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PODCAST

Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1.Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those

music music commentary

All Episodes

41:44

For the love of Wayne Shorter & David Lindley - and...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/03/09

Things in the crosshairs this week include …… why it took 34 years to get De La Soul on a streaming service.… Radio 2’s ham-fisted handling of the departure of Ken Bruce – and are R2 and Greatest Hits Radio two bald men fighting over a comb if music radio seems doomed to die?… the new fun-sized Axl Rose.… U2’s stand-in drummer Bram van den Berg is like “Jimmie Nicol on stilts”.… the BBC and Glastonbury re John Peel: never name anything after a celebrity!... “Jackson Browne would never have been

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29:12

Is Karen Carpenter pop music’s saddest story?

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/03/05

Karen Carpenter died 40 years ago at the age of 32, a life mapped out in a new biography by Lucy O’Brien called Lead Sister. It’s a chilling, cautionary tale of how she and her brother became international stars and the devastating personal repercussions that were the consequence. Our conversation with Lucy covers the waterfront and includes …… the perils of “helicopter parents”.… why Richard was “The Chosen One”.… a disastrous association with Nixon.… destabilising press comments about weight

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38:06

Was the pop boom of 1996-2006 a comedy or a tragedy?

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/03/02

The teenage Michael Cragg was obsessed with the “glorious shiny ludicrous pop” of the period that began with the Spice Girls, included Hear’Say, Five, Steps, Atomic Kitten, Blue and countless others and ended with the closure of Popworld and Smash Hits ten years later, a tale less about music than the media that covered it and the machinations of the industry. All the key leading players – bands, managers, songwriters, critics – are interviewed in his sparkling and soon-to-be-published account of it

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1:00:48

What the Beatles said about the Stones plus the most...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/28

This week’s crackling logs on the conversational fire include …… the attractively unchanging sound of Joe Henry’s 15 albums (the man PRs still sell as “Madonna’s brother-in-law”).… the 45th anniversary of David and Mark’s first meeting – at an Earth Quake gig at Salford University on February 10 1978.… Neil Tennant’s letter to Janice Long.… the recommended TV tribulations of Kleo, East German intelligence operative.… “Is it a nut? Is it a boy? Is it a wino? No, just Wreckless Eric!” A flick through

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29:39

Was Chuck Berry the strangest man in the history of...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/27

Of all the figures who built rock and roll back in the 1950s, Chuck Berry was arguably the most influential and certainly the strangest. In a new biography, which could never have been written when he was alive, R.J. Smith tells a story which is still hard to believe. His conversation with David Hepworth includes:* how the nerd Charles Berry discovered the key to impressing women* How a reckless streak a mile wide saw him put away as a teenager* How a comic turn developed into the greatest act in

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16:30

Word Down Your Way: 15 minutes with Mark Everett – E...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/26

Eels are touring the UK in March/April and E talks here about what he’s learnt about live performance from being onstage or in the audience. And this includes …… a valuable lesson from watching Leon Russell’s deserted matinee at a racetrack in Maryland.… his mum’s reaction to him singing Plastic Ono Band songs in the car when he was 10.…seeing George Harrison (aged 11) with his sister.… the fascination of formerly big bands now quietly on the way back down (like Steppenwolf).… playing drums at his

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44:35

What’s the best age to be and when are we at our most...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/22

Given the once-over this week in vigorous pursuit of edification and amusement …… should a Fawlty Towers sequel be illegal?… over-refreshed audiences wrecking Jukebox Musicals.… our hunt for the elusive album sleeve with the long-haired girl/Afghan hound.… how acts signal their popularity now the charts no longer matter.… critics who attacked people who attacked back.… the Beatles and ‘the genius of personality’.… how the parental credit card fuels the Springsteen ticket price inflation.… U2 about

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41:36

Burt Bacharach, Waters v Gilmour and how to save the...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/16

The dazzling super-trouper of gentle enquiry is trained this week upon:-… Sam Smith’s inflatable suit.… “TV kills everything”.… What do producers actually do? Old pal Kate Mossman joins us to talk about the inscrutable working methods of Rick Rubin, “the golden ratio”, the significance of his beard, the concept of being “Rubinised” and his transformation of Johnny Cash (and how the same thing worked later for Loretta Lynn, Glen Campbell and Willie Nelson).… Lawyers will be the only winners in the

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14:34

15 minutes with Midge Ure about shows he's seen and...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/09

Midge Ure starts a UK tour in April (with Band Electronica) and talks here about bands that left an impression and what he’s learnt about live performance. This includes …… audiences “wanting their pound of flesh”.… lessons learned from watching Derek Nimmo in panto.… “cheesy” stage effects - eg Bowie’s mirrorball in Space Oddity.… Stan Webb of Chicken Shack charging offstage at Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow with a 100 foot guitar lead.… being “a human jukebox” at Clouds discos playing Jo Jo Gunne

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50:38

George Harrison and the T-Bone steak, rock fantasy...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/07

Conversational footballs punted about the park this week include …… why George Harrison’s trip to Benton, Illinois, in 1963 would make a great Netflix drama – the $400 Rickenbacker, the local gig billed as “the English Elvis”, the roller-skating waitresses. “I’m in a band called the Beatles back home and we’re doing quite well.”… buskers being allowed to use amplification is a monstrous invasion of our private space: discuss.… is Deliveroo the new generation gap?… we asked some AI software to write

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20:10

Ron Sexsmith - heading your way in April – remembers...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/06

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,

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46:55

Joel De’ath, “the Indiana Jones of rare vinyl”,...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/05

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

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31:49

Peter Asher: singer, producer, manager, main role...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/02

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 ……

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49:34

Farewell Tom Verlaine – plus terrible records we...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/02/01

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

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15:44

The Long Ryders are heading your way - and it all...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/01/29

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.…

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35:16

Farewell David Crosby plus “classic” records that...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/01/26

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,

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14:22

Suzanne Vega: she started at Carnegie Hall and she's...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/01/24

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

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1:05:12

Jeff Beck “had a boom-tish anecdote about every step...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/01/18

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

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31:13

Tony King – friend, adviser and confidante: you can...

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/01/17

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

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40:13

The greatest singer of all time? (we know the answer)

Word In Your Ear ·

2023/01/09

… 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

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