Crispian Mills knew he’d be onstage as he’s from a “family of professional show-offs” but they begged him not to be an actor. He talks here about his extraordinary showbusiness childhood and the band that emerged from it full of psychedelia, echoes of the East and warm invitations to join the First Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs. Along with …

… his mother Hayley Mills playing him Tubular Bells to get him to sleep - “profoundly scary”

… Roman Polanski’s ‘special’ Marlboro cigarettes when filming Tess in Brittany

… grandfather John Mills being “discovered” by Noel Coward in Singapore and memories of him playing Gershwin and Cole Porter on the piano

… “you need talent and hard work but nobody makes it without luck”

… what the record store hippie told him when he bought Deep Purple In Rock aged 12

… leather jacket, polka dot shirt, Brian Jones bowl haircut, My Bloody Valentine gig – “I’d found my tribe!”

… supporting Oasis at Knebworth – “I couldn’t see how they were going to cut it”

… Adam and the Ants, Rock Me Amadeus and playing Ramones songs in the school band

… returning from Rishikesh in 1995 and watching the Beatles’ Super-8 clips: “as if we’d been on the same holiday”

… nostalgia for the big TV and radio events of the ‘90s

… Shirley Manson’s speech about the “tragedy” of the 21st C music business

… and Kula Shaker’s Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show – “oil slides, pure analogue!”

Tickets for their 2026 tour here: https://kulashaker.co.uk/pages/live

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“All bands are sad stories,” Peter Doggett points out, but is there a more woven, moving and, at times, farcical tale than that of the Beach Boys? It gives the sound of them a greater melancholy and resonance with every passing year. As his fascinating new book Surf’s Up reveals, nothing that happened is straightforward and very little as simple as it sounds. We talk here about …

… Dennis Wilson and the Beach Boys’ creation myth

… what started their revival

… why they’d never have survived beyond 1962 without Mike Love

… was Derek Taylor’s ‘Brian is a genius’ campaign partly to explain his procrastination and eccentricity?

… the chaos of SMiLE and the long shadow of the Beatles

… Murry Wilson’s “superstar” ambitions and original plan for the group

… the days when they looked like Old Testament prophets or hippies from Central Casting

… Dennis and Manson, Carl v the draft, Mike Love’s arrest … scandals that would have sunk them in the days of social media

… the “Brian as victim trope” and his extraordinary appearance on “The Tension Behind the Music”

… when Bart Simpson turned them down

… can anyone name a good Beach Boys album cover?

… and the band’s future, a controlled touring franchise with no original members

Order Peter Doggett’s ‘Surf’s Up: Brian Wilson & the Beach Boys’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfs-Up-Brian-Wilson-Beach/dp/1917923341

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five decades of rock and roll with none of the names redacted. In the despatches this week …

… Kevin Rowland? Adam Ant? Toyah? Morrissey? Which Smash Hits cover stars are now ‘legends’?

… a classic encounter with Van Morrison down a Bristol alley

… the boy who mailed dead rodents and Boomtown Rats singles to radio stations became Pope Leo XIV!

… 25 recent big-name Hollywood films all flopped. Are robots the new movie stars?

… was Sticky Fingers the last Stones album with songs?

… best nights out for a tenner

… RIP Gilson Lavis and Donna Godchaux

... the daft rituals of the ’70s ‘slow dance’

… when Percy Sledge was a hospital porter

… “Run for your life, it’s Eater!”

… Tom Waits’ on-brand luggage, Boo Hewerdine and birthday guest Mike Sketch on the joy of gigs on your own (and in a scout hut in Staveley).

