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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

40:16

How Al Stewart struck gold, the folk boom and a...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/12/19

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

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49:45

‘Mystique is dead’: what Gary Kemp learnt in 40 years...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/12/18

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

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51:39

The afterlife of Hallelujah and the day David sold...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/12/17

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?”:

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41:03

The greatest sax solo, YMCA, musical one-night stands...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/12/09

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,

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45:21

How ‘60s pop was sold and the first news stories...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/12/08

Joni Mitchell called it “stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song”. Every record sent out for review used to come with a press release knocked together by an over-excited PR before terms like “psychedelia” or “prog” had been invented. They were scanned once for the odd fact or quote and usually chucked in the bin. Richard Morton Jack has tracked down scores of these handouts from 1962-1972, and the news stories they sparked, and published them in the sumptuous ‘Pressing News’, a

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36:26

How R.E.M. changed the game and why there’ll never be...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/12/01

R.E.M. considered themselves missionaries against the prevailing pop culture – no solos, no old-school stagecraft, no printed lyrics, no lip-syncing, no hard-sell videos, no obvious leader – and mapped out a whole new route to international success. Peter Ames Carlin, whose books include biographies of Springsteen, Brian Wilson and Paul Simon, talks to us here about ‘The Name of this Band is R.E.M.’, what they pioneered and how it rearranged the rock and roll furniture. Which involves …… why their

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33:02

Fairport, Nick Drake, Traffic and why Island Records...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/11/29

Neil Storey worked in the Island press office in the ‘70s and ‘80s and has set out on mammoth undertaking, to compile a series of gorgeous, album-sleeve-sized books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history and talking to all involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from the time. This latest edition, ‘the Island Book Of Records 1969-1970’, has transported us back to our

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31:06

Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds - his Year Zero...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/11/04

Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds are about to set out on their 35th Anniversary Greatest Hits Tour – aka “beery parties”. He talks to us here about the first bands he ever saw and played in, which involves …… memories of the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun.… the secret of seeming enigmatic: “Never finish your sentences …”… how Three Lions brought a whole new audience and the irony of a singer who didn’t front his biggest hit.… why the Ramones and Talking Heads made him sell his

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47:51

Kraftwerk, Cream, Nirvana, savage reviews, fantasy...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/11/03

Our crack pair of inquisitors tackle the week’s events and sift out the good, the bad and the riveting, which includes …… whatever happened to savage reviews?… “For God’s sake, keep the robots out of music!”: the 50th birthday of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn.… a Naked Nick Cave Plush Doll (£24) and some Jonny Greenwood olive oil.… strange tales about the making of Disraeli Gears.… what keeps Kamala Harris awake at night.… the staggering bill at Murray the K’s ‘Music In The Fifth Dimension’ in 1967.… Teri

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43:40

Life with the Lennons, fame, friendship, the FBI and...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/30

Elliot Mintz, then a West Coast radio presenter, met the Lennons in 1971, the start of a close, unique and extraordinary friendship and hours of late-night phone calls. And he’s finally written a book about it, We All Shine On: John, Yoko & Me, which records the isolated, complicated life they led imprisoned by their celebrity, at times joyous and outlandish, at others bleak and uncomfortably revealing. All bases covered here, among them …… “his view of Paul changed with days and temperature –

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51:48

How Goth took over, farewell Phil Lesh and the curse...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/28

Brushing aside the cobweb spray and luminous flashing skulls, we ring rock and roll’s doorbell in pursuit of both tricks and treats. Among which you’ll find …… the gothification of entertainment … Harry Potter, Creedence Clearwater and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.… Donald Trump dancing to Jeff Buckley.… why Phil Lesh was the heart and soul of the Grateful Dead.… John Cooper Clarke playing a 23,000-seater and the rise of Spoken Word.… Bah! Humbug! The full horror of Halloween and its infernal

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46:24

When Mark King of Level 42 was the 11 year-old...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/25

Mark King and Level 42 have just announced 2025 tour dates and he talks to us here about …… the value of what you learn in covers bands from being ignored.… why being thrown out of home for being thrown out of school was the best thing that ever happened to him.… Level 42’s first gig, kicked off after four songs.… Chile, Turkey and other new markets on the “flatter world” tour circuit.... supporting the Police, Tina Turner, Queen and Madonna in the ‘80s.… how John McLaughlin (from Doncaster) and

