Page de couverture de Rock's Backpages

Rock's Backpages

Rock's Backpages

Auteur(s): Barney Hoskyns Mark Pringle Jasper Murison-Bowie
Écouter gratuitement

À propos de cet audio

Tales from the world's largest archive of music journalism: entertaining interviews with luminaries such as Neil Tennant, Billy Bragg, Pamela Des Barres, Gary Kemp, Vashti Bunyan, Midge Ure, Nick Hornby and Robyn Hitchcock. Thoughtful and informative conversations about all aspects of popular music history, interspersed with clips from exclusive audio interviews that date back to the mid-'60s. The RBP podcast is hosted by Barney Hoskyns and Mark Pringle and co-hosted & produced by Jasper Murison-Bowie. We're a proud part of Pantheon — the podcast network for music lovers.© 2025 Backpages Limited