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Musicians have flirted with Nazi imagery since the ‘60s, lampooning its theatre, absorbing its style, exploiting its shock value, even promoting its ideology. Daniel Rachel’s new book ‘This Ain’t Rock ‘N’ Roll’ points up extraordinary examples – “from Tommy Steele to Kanye West” - and how our reaction intensified over the years. Which leads us to …

… parallels between stadium rock and the Nuremberg rallies

… hearing the Sex Pistols’ Belsen Was A Gas and seeing their Nazi insignia at the age of 12

… David Bowie’s German memorabilia and belief that “Hitler was the first rock and roll superstar” – and the doctored photo of his “Nazi salute” at Victoria Station

… Bernie Rhodes versus Malcolm McLaren on the “reclaiming of the swastika”

… the lyrics and imagery of the Siouxsie & the Banshees

… Viv Stanshall and Keith Moon’s atrocious visit to Golders Green

... the German invention of the tape machine that started the record business

… “I’m not the Simon Wiesenthal of rock and roll!”

… Joy Division, New Order, K-Pop, Brian Jones and his SS uniform, Ron Asheton of the Stooges, John Lennon, Lemmy, Blue Oyster Cult, “Adolf Hitler on vibes”

… “Rock and Roll has a duty to recognise its downfalls”.

Order ‘This Ain’t Rock ‘N’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/this-aint-rock-n-roll/daniel-rachel/9781399635721

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan Jennings’ podcast ‘Desperately Seeking Paul’ is so successful he’s used 250 of the interviews in a best-selling oral history. ‘Dancing Through The Fire’ has voices from right across the spectrum – family members, band members, writers, pluggers, label bosses, collaborators and famous fans. He talks to us here about …

… Weller’s real name and when he changed it by deed poll

… a theory about bands formed in towns not cities

… the handbrake turn from the Jam to the Style Council – one minute the intense young man cutting out his press clippings, the next espadrilles, singing in French and “nibbling Mick’s ear on the River Cam”

… Weller’s “very English” need to be heard and respected - but not loved

… the role of his manager father in the Jam’s success, the days when the family phone number was in the Fan Club ads

... how Noel Gallagher engineered a Bono/Weller photo op

… Paul’s glorious chippiness – Band Aid, the pop press, “offering a journalist out for a fight in Victoria Park”

... John and Paul Weller and echoes of Only Fools And Horses

… when the Jam played ice rinks and swimming pools

… the cab-driver gossip grapevine

… cutting 1.5 million words to 250,000 and the book’s biggest revelations and surprises.

Order a copy of Dancing Through The Fire here: https://geni.us/dancingthroughthefire

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marking our dance card at the rock and roll hop this week you’ll find …

… And Then He Kissed Me, I Saw Her Standing There, Springsteen’s All The Way Home: songs about the theatre of dancing

… is there a more influential sleeve than Patti Smith’s Horses?

… did Dylan invent the box-set?

… records you wish you liked

… when the Beach Boys were so off the boil they covered Dylan and three by the Beatles

… when did we stop dancing in couples?

… Jagger queueing for a sandwich, Beckham in a farm shop, Lady Di in Holland Park and other stars we’ve spotted

… Brown Sugar, All Right Now and the daft etiquette of the late ‘60s dancefloor  

… Like A Virgin: 42-year-old hears Stairway To Heaven for the first time!

… “Are you dancin’? Are you askin’? I’m askin’! I’m dancin’!

… plus George Faith, train songs, records you’ve not played for years, the anthem Zohran Mamdani was stopped from using, and birthday guest Giles Fraser on stars in unusual places.

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Bowie’s significance just keeps expanding and the look and sound of him never age. Paul Morley has been gripped from the start and his new book ‘Far Above The World’ explores the many reasons why. These among them …

… Labyrinth, YouTube and the new ways people discover Bowie

… why he’s a figurehead of a vanishing world

… dressing up for radio interviews

… his almost fatal relationship with America and the 1971 promo tour that was his ‘On The Road’

… Haddon Hall and his first key collaborators

… writing a book about Bowie in public as part of the V&A exhibition – “I was an art installation!”