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44:18

Zappa and Elvis as fathers (!), Billy Joel’s house...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/14

Our record-breaking partnership faces a fresh set of spin bowlers on the rock and roll pitch but rifles a few shots over the pavilion roof, among them …… the time Elvis let his daughter ride her pony through the house.… when Moon Zappa (10) found naked hippies making candles in the garden.… “Can you get that? It might be someone important.” The Queen when her mobile rang.… Billy Joel’s daily commute to work by helicopter.… John Peel, Elton John, Robert Christgau … who’s listened to the most music in

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24:03

Hugh Cornwell on how the drummer has the best seat in...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/10

Hugh Cornwell is preparing for his “All The Fun Of The Fair” tour which begins in November and here he talks to David Hepworth about:….why rehearsals are best in bursts….why he no longer carries keyboards….the special magic of going to see Chuck Berry with Richard Thompson….how the two of them have recorded “Tobacco Road” for an Alzheimers benefit record…being at the Marquee when Clapton, Beck and Page all played with the Yardbirds….playing the Golders Green Ionic with Helen Shapiro….how there are

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45:18

Kris Kristofferson, a lost Tom Petty film and rock...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/07

We aimed the airgun of enquiry at this week’s rock and roll side-stall and dislodged the following coconuts …… sports star, Rhodes scholar, bohemian: why Kris Kristofferson was a whole new breed of American hero.… the letter his parents wrote disowning him.… how he invented the crossover hit.… echoes of his life in Five Easy Pieces.… Fellini’s La Strada and the story of ‘Me And Bobby McGee’.…. ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ and other songs written to order.… why the past is the age before

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48:44

In the studio with Nick Drake, Fairport, John Martyn...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/02

“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He’s 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he co-founded in an old cowshed in Chelsea when takes were spontaneous and even the tape-op was part of

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31:19

Ian Hunter – joining Mott The Hoople, Bowie, Hamburg...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/10/01

Ian Hunter – an image so familiar you’d recognise his silhouette - now lives in Connecticut and he’s just released expanded versions of two of his best-selling solo albums, You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic and Short Back N' Sides. He’s 85, born before any of the Beatles. We talk to him here about life growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s when your father’s a copper and “music wasn’t allowed in the house”, and touch upon …… the debt he owes Freddie ‘Fingers’ Lee.… café jukeboxes full of Little

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46:44

Bryan Ferry, Maggie Smith and why Ian Hunter is a...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/09/30

As the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness draws in, we poke the embers of this week’s rock and roll bonfire and rake out the following chestnuts …… Maggie Smith on ‘70s chat shows.… when Radiohead meets Shakespeare.… the strange, circuitous and downright disgraceful launch of Francis Ford Coppola’s majestically bonkers Megalopolis.… Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter: the slow ascent of two ‘overnight sensations’.… is it big events anymore or just a low-level hum of distraction?… Bryan Ferry

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45:10

When Cocteau Twins followed the Ramones onstage and...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/09/27

Simon Raymonde’s affecting and beautifully written memoir ‘In One Ear’ records life in the ‘60s growing up with a father who wrote and arranged for Dusty Springfield, Helen Shapiro and the Walker Brothers, the impossibly shy promotional activities of the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil and the struggles and eventual jackpot of the Bella Union record label he founded. He’s so perceptive, observant and self-mocking and we loved this energetic podcast which, among much else, lands upon …... why 1979

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30:10

Swinging London & the Wombles seen from an...

Word In Your Ear ·

2024/09/20

Mike Batt still wrestles with the emotional legacy of the Wombles, the act that simultaneously made him and cast a shadow over the rest of his career, not least his early days as a songwriter at Liberty Records, discussed here, hired after he’d answered the same ad as Elton John and Bernie Taupin, a time when A&R men wore kipper ties and had Picassos on their wall. He forged a path through psychedelia and into TV and films, taking huge financial risks with musicals, orchestral works and big-selling

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