September 2014

One small step for Word In Your Ear, one giant stride for Monday nights in the pub

September 23, 2014 David Hepworth 0

Last night’s show was our best yet. Thanks to the people at the Islington we managed to get the visuals working and so we we could put on […]

Stevie Nicks biographer Zoe Howe added to our Ben Watt live podcast recording

September 13, 2014 David Hepworth 0

We’re delighted to say that Zoe Howe‘s joining us at our next Word In Your Ear Podcast recording at the Islington on September 22nd. She’ll be […]

A Quiet Word with Ben Watt at the Islington

September 8, 2014 David Hepworth 0

Ben Watt’s worn a variety of hats in the last thirty years: half of Everything But The Girl, solo artist, deejay, producer, club owner and […]

Word In Your Ear

David Hepworth, Mark Ellen and chums cast an occasionally jaundiced eye over the goings-on in the worlds of music and entertainment.

‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ has just been published, memories from fellow musicians, old friends, producers, writers, fans and admirers. Linda Thompson met her when they were both 16 and was devoted to her ‘til she died in 1978 – “she’s still with me, I talk to her all the time”. She looks back here at their lives in Soho bars, folk clubs and studios, the world they inhabited and the musicians they both knew. Among the many highlights …

… meeting Sandy in 1966, onstage doing Jackson Frank’s You Never Wanted Me. “Eight million cigarettes a day but such breath control!”

… why her singing and songwriting were unique

… high times at the Colony Club with Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon – “famously grumpy”

… “she didn’t put up with bullshit. Cross her and she’d deck you”

… memories of Nick Drake – “spectral and gorgeous”

… the repercussions of the Fairport car crash

… memories of her family home in Wimbledon (on the cover of Unhalfbricking)

… recording ad jingles for Ski Yoghurt and ‘flour so fine, it flows and it flows’ – £15 an hour, “a fortune”

… making demos of Nick Drake songs with Elton John, “so full of Valium I had to be held up to the mic”

… sharing a flat with Tim Buckley in Holland Park

… “anyone who can bear to listen to their own records must be no bloody good”

… and the script Nick Hornby started about the life of Richard and Linda Thompson.