The Strange Brew - artist stories behind the greatest music ever recorded

Martin Barre is already playing when the evening begins. Recorded live at The CAT Club in December 2025, this is Barre in conversation with Jason Barnard. Hendrix turns up, and Jimmy Page, and a French chateau that put Jethro Tull in the bathroom for a week. So does a Grammy, won at home because the record label wouldn’t pay for flights. He also talks about his autobiography – wrote it four times. The first version was, by his own description, full of scores to settle. But he took all of it out.

Further information

martinbarre.com

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Podcasts also available: Martin Barre – 50 Years of Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson, Greg Spawton – Big Big Train, Dave Pegg – Fairport Convention

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Otis Williams discusses over six decades of The Temptations and their upcoming UK tour. Williams talks about moving from Texas to Detroit as a kid, catching Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers at the Fox Theater, and getting spotted by Berry Gordy at a record hop. He remembers the strings going onto ‘My Girl’ in 1964 and knowing straight away it would be a hit, a hunch confirmed by telegrams from The Beatles, The Supremes and Berry Gordy. He looks back on their first UK dates in the mid-60s on the Tamla Motown package tour and how hits were chosen at Motown. There’s also a look at the shift to psychedelic soul with ‘Cloud Nine’ in 1968, plus his thoughts on keeping the group together through nearly thirty line-up changes.

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The Temptations

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Podcasts also available: Dion, Bettye LaVette, Steve Cropper, PP Arnold

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Anthony Phillips, founding Genesis guitarist, joins Jason Barnard to talk about the formation of Genesis, his departure, and his latest album, Gemini – Pieces For Piano. He traces the Genesis story back to Charterhouse and the summer of 1967, when he first heard a 12-string guitar. Peter Gabriel’s theatrical stage persona came about through necessity, filling dead time while Phillips and Mike Rutherford fought with temperamental instruments. The jump from From Genesis To Revelation to Trespass has always looked abrupt; Phillips explains it simply: he and Rutherford spent the eight months between recording and release writing constantly, with ‘Dusk,’ ‘White Mountain’ and ‘Stagnation’ sketched out before the debut had even flopped.

Then there’s the stage fright. Not ordinary nerves but sudden mid-performance blanks that came on after glandular fever. He was eighteen and never told anyone. There’s also a brief exchange with Nick Drake, playing the same indifferent university crowds. When Drake learned Phillips had written ‘Let Us Now Make Love,’ he said one word back: “Dangerous.” The conversation also covers his classical studies, the troubled release of The Geese and the Ghost, and writing the title track of Gemini.

Further information

Anthony Phillips website, Gemini – Pieces For Piano

Podcasts also available: Anthony Phillips (2019), Tony Banks (2024), Tony Banks (2019), Steve Hackett (2022), Steve Hackett (2020), Bill Bruford, Chester Thompson

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John Leckie is one of British rock’s greatest producers, who started out as a tape operator at Abbey Road in 1970, thrown immediately into sessions for George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. This interview, conducted live at The CAT Club in September 2025, focuses on Sunburst Finish, the Be Bop Deluxe album that gave Leckie his first official production credit, and covers both the making of the album and his creative partnership with Bill Nelson. Additionally, Leckie gives a first-hand account of Syd Barrett’s unannounced appearance during the Wish You Were Here sessions, an encounter he stumbled into while raiding Pink Floyd’s beer fridge, only for Roger Waters to stop the tape and ask who the stranger standing next to him was. The Q&A session draws out further stories about working with The La’s, the Stone Roses’ debut, and how XTC – who idolised Bill Nelson, led Leckie to leave EMI and go independent.

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Podcasts also available: Bill Nelson – Be Bop Deluxe, Rob Chapman on Syd Barrett, Ken Scott on The Beatles, Bowie, Alan Parsons

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If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi

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John Helliwell of Supertramp returns to talk about Crime of the Century, the newly restored 1975 concert film shot at Hammersmith Odeon, and the years in which the band went from complete obscurity to one of the biggest acts in the world. He discusses the creative relationship between Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, and how the tensions between them eventually broke the classic line-up apart. Helliwell also covers life after Supertramp, and what it means to keep performing as you get older.

Further information

Supertramp – Crime Of The Century: In Concert At Hammersmith Odeon – 1975

John Helliwell website

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Podcasts also available: John Helliwell – 2019, Leslie Mandoki, Ken Scott, Jeff Wayne

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