vinyl (eg personal messages on sleeves) and the Greatest Record Ever Made!

Brighter Day Vinyl runs a weekly Flick-Through Thursday - at the same time Top Of The Pops used to be on! - where you can get to see what’s currently on offer and you’ll find all details about Joel’s shop, its collection and what he buys and sells here …  

https://linktr.ee/brighterdayvinyl

@Brighterdayvnl

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Peter Asher started out as a child actor in films with John Mills, Alastair Sim and Boris Karloff. He was in the Adventures of Robin Hood with his sister Jane but they were eventually “demoted to peasant children”. He then formed Peter & Gordon, had a global number one with A World Without Love (written by his sister’s boyfriend who was living in the family home) and then began a career in production and management that’s still thriving today. This is full of wonderful stories and features …

… playing the London club circuit in 1964.

… Paul McCartney adding the missing bridge to A World Without Love in eight minutes – “I have the handwritten lyrics and chords in a fireproof safe in case I ever need to run to Sotheby’s and Paul can save the day again!”).

… assembling the band for a Paul Jones session – Nicky Hopkins piano, Jeff Beck guitar, Paul Samwell-Smith bass, McCartney drums).

 … appalling ‘60s royalty rates.

… life as head of A&R at Apple where people sent “100 pages of certifiably mental lyrics in the hope that John Lennon might put them to music”.

… signing and producing James Taylor and the album that changed the music business. And Taylor supporting the Who on US tours.

… the secret of being a great manager.

... Linda Ronstadt singing barefoot at the Bottom End. 

… Apple recording artist Brute Force and his non-chart-troubling single The King Of Fuh.

… the other role model for Austin Powers.

… and why music today is just as good as the past.

David Jacks' memoir, Peter Asher: A Life In Music …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peter-Asher-Music-David-Jacks/dp/1493061216

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Things featured this week in hot pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment …

… seeing Television in 1975 for £1.50 - support act, Blondie.

… Kaleidoscope, Country Joe & the Fish, Fairport Convention and other origins of the Tom Verlaine guitar sound.  

… the mystery voices on The Dark Side Of The Moon, the Clare Torry story and how Pink Floyd used Abbey Road as an instrument.

… “It’s Not You It’s Me”: more classic records that leave us cold – eg Pet Sounds and Humble Pie’s Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore.

… “If Loving You Is Wrong I Don’t Wanna Be Right”: rotten records we’re devoted to – paging Jobriath, Oasis, Hello …

… how the Ashers became Paul McCartney’s adopted family.

… that Nick Kent review of Marque Moon – “Cut the crap, junior, he sez, and put the hyperbole on ice. I concur thus. Sometimes it takes but one record – one cocksure magical statement – to cold-cock all the crapola and all-purpose wheatchaff mix ‘n’ match, to set the whole schmear straight and get the current state of play down down down to stand or fall in one, dignified granite-hard focus!”

… songs with great intros.

 … and birthday patron Kevin Rose flies the flag for ‘Simple Songs’ by Jim O'Rourke.

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The Long Ryders are touring in May and our old pal Sid Griffin tells us what to expect and looks back here at …

… Herman’s Hermits and the Dave Clark Five playing on a steamboat.

… his first live performance aged 16 in a glam-rock red dress at a barbecue in Kentucky (fee a colossal $100) playing Paul Revere, Kinks and Byrds covers.

… seeing Big Joe Turner with the Lee Allen Orchestra (11-piece horn section!).

… the Everly Brothers’ first reunion.

… a barely known Carole King onstage in The City in 1968.

… his local bluegrass sessions at the Landseer Arms in Archway (“very Greenwich Village 1961”).

… and the benefits of touring when you’re older – “the pressure’s off”.

Details and tickets here:

https://www.thelongryders.com/The-Long-Ryders-Tour-Dates.html

https://www.sidgriffin.com/

@SidCPsGriffin

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David Crosby was famous for nearly 60 years, a celebrity sustained by records, tours, brushes with the law and serial disagreements with old pals and collaborators (he was the very definition of a non-team player). We look back fondly at various stops along the way - his upscale background, his role in the Byrds, his ‘Will Scarlet in Robin Hood’ haircut and unsexy cape ensemble, CS&N as the soundtrack to a West Coast American fantasy, the time the Beatles played him the unreleased A Day In The Life, a public fallout with Neil Young and a tuxedoed Graham Nash’s last show with the Hollies with the piss-taking Crosby in the dressing-room.

Plus “It’s Not You It’s Me” – classic records that leave us cold: fight-starting suggestions include albums by Patti Smith (“that bawling harridan with her jive muse”), Nirvana, Love, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Arctic Monkeys and the Beatles. Did the Who start to decline from the moment John Entwistle began growing facial hair? Discuss.