… Five Years, the internet, the studio as an instrument and other ways he was ahead of the curve

… “his YouTube reels are now part of his catalogue”

… his boundless curiosity about art, film, books and technology

… that unforgettable clip of TFI Friday: “every interview was performance art”

… a missed chance on the Marc Bolan Show

… “music to repel the Dark Ages”

… and why his look and sound never age.

Order ‘Far Above The World: The Time And Space of David Bowie’ here: https://www.resident-music.com/product/morley-paul-far-above-the-world-the-time-and-space-of-david-bowie

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sam Sussman’s mother Fran had a year-long love affair with Dylan when he was working on Blood on the Tracks – she’s mentioned in Tangled Up In Blue – and they met again in 1990. What she told him about that relationship is mapped out in the book he’s just written, Boy From the North Country, along with the firm belief that he’s Dylan’s son. Imagine how that must feel. This extraordinary conversation takes a number of turns and these are among them …

… Norman Raeben’s art class where Dylan was trying break his creative block and met the 20-year old Fran Sussman  

… details of their 12-month affair and how it ended: “he gave me love songs but not love”

… the verses of Tangled Up In Blue that relate to Fran and the philosophy, art and poetry woven into his songs at the time

… Dylan’s other women in 1974

… being told by a teacher that he looked like Dylan and how he’s played up that connection ever since

… how it feels to think you might have numerous Dylan siblings - and how many there might be(!)

… the kind of people Sam meets in his book-signing queues

... and why his mother wouldn’t confirm who his father was.

Order copies of Boy From The North Country here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/boy-from-the-north-country/sam-sussman/9781804711286

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Bailey’s been based in New Zealand for the last 30 years, making records, DJing and avoiding British winters. He tours the UK in 2026 playing the Thompson Twins’ greatest hits and looks back here from Auckland at the first shows he ever saw and played, all this high in the mix …

... dance music and the British Invasion of America

… the inspiring delights of Some Kind Of Mushroom, his local record shop in Chesterfield

… seeing Blodwyn Pig, Edgar Broughton and Principal Edwards Magic Theatre when he was 15

… “bass players go to bed last”

… when his folk-rock band the Witching Hour supported Mick Farren & the Deviants - and promptly split up

… living in Clapham squats with members of the Pop Group and the Slits

… the Thompson Twins - from “the young angry white-boy funk” to the MTV trio with a policy statement

 .. their manifesto and division of labour – “Tom Bailey music, Alannah Currie lyrics, Joe Leeway the live show”

… Live Aid with Madonna when the David Letterman house band became the Thompson Twins

… “a miraculous palette of sound”: how affordable technology changed his life

… and the extravagant talent of his all-female band.

Tickets for Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey & Blancmange 2026 Tour here: https://www.alttickets.com/thompson-twins-tom-bailey-tickets

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The raw ingredients of this week’s news gently diced, simmered and served as a nutritious broth. And flavoured with the following …

… why Lily Allen’s divorce album doubled the value of her house

… how can you play real living people as fundamentally bad after Steve Coogan’s ‘Lost King’ court case?

… the cowbell on Honky Tonk Women, the guiro on Gimme Shelter, the tambourine on classic Motown: Richard Pite gives a percussion demo

… Kraftwerk, 10cc, Coolio, George McCrae – more records that sound unique

… music used in movies to say ‘we’re flying East!’

… You Have Selected Regicide, Kill Wealthy Dowager: Morrissey song or line from the Simpsons?

… Woodbines, potted herrings, Paris buns: things we expect to find in Van Morrison’s soon-to-open childhood home

... why it’s worth hearing Mishima by Philip Glass and John the Revelator by Son House

… the time Jack Ashford was flown across America just to add a tambourine

… people who found they had a famous father

… and Mick ‘Two Pairs of Maracas’ Jagger and what Eno predicted about I Feel Love.

