By Pat Murphy
The music we now know as country evolved out of a genre that used to be referred to as hillbilly.
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Breakfast with: Nicky Stevens – Brotherhood of Man.
With the 64th Eurovision Song Contest looming, I thought it was time to look back some 43 years to the UK’s biggest success story of the competition.
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Leo Sayer as we chat about Versailles, broken hearts, The Little Prince and more.
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By Derek Mead JOAN SHAW/SALENA JONES is American by birth but resident in England since 1965. Salena sings Jazz – Latin – Pop – Funk Gospel – Cabaret – Swing – Rhythm and Blues as the forerunner to rock’n’roll – and has extended to the standards of the The Great American...
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By Derek Mead WITH the recent death in October of Babs Beverley, it is time for some reflection on the Beverley Sisters trio which emerged from the war years to succeed in an era so different from the music and musicians of today. Only The Kaye sisters can be considered a good comparison, and they were not sisters but three...
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RUSTY YOUNG, founding member of Poco, songwriter, vocalist, et al, chats about Ann-Margret, sleepwalk, tap dancing, and more. By Jane Quinn RUSTY joined us on Planet Earth in 1946 as Norman Russell “Rusty” Young. He is, of course, the original POCO-man and the master of the pedal steel guitar; but did you know Rusty...
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By Ian Wooley, former DJ and MD of Retro Nights IT WAS 20 years ago when local Eddie Cochran fan Angela Powell first laid a memorial on the Chippenham roadside verge where the 21-year-old Rock ‘n’ Roll singer’s hire car crashed one fatal night in April, 1960. The cream Consul in which he was traveling had a...
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By Martin Hutchinson HARD to believe, but it’s three years since David Bowie passed away, yet his legacy is still very much apparent today. There is a surfeit of Bowie tribute acts on the circuit, some of which are excellent, but they all have a certain ingredient missing – the magic of the man himself. Probably the closest...
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By Pete Langford WHOA: is it really coming up to 60 years for us Barron Knights. So many things, going back all those years, have stuck in my mind and will always be there. I was 15 when I bought my first guitar and luckily I met Butch who lived only three miles away.His dad taught him banjo but he soon got good on the guitar and...
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SHARE A CUPPA TEA with American Broadcasting Legend Jimmy Mack speaks of Stones, Nehru Jackets and Goatees, WWII, AND MORE! Secret talents of an icon of our time JIMMY MACK is an American broadcasting icon. He is also the most youthful 96- year-old I am likely ever to share a cuppa tea with. The conversational possibilities are...
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Ahead of the 50th anniversary, Jimi Hendrix Tributes just keep coming. The most interesting thing about looking back on artists from previous eras is often seeing which ones have withstood the test of time, or even which ones have become bigger than they ever were. A few obvious names come to mind: your Beatles and Rolling Stones,...
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SAID to be the UK’s ultimate Michael Jackson tribute star starts a UK tour in Bath on January 11. From dancing along to the legendary pop videos as a child, to playing to a crowd of weeping fans the day after Michael Jackson died, Ben Bowman has dedicated his life to be the UK’s ultimate Michael Jackson tribute artist. Ben, 33, who...
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By Pat Murphy Looking back a half-century, 1969 was a pretty decent year for pop music. Here are 10 records to prove the point. The organisation is chronological, based on my recollection of when I first heard them on Toronto radio. The Fifth Dimension: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In Although I wasn’t initially keen on this, it did...
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Intelligent lyrics, lovely music. Jane Quinn shares a Cuppa Tea with Jim Messina who chats about Walt Disney, Love, Bolero and his metal shop. JAMES MELVIN joined us on Planet Earth in 1947 in a land known as California before spending time in another land called Texas. James later morphed into Jim Messina, musician, songwriter,...
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60s Retro Night: The Fortunes, David Hamilton HELPING raise money for Vari- ety Wessex, a 60s Retro event stars The Fortunes, with a retro 60s disco hosted by former Radio 1 DJ David Diddy Hamilton. The Fortunes, one of the UK’s premier harmony groups with a string of hit records including You’ve Got Your Troubles, Here...
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By Ron Tennant, Belgium. ON Friday and Saturday evening, September 28 and 29, the brilliant show Welcome To The 60s was at the Swan Theatre,Worcester. It was a show to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the giant life-changing choir from Worcester, called Voices Unlimited. For these two shows, an 86-piece Voices Unlimited vocal...
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By Martin Hutchinson BEATLEMANIA lives on, and the tribute band that grew out of the show of the same name continues to delight audiences around the world with their accurate portrayal of The Fab Four. Originally an American production, ‘Beatlemania!’ came to London’s West End and toured the country to great acclaim. However,...
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By Jane Quinn Share a Cuppa Tea with John Otway as he speaks of the meaning of life, comics, bullies et al. If Bob Dylan was a gymnastic punk rocker, his name would be John Otway. Mr Otway is a singer-songwriter, wordsmith, author, an awkward wit, Pete Townshend’s gifted protégé, and a poetic non-driving tea drinker. You saw him...
read moreBy Mike Berry Chas Hodges was probably the most ‘gifted’ musician I ever had the pleasure and good fortune to meet and work with! I met Charles Nicholas Hodges when he was 17 and I was 18. And not long after we started working together, I remember calling him a ‘genius’ in a music paper interview….. because I realised that’s just...
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By John Firminger THE AMOUNT of publicity in the media announcing the passing of Chas Hodges on September 22 shows how much he was admired and loved by both fans and fellow musicians. Despite receiving successful treatment for oesophageal cancer recently, Chas suffered organ failure and passed away peacefully in his sleep. It goes...
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