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Suzannne Vega is touring throughout the UK in February. Here she talks to David Hepworth about what she’s learned about live in the course of:

….starting off on stage with Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall

….taking her sister to see Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden

…learning about communication from the jazz bassist Richard Davis

…laying in sufficient snacks for the rehearsal period

….playing your old hits again and again

….saying your prayers before going on stage

….watching Stan Ridgway do the best show she ever saw.

Full dates and tickets here.

https://www.suzannevega.com/tour

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Our old pal from Word magazine Kate Mossman adored Jeff Beck and the whole range of his recordings and interviewed him recently for the New Statesman. This pod features the outlandish techniques he developed, his cars and Afghan hounds, his “six wives”, his unchanging look (with occasion detours into “satin leggings and boxing boots”), the “Clapton is God” myth, his job offer from the Stones, falling out with the Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck Group, great musical ventures and occasional lapses of taste (like the recent tour with Johnny Depp). And our love of Hi Ho Silver Lining which he hated so much he said it was like “having a pink toilet seat hung around your neck for the rest of your life”.

Plus …

… the chillingly strange life of Lisa Marie Presley - “opulent neglect” - and her four marriages.

… best-ever B-sides (suggested by birthday patron Roger Millington who went for ‘Paris France’ by the Red Guitars). The greatest B-sides never appeared anywhere else “and were like secret messages to the hardcore fans” - eg the Stones’ The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man and the Spider And the Fly. Honourable mentions for Yes It Is, This Boy and You Know My Name (Look Up The Number).

… the White Lotus and that fabulous Jennifer Coolidge Golden Globes speech.

… what would you do if you were the new Radio 3 boss?

… haircut and knitwear issues in ‘the Banshees of Inisherin’.

… Peter Sellers in Only Two Can Play.

Plus birthday patron Paul Knox joins us with theories about impact of the Incredible String on the Beatles and the sad, mysterious tale of the disappearance of Licorice McKechnie.

Kate Mossman in the New Statesman

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2023/01/jeff-beck-interview-tribute-guitar-hero

The Yardbirds on Shindig!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn6q_jcc0uo

And on the Milton Berle Show, 1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oNDXsIulXw

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Tony King was there when it all started, working for Decca in the late ‘50s, plugging records on Housewives’ Choice and Family Favourites and looking after visiting Americans like the Ronettes, Roy Orbison and Phil Spector. He went on to become a close friend of many of the acts he worked with and his memoir ‘The Tastemaker’ is full of wonderful tales and revelations about all of them. As is this podcast which includes …

… the day Reg Dwight changed his name (and getting him session work with the Barron Knights).

… wearing “lime green trousers, blue moccasins and a kaftan” at the Beatles’ One World broadcast.

… the weekend with George and Pattie Harrison in Esher when the Daily Express turned up to tell them McCartney had admitted he’d taken acid.

… taking Brenda Lee to the pictures.

… holidays with Charlie Watts in France and memories of his wake.

… why he used to ring Elton up and ask, “what’s the weather like there, Jean?”

 … seeing the Stones at the Scene club with Chrissie Shrimpton.

… the advice he gave John Lennon (and getting him on the Old Grey Whistle Test)

… and the qualities all stars need to be successful.

Buy ‘The Tastemaker: My Life With The Legends and Geniuses of Rock Music’ here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tastemaker-Life-Legends-Geniuses-Music/dp/0571371930

Tony dressed as the Queen in an ad for John Lennon’s Mind Games album …

https://www.facebook.com/johnlennon/videos/mind-games-advert/1009681682383878/

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… in which we amble fearlessly into the New Year in tireless pursuit of amusement, stopping off at various stations along the way, among them …

 … can any song be completely original?

… meeting Sun Ra.

… the time Gianluca Vialli kissed David’s wife’s hand.

… does streaming make us more adventurous?

… did Frank Zappa ever appear in Miami Vice?

… tortuous puns in music memoir titles.

... singers we’ve had enough of.

... Sam Cooke humming. 

… some rare and rewarding records – eg Billie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones’ Foreverly and Mellow Candle’s Swaddling Songs plus Jorma Kaukonen, Jimmy Webb, the Pursuit of Happiness …

… powerful feelings of envy provoked by John McLaughlin.

.. the diminishing appeal of Jeff Buckley.

… why you have to hear Van Dyke Parks’ ‘Super Chief: Music For The Silver Screen’.

… and birthday guest (and magnificent repeat winner of our Friday night quiz) Andrew Slattery.

Sam Cooke humming …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cds8YQyFeTI

Rolling Stone’s Best 200 singers …

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-singers-all-time-1234642307/

Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world, alongside a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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