Word In Your Ear Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Once again the ping-pong ball of conversation is batted across the rock and roll net and these are the scores on the doors …
 
 … how to wreck the national anthem.
 
… cover versions that are better than the original.
 
… the genius of Bob Newhart - "nutty Walt", Abraham Lincoln and that gag about country music.
 
… virtue signalling in rock magazines.
 
… why we connect with pop stars on the slide.
 
… how Tainted Love went from the Northern Clubs to the top of the American charts via a cloakroom in Leeds.
 
… Ingrid Andress and the curse of ‘cursive singing’.
 
… the comedy album that saved Warners Brothers Records.
 
… parenthood and Bruce Springsteen: “the world of love and the world of fear – and they’re the same world”.
 
… who’d rather Elvis Costello played (whisper it) other people’s songs?
 
… have there been any great album sleeves since the arrival of CDs?
 
… why Don Rickles and Bob Newhart’s friendship proves all showbiz is just an act.
 
... musicians, athletes, comedians, politicians and the addiction of adrenaline.
 
Rolling Stone’s 100 best album covers:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-album-covers-1235035232/#recipient_hashed=228eb87724435002888d7f82108650021cdb318bf64d1067e1ebef25cd1818de&recipient_salt=d0d82b7aaf06cd217ba5546bced15f5c8c98f6e3776c6c1b2145e79711b91e18
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There’s something romantic about glorious failure and Will nails it perfectly in ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’. Over 40 years plagued by bad luck and self-sabotage with Felt, Denim and Mozart Estate, Lawrence has pursued fame and success while refusing to do what’s required to achieve them. Will spent 12 months wandering the streets of London with him to paint a fond, touching and extremely entertaining portrait of the worst-equipped pop star attempting a comeback, a man on a holy, monastic mission in a book about “sacrifice and the price of a dream”. Among many highlights here, we talk about …
 
… where Lawrence fits in the pantheon of great underachievers like Syd Barrett, Nick Drake and Arthur Lee.
 
… and his similarity to Kevin Shields and Kevin Rowland.
 
… the wisdom of a former girlfriend: “stop trying to be the pop star you don’t want to be and you might get somewhere”.
 
… is lack of success the central dream of the indie world?  
 
… why Denim were Britpop before Britpop happened and why EMI melted down all copies of their last single.
 
… his rules before the book began - “No anecdotes, no interviews with former members of Felt …”
 
… what his stalker planned to get his attention.
 
… fantasy girlfriends and “a fear of cheese”.
 
… why he didn’t go to his mother’s funeral.
 
… and why Truman Capote’s portrait of Marlon Brando, the Duke and His Domain, was a touchstone for this book.
 
Order ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’ here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Street-Level-Superstar-Lawrence-Will-Hodgkinson/dp/1785120220
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Employing controversial VAR technology, we re-examine various events on the rock and roll pitch and suggest a new perspective. Those key moments include … 
 
… the “bucolic frolic” at Knebworth 50 years ago as seen from 100 yards away just past the burger van and featuring Tim Buckley, Alex Harvey, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Van Morrison, the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band. And a stark naked Jesus.
 
… when did the Age of Spectacle begin?
 
… how Two-Way Family Favourites helped start Live Aid.
 
… Waters v Gilmour, a feud way beyond candour and honesty.  
 
… the moment Van Morrison first became ‘Captain Letdown’.
 
… memories of Wembley Stadium on July 13 1985 – Status Quo, U2, the non-appearance of Cat Stevens, the planned link with Ian Botham at Trent Bridge and swapping Tony Hancock lines with a man on Concorde.
 
... the three stages of rock and roll.
 
… life before mobile phones.
 
… The Revenant and Zone Of Interest, films that feel like the past without trying to make the past look cool.
 
… “the older I get, the older I wanna get”.
 
… Joni Mitchell and why we love an old curmudgeon.
 
… and birthday guest Andrew Stocks wonders why some bands can’t bury the hatchet.
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Broadcaster and music writer Ann Powers lives in Nashville and grew up listening to Kate Bush and Blondie. The siren call of Blue sparked a life-long and deep-rooted devotion and her new book Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell takes a different tack from the standard biographies, mapping the context of the songs, the forces that drove her, the steel will it took to succeed and the love affairs that shaped her and her music. All discussed here. As is this ... 
… the scale of your ambition when your heroes are Nietzsche, Beethoven and Picasso.
 
… how she got her revenge for not being allowed to go to Woodstock.
 
… “she had to learn to walk three times”.
 
… the psychological impact of her “dynamic father and homemaker mother”.
… the love affairs with Leonard Cohen, David Crosby and Graham Nash.
 
… her capacity to turn disaster into triumph.
 
… the influence of Laurel Canyon neighbour Derek Taylor and the Beatles.
 
… the many reasons she declared the music business “a corrupt cesspool”.
 
… the tone of Rolling Stone’s ‘70s coverage and the letters she wrote to Mo Austin about the way she was marketed.
 
… David Crosby’s regret about not involving her in Crosby Stills & Nash.
 
… her reaction to the continued success of Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel and Don Henley in a world where mid-career women are “put out to pasture”.
 
… why the current renaissance seems “all legend, no bite”.
  
… and Laura Nyro, Tom Rush, Judy Collins, Patti Smith, Aretha Franklin, Maggie Roach, Stevie Wonder, Thomas Dolby.
 
Order Travelling: On the Path Of Joni Mitchell here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Travelling-Path-Mitchell-Ann-Powers/dp/0008332967
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The first EPs appeared in the late ‘40s and ‘50s (Frank Sinatra, Elvis) hitting a magical sweet spot between the album and the single and they’ve cast a spell ever since, an exotic reminder that record labels are part of the packaged goods business. Music writer Corey duBrowa stumbled across one by Oingo Boingo in the original Licorice Pizza store in Long Beach, California, when he was 13 and began a lifelong collection that eventually led to ‘An Ideal For Living: a Celebration of the EP’, a book full of fabulous sleeve art and seven decades of 3- and 4-track classics. He talks here about every aspect of EP World and flags up some favourites, among them ones by the Goons, the Beatles, Donovan, Alice In Chains, Buzzcocks, the Clash, the Stones, Ice Cube, ‘A Factory Sample’, the Pogues, the EP that topped the album chart and a Joy Division disc worth $7,000.
 
Order ‘An Ideal For Living’ here:
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
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The rock and roll ballot-box is stuffed with votes and the exit polls suggest how this week’s debate might play out. Along these lines …
 
… is there still such a thing as British music?
 
… John Lennon as a lavatory attendant.
 
… Pink Floyd’s miming lessons.
 
.. how Neil Finn cheered up the All Blacks.
 
… the staggering difference in the UK album charts in the weeks the last two Labour Prime Ministers were elected (1997 and 2024) - male British bands v international female solo acts.
 
… ‘Starman’ on Top Of The Pops and the tricks it plays on the memory.
 
… “current chart acts are either in the spotlight or don’t seem to exist at all.”
 
… the wit and wisdom of James Blunt.
 
.. the Herd’s guest spot in the Tom Courtenay caper Otley.
 
… the Phil Collins syndrome: “when people are tired of duffing up pop stars, they tend to re-embrace them”.
 
… plus birthday guest Richard Lewis and songs that should be longer – eg Dancing the Night Away by the Motors, I Can Fly by the Herd (cue military bugle and church bell and choir).
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