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Morrissey and Marr both wrote memoirs but Mike Joyce hasn’t read either, preferring to publish ‘The Drums’, his version of one of the great success stories of the ‘80s, a book about “the beauty we’d given to people – and to ourselves”. At one point he and Andy Rourke shout, ‘Where did it all go right?”. He looks back here at …

… the fateful meeting in Geales fish bar when Johnny told them he was leaving – “none of us, not even Morrissey, saw it coming”

… the first Smiths rehearsal and impressions of “Steve” the singer

… how the songs were written - “we never asked what they meant”

… and how they were arranged: “I locked with Johnny like Charlie with Keith, and Andy played a bass song over the top”

... memories of Johnny at X Clothes in Manchester and Morrissey in ‘82 - “funny, dark, so Manc”

… the “almost anti-punk” appeal of the Buzzcocks and the urge for a John Maher red Premier drumkit

… “Morrissey’s articulacy was both his strength and his Achilles heel”

… echoes of Motown and James Honeyman-Scott in Marr’s guitar

… “Singers need to feel they’re the most important person in the room”

… on-stage gladioli versus “the austerity of the Hacienda”

… and Morrissey today - “very angry” - and the legacy of the Smiths.  

Order copies of ‘The Drums here: https://www.resident-music.com/product/joyce-mike-the-drums

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boarding this week’s giddy carousel of news, we ride the following ponies …

… the Sliding Doors moment that made a ‘50s star a fortune

… Soft Cell’s Dave Ball and the art of being the Other One in a pop duo

… Bohemian Rhapsody, O Superman, I Feel Fine: records that sounded like nothing before them

… what links the Prodigy, Wet Leg, Daft Punk and Donna Summer?

… how all bands need a bad patch to make you appreciate the good ones

… “the concept album is a good servant but a bad master”

… Expensive = Reassuringly valuable? Cheap = Worthless?

… a new Taylor Swift album in ‘sweat and vanilla-perfumed orange glitter vinyl’, anyone?

… and the tricks singers use to disguise the fact that they can’t hit the top notes anymore.

… plus ‘the Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria’ by Blue Öyster Cult and birthday guest Phil Hopwood on best and worst concept albums.

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Young was the bassist in a pub band playing Led Zeppelin and Patto covers ‘til his solo soul and blues slot launched him as a singer. He’s still touring nearly 50 years later, just back from filling Mexican stadiums with Rod Stewart. And next May launching his acoustic ‘Songs & Stories Tour’ in theatres, intercut with film clips and hoary old tales from the battlefield. He looks back here at …

… Smash Hits cover shoots and Rewind package tours: “what a glorious time the ‘80s was”

… the soul phrases he stole from Free and his impression of “the Paul Rodgers moan”

… discovering James Taylor, the Doors, Gregg Allman, Vinegar Joe and Van Morrison

… supporting Bob Marley when the crowd threw a dead duck at Joe Jackson – “and hit him!”

… Mike & Bernie Winters in panto - “I was rolling in the aisles”

… playing Led Zeppelin, Cream and Patto and the Bill Withers and Albert King covers that launched him as a singer

… memories of Live Aid – “I wish I’d thought about it more”

… “What am I, a performing monkey?”

… when Midge Ure told him the opening line of Band Aid had actually been a secret audition – “Simon, Tony Hadley or me”

… the “deafening” Slade at Luton Tech, the night the DJ played Black JuJu by Alice Cooper

… the over-cranked news story that he’d lost his voice

… and the night the Mafia came to Rhode Island.

Tickets for ‘Paul Young – Songs & Stories’ here: https://www.awaywithmedia.com/tours/paul-young-2026

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Billy Bragg: A People’s History’ is just out, a new and wholly original kind of memoir written by himself, friends, collaborators and fans, and packed with old snapshots, concert bills, reviews and ephemera. It’s very good indeed. He looks back here with us at …

… meeting Taylor Swift – “and we both knew who the other was!”

… a total of 2,700 gigs – “not counting prisons, In-Stores, Port-A-Stacks and picket lines”

… old blokes trying to take selfies

… finding old diaries in his archives and sensing how the memory plays tricks

… songs that get you out of trouble on stage

… bootlegging albums on his reel-to-reel, aged 12, complete with noises off - eg “Bridge Over Troubled Water plus a voice telling me Reach For The Sky was on telly!”

