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• E207: Val Mabbs on Record Mirror + Jimi Hendrix + Walker Bros. + Ozzy R.I.P.

  For this episode we're joined by the excellent Val Mabbs, who talks to us about writing for Record Mirror in the late '60s and early '70s. We start with our guest's early life as a mod in Hertfordshire – and her memories of seeing the Who/the High Numbers in 1964/5. Val then explains how she got her foot in the door at the Mirror and recalls colleagues such as Norman Jopling, Charlie Gillett and Lon Goddard, not forgetting Peter Jones, the editor who first spotted her potential as an interviewer.  Val talks us through her encounters with such legends as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Marc Bolan (not to mention Status Quo, for whose double-denim "outfits" she can take indirect credit). En passant we hear clips from Chris Welch's 2005 audio interview with John Walker, surely the handsomest of the three Walker "Brothers" he first met in 1965. After Barney gives a nod to the week's free feature about Bob Dylan "going electric" at 1965's Newport Folk Festival, Val resumes her story and brings us up to the present day. We also pay tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne and discuss the real origins of heavy metal. Finally, Mark and Jasper talk us out with remarks on newly-added library pieces about Graham Nash (1967), Lady Gaga (2012) and Billie Eilish (2019). Many thanks to special guest Val Mabbs. Pieces discussed: Jimi Hendrix: "Western Movie For Jimi" Says The Man Himself, T. Rex: Marc's science fiction film, John and Yoko: The Apple and the Grapefruit, The Walker Brothers' John Walker audio, Al Kooper: The On the Tracks Interview, How Bob Dylan And The Holy Trinity Changed Music Forever, Scene of the Crime: Bob Dylan at Newport, Elijah Wald: Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the '60s, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: How Black Was My Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: Lord of the Wings, The Hollies: The change in Graham, Lady Gaga: The most extraordinary popstar Mark Ellen has ever met and Billie Eilish at Reading Festival.

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• E206: John Niven on rock fiction + Bobby "Blue" Bland + Lou Reed audio

  In this episode we welcome novelist and screenwriter John Niven to "RBP Towers" to ask him about his career and his acclaimed novels. We start with the Wishing Stones, the post-C86 combo for whom John played guitar in the late '80s, and progress swiftly to the subject of his caustic 2008 classic Kill Your Friends — the UK's drug-riddled music industry, in which he toiled through the '90s. After John talks about his uncanny 2005 novella Music from Big Pink – inspired by the Band album of the same name — we switch to the week's featured artist (and vocal inspiration to The Band's Richard Manuel) Bobby "Blue" Bland. We then pivot to the sublime writing of Deep Blues author and New York Times pop critic Robert Palmer, who would have turned 80 this summer. We mark the 50th anniversary of the deeply unloved Metal Machine Music by listening to — and discussing clips from — a 1996 audio interview with the inimitably supercilious Lou Reed. Finally, we return to our guest's fiction and ask him about his brand-new novel The Fathers. Many thanks to special guest John Niven. His new novel The Fathers is published by Canongate and available now from all good bookshops. John Niven's Music from Big Pink: A Foreword, Bobby Blue Bland: Arrival!, Bobby Bland: This Time He's Here for Good, A Tribute To Bobby "Blue" Bland, Articles, interviews and reviews from Robert Palmer, Etta James: The Comeback of a Fifties R&B Star, The Sun King: Sam Phillips, Robert Palmer: Recording the Blues in North Mississippi, Steely Dan: Disaster and triumph in the Custerdome, Lou Reed audio, "Jellybean" Benitez and Arthur Baker: The Producers and George Shearing, 1919–2011.

