Word In Your Ear

Old friend of the podcast Lloyd Bradley wrote Bass Culture, the defining account of reggae, and he’s now turned his attention to funk, from its deepest roots and via the jazz, arts, TV, radio and pop culture that flavoured it. The main 10-year focus of ‘Funk Has Its Own Reward’ is from James Brown’s ‘Say It Loud - I’m Black and I’m Proud’ to Michael Jackson’s ‘Off The Wall’ but free your mind and all this will follow! …

… the importance of radio being “colourblind”

… Cab Calloway’s Jive Dictionary and the impact of DJs Martha Jean ‘the Queen’ Steinberg and Daddy-O Daylie

… how James Brown floor-tested his records and saved a fortune making them

… funk’s deep roots in America’s marching bands

… why jazz is funk’s closest relative and what it stole from white rock

… how the Family Stone’s Larry Graham made bass the place

… how solo singers gave way to the ‘funk gangs’

… how Richard Pryor gave mainstream America a window on a whole new world.

… the influence of Soul Train and Sesame Street (19-year-old Nile Rodgers on guitar!) in bringing funk to the masses

… George Clinton – “I can’t dance, can’t play, people tell me I can’t sing … but without me none of this would have happened!”

… plus the Chambers Brothers, Herbie Hancock, Funkadelic, Bootsy, Quincy Jones, Parliament and the greatest funk record ever made.

Order copies of ‘Funk Is Its Own Reward’ here: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/lloyd-bradley-2/funk-is-its-own-reward/9781472123411/

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Leo Sayer burst onto national telly in 1973 dressed as a Pierrot with the Show Must Go On launching a 50-year career in colourful company – songwriters, boxing legends, swindling managers, scurrilous socialites – and learning a great deal in the process. “Don’t underestimate the idiots!” is the hard-won advice. He’s touring in October and joins us here from Australia to look back at …

… how he and Linda Ronstadt escaped from Trump’s gruesome penthouse

… walking through Memphis dressed as a clown

… seeing Lonnie Donegan invent skiffle, Dylan at the Albert Hall and Bob Marley at the Lyceum from the side of the stage

… when Paul Kossoff asked him to audition for Free

… designing record sleeves for Marley, Roger Daltrey, Humble Pie and Quintessence

… “I’m the Forrest Gump of the music industry – nearly there!”

… “working with Adam Faith was like having Marlon Brando as your acting coach”

… the advice Paul McCartney gave him in 1973

… “Do you mind if I vomit in your shoe?”

… and a week in a training camp with Muhammad Ali.

Order Leo Sayer tickets here: https://tix.to/LeoLive26

Order the ‘Leothology’ box-set here: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/leo-sayer/leothology-the-studio-albums-1973-now

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Chasing the shade and slapping the Sunscreen on this week’s overheated news, we pour a tinkling drink and reflect upon the following …

… British people in hot weath-ah!

… when rock stars you haven’t seen for 50 years pop up on Zoom

… Lennon’s tooth? Timberlake’s toast? Mooney’s school report? Weird things sold at auction

… Paul Horn playing in the Taj Mahal, Sonny Rollins on the Williamsburg Bridge, U2 in Slane Castle

… are new vinyl albums now ‘luxury goods’ and old ones ‘antiques’?

… where you can hear the Abbey Road building on the Dark Side of the Moon

… the cinematic records Daniel Lanois made in an abandoned movie theatre near Santa Barbara

… Summer In The City: the Lovin’ Spoonful’s road-drill and Regina Spektor’s cleavage

… Cat-calming music! Gym motivation! Stress-busting songs for Spurs fans on Judgement Day! The age of the prescriptive playlist

… the new dawn of instrumental music, “a public utility like turning on a tap”

… and the single Sinatra recorded for Maureen Starkey (only one copy made!).

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Daniel Lanois built a studio in his basement in Quebec and began producing local acts when a teenager. Through work with Brian Eno, he went on to record U2, Bob Dylan, Arcade Fire, Emmylou Harris and scores of others with a method that’s unique, cinematic and utterly extraordinary, a brand of sonic architecture that creates settings to accommodate the songs, often in exotic and stimulating places. And he's made nine albums of his own, the latest the magical instrumental suite ‘Belladonna Nocturne’ – “hear this and you may never go home again”. This rich and fascinating conversation includes …

… how the place you record affects the way you think

... producing Dylan and Willie Nelson in an abandoned Mexican cinema

… why the first record he bought was Wipe Out by the Surfaris

… the process of “printing sound” and his Music Minus One theory

… “Songs are doorways to another dimension”

… Eno’s working method: “he walked round the studio for 45 minutes ringing bells to map out the length of the album”

… drawing song sketches to stop everyone having to crowd round a laptop

… making the Unforgettable Fire with U2, “expanding Slane Castle ‘til there were little critters crawling out of the walls!”

… conjuring the tropical heat of Robbie Robertson’s Somewhere Down the Crazy River

… and what Hells’ Angels like to do to his music.

Order Belladonna Nocturne here: https://artsmusic.lnk.to/BelladonnaNocturne

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Cathi Unsworth was a teenage Goth, enthralled as much by Joy Division and the Banshees as by the Brontës, Bram Stoker and Aubrey Beardsley. We loved her book ‘Season of the Witch’ and she’s since put together a soundtrack album, ‘Dressed In Black’, featuring the Goth divas she most admires and adores. And talks to us here about everything from murder ballads, the Industrial Revolution and Victorian literature to …

… John Peel, Siouxsie, Joy Division and her teenage Goth conversion among the “hedge-goths” and “field-goths” of rural Norfolk

… the phenomenal life, lyrics and mysterious disappearance of ‘Swamp-witch’ Bobbie Gentry

… has Goth eaten Punk?

… why BBC banned Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday”

… the ‘death discs’ of John Layton, the Shangri-Las and Twinkle

… how Cabaret and Julie Driscoll coloured Siouxsie and the Banshees

… Shirley Collins’ Death And The Lady – “now that’s what I call a pandemic!”

… did Liz Fraser speak fluent Faerie?

… Nico – “if I had a machine-gun I’d kill you all!”

… and how Juliette Gréco looked the devil in the face.

Order copies of ‘Dressed In Black: Goth Divas From The Dark Side’ here: https://acerecords.co.uk/various-artists-dressed-in-black

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.