… a word-perfect recitation of Mr Tambourine Man

… listening to the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll when the rest of the school was Glam Rock

… buying Ronnie Lane’s amp, “like returning home with a religious relic”

… “the power of music”: meeting someone who’d heard him on the radio beyond the Iron Curtain

… anxiety about American border control: “I was advised to get a new phone. As if that’ll make any difference. I’m Billy Bragg, political songwriter!”

… lost off-grid in Salt Lake City in the days before internet

… “Music can’t change the world but it gives you the ability to think it can be changed”

…plus Ian McLagan, Desmond Dekker, Ry Cooder, Jam b-sides and Motown Chartbusters Vol 3.

Order Billy Bragg: A People’s History here: https://burningshed.com/billy-bragg_a-peoples-history_book

https://www.billybragg.co.uk/product/billy-bragg-a-peoples-history-an-oral-history-in-the-words-of-people-who-have-been-moved-by-his-music/

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Graduate, Trainspotting, Jaws, Star Wars, Citizen Kane – films you can’t picture without thinking of the music. Mark Kermode has been gripped by the marriage of movie and soundtrack since Dougal and the Blue Cat (aged 6) and, with Jenny Nelson, has just published ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’. We talk to him here about…  

… Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, Sofia Coppola, Edgar Wright: the new generation “who grew up with a headful of not just music, but records”

… how John Williams is “the last Whistle Test composer”: two bars of ET, Jaws or Star Wars and you instantly know the film

… how “silent cinema was never silent” and his band the Dodge Brothers playing live soundtracks

… Butch Cassidy, Easy Rider, Blackboard Jungle … pioneers of the music video

… the genius of American Graffiti: “Lucas wanted it so marinated in music the town would sound like a pickle jar”

… how scores are recorded and edited and what happens when a director tells an orchestra he’s changed his mind

… “by the time each Lord of the Rings soundtrack reached New Zealand, Peter Jackson had re-cut the film”

… Forbidden Planet in 1956, the days when electronic scores weren’t real music

… Martha Reeves, Jonathan Richman and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver

… Tarantino’s kitsch use of “his own scratchy vinyl” and why Jonny Greenwood‘s There Will Be Blood is unique and exceptional

… plus the “atonal squonking” of the Exorcist and the greatest soundtrack of all time.

Order ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/mark-kermodes-surround-sound/mark-kermode/9781447230564

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find …

… Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop videos turned into tourist attractions

… the appeal of D’Angelo’s Voodoo: “he made albums with no disdain for the listener”

…. David Hepworth and “the single most exciting thing that ever happened to me in my entire life”

… bands whose story means more than their music

… Nick Drake, Hendrix, Portishead, Nirvana: why three albums is the perfect back catalogue

… when Morrissey was just “Steve from Stretford” and Bowie “some bloke in Beckenham”

… Elvis Costello, the Nashville Rooms and how Mark escaped being “killed to bits”

… is there a better sign of obsession than being able to name all a band’s members?

… Your challenge: listen to the Dead’s Dark Star for the first time. Discuss!

… esoteric tracks played by mobile coffee vans

… “Gor Blimey, hello Mrs Jones. How’s old Bert’s lumbago?”

 … plus JJ Cale, Canned Heat, Cameron Crowe and Fred Neil’s The Dolphins.

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now gets ranked beside Revolver and Pet Sounds. Colin Blunstone has a solo tour in 2026 and looks back here in his wood-panelled den at the first shows he played, the people he met and being No 1 in America aged 19. This too …

… when your career starts at 16 “and you think it’s over at 21”

… seeing the Beatles at Luton Odeon and the Stones at Studio 51 Leicester Square “sitting on stools playing acoustic R&B”

… winning the talent contest that got them a record deal and a worldwide hit with “the third song Rod ever wrote”

… playing Murray the K’s Christmas Show when No 1 in America with “all our heroes” - the Shirelles, Patti LaBelle and Ben E King

… his father’s warning when he wanted to go to Art School

… the misspelling of Odessey And Oracle and its rushed recording at Abbey Road – “in mono when everyone wanted stereo!”