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• E205: Tony Cummings on soul music + The Sound of Philadelphia

  In this episode we welcome the great soul scribe Tony Cummings to Hammersmith to discuss the subject of his classic 1975 book The Sound of Philadelphia. Tony travelled all the way down from his adopted Stoke-on-Trent to answer our questions about his earliest musical passions in his native Plymouth and the launch of his pioneering '60s fanzines Soul, Soul Music and Shout. He goes on to talk about his contributions to (and editorship of) Black Music magazine – and his deep immersion in the "Philly Soul" sound patented by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell. We hear about the extraordinary stable of musicians who performed on timeless hits by acts such as the O'Jays, the Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Clips from audio interviews with Kenny Gamble and – from 1976 – the Stylistics' Herb Murrell prompt reflections on the lavish sound and sophistication of R&B classics by everyone from the Delfonics and Jerry Butler to Teddy Pendergrass and McFadden & Whitehead. Many thanks to special guest Tony Cummings. Pieces discussed: Inside the Philly Sound, MFSB, TCB, The Stylistics, Gamble-Huff, Thom Bell and the Philly Groove, Hit Producer Thom Bell: Philly Soul & the R&B Flugelhorn, "Philadelphia was the party with a tormented soul", Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff audio, The Stylistics' Herb Murrell audio, Why are we so hard on our music press? and Linkin Park.

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• E204: Chris Bohn in Europe + Sly Stone & Brian Wilson R.I.P.

  For this episode we're joined in our Hammersmith lair by the highly respected Chris Bohn, known better these days by his alias Biba Kopf (cue a nod to Berlin Alexanderplatz author Alfred Döblin...) The veteran NME contributor and sometime editor-in-chief of The Wire talks about his long career as a Europhile connoisseur of extreme and out-there music. We start by asking our guest about his mother's experience as a teenage refugee fleeing her native Silesia after the advance of the Red Army in 1945 – and her subsequent settling in the English Midlands. We learn about Chris' journalistic training on the Sutton Coldfield News and his subsequent travels around Europe, where he reconnected with relatives in West (and East) Germany. Chris reminisces about his first London job as a press officer for Polydor Records, for whom he chaperoned Siouxsie & the Banshees to tapings of Top of the Pops. He then talks us through his writing career from Melody Maker and NME to decades-long association with The Wire. Among the articles mentioned are his 1979 live review of Joy Division, his groundbreaking 1981 on-the-road piece "Trans-Europe Express", and his interviews with Nina Hagen (1979) and Einstürzende Neubauten (1983). Discussion of The Wire leads us into clips from an audio interview with Wire icon Ornette Coleman … by Wire mainstay David Toop. We conclude the episode by paying heartfelt tribute to two Californian geniuses who left us this week: Family Stone funk pioneer Sly Stone and the Beach Boys' "pocket symphonist" Brian Wilson. We shall not see – or hear – their like again. Many thanks to special guest Chris Bohn a.k.a. Biba Kopf. Visit the Wire's website at thewire.co.uk to subscribe digitally and in print.  Pieces discussed: Nina Hagen: West Is Best, Einstürzende Neubauten: Let's Hear It For The Untergang Show, Ornette Coleman (1995), Sly & The Family Stone: Sly Buries Underground And Has Fun!, Not Only Sly, But Sometimes Just Plain Damn Evasive, Sly Stone's Higher Power, Some Producers' Hints From Beach Boy Brian, Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson: Beach Boy, Pop Visionary, Wounded Soul, The Devil and Jerry Lee Lewis and  Group Home: Supa Group.

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• E203: Jonathan Gould on Talking Heads + Otis Redding + Richard Manuel

  For this episode we're joined – all the way from Brooklyn – by acclaimed author and sometime drummer Jonathan Gould. The native New Yorker recalls his early musical epiphanies, his introduction to the drums and his studying under famed jazz drummer Alan Dawson in mid-'70s Boston. He also reminisces about his years in Woodstock, N.Y., and his association with The Band's Richard Manuel. Our very personable guest explains his conversion to writing about music and the long gestation of his epic Beatles book Can't Buy Me Love (2007). From there we jump to 2017's equally praised Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life, an excuse not just to talk about The Big O but to hear clips from audio interviews with Stax Records/Booker T. & the M.G.'s legends Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper. Finally, we get to the subjects of his latest enormo-tome Burning Down the House: Talking Heads. Jonathan talks about his experience of writing the book, the band's unique brilliance and internal frictions, and their complicated relationship with producer/"collaborator" Brian Eno. After we've paid our respects to beloved EMAP Metro writer-publisher Barry McIlheney and to fomrer McCoy/Johnny and Edgar Winter sideman/All-American Boy Rick(y) Derringer, Jasper talks us out with his thoughts on pop's most misunderstood songs.

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