… “only Kenny Everett and Penny Valentine liked it”: the album’s afterlife, “now ranked alongside Revolver and Pet Sounds”

… how he still hits “my suicidal top notes” and the old trick of pointing the mic at the audience if you don’t want to sing them

… life in an insurance office when the Zombies split and “the three writers had made all the money”

… and Al Kooper, Denny Laine, Russ Ballard, Rod Argent and the time Mike Hurst inexplicably relaunched him as ‘Neil MacArthur’.

Order tickets for the Believe In Miracles Tour here: https://www.colinblunstone.net/

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent from the days when the Kidderminster Shuttle would spell their name wrong and print their parents’ address. Richard Morton Jack, author and compiler of ‘Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly’, looks back here at ….

… the fact that there was already a group called ‘Lead Zeppelin’ in 1967

… the way Page has fudged early details of his and the band’s career

… why 1968 was Last Chance Saloon for Plant, Jones and Bonham

… the second British Invasion and why America was so ready for them

… “the Hindenburg was only 30 years earlier. Imagine using the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on a cover now!”

… their claim that critics always hated them in the face of massive evidence to the contrary

… Plant’s publicity stunts before he joined the band – Harold Macmillan, Legalise Pot, the Noise Abatement Society …

… the ‘60s Birmingham scene v the London scene

… their eternal grievance about the press sparked by the “Ground Zero” moment of Rolling Stone’s 1968 review

… the venues they played - the Toby Jug in Tolworth, Pirate World, an aqua theater, an ice rink in Vegas

… and the bands they shared bills with - Frosty Moses, Kimla Taz, the Ladybirds.

Order a copy of Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly here: https://lansdownebooks.com/

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here …

… will rock bands get offered the Saudi money?

… “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030”

… Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted

… the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats

… “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads”

… did Easy Rider invent the music video?

… Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous – soundtrack moments that made their movies

… 12 million more UK tickets were sold than in 2019 yet 150 small venues closed in two years: “scale is now part of the appeal”

… the genius of John Sebastian

… the end of MTV UK and how video changed the landscape

… “Here’s to you Mrs Roosevelt”: how Simon & Garfunkel got into the Graduate

… can anyone fathom Ghost Town Blues by Prefab Sprout?

Plus Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and birthday guest Matthew Elliott on why three is the magic number.

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The look, sound, story and dynamic of the Beatles can’t be imagined without him. Nor can their success. Tom Doyle, author and drummer, examines the unexplored depths of the one at the back from 70 different angles, one per chapter, in his new memoir ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ and talks to us here about ….

… how he learnt to read by looking at his Dad’s Beatles singles and the one that first made him notice the drumming

... what you learn re-watching him in Peter Jackson’s Get Back

… why Ringo gave them universal appeal and his key role in their conquest of America

… supernatural brilliance: exceptional moments such as the un-slowed original Rain and “the way he makes the sound of the holes in Blackburn, Lancashire”

… the delicious Britishness of comparing Rishikesh to Butlins and the mantra the Maharishi gave him he still uses every day

… the pre-Beatles time he applied to emigrate to Texas and what stopped him doing it

… the only Beatle who could dance: the proof!

… the Lost Years and the day he had his head and eyebrows shaved

… the mortifying fate of the first recording of the four Beatles together (in 1960)

… how all four spent the rest of their lives in recovery

… what Sam Mendes might accentuate in his upcoming portrait of Ringo

... and the clip that’ll be all over the news on the day he bows out.

Plus our campaign to buy the Sentimental Journey pub starts here!

Order Tom Doyle’s ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Ringo/Tom-Doyle/9781917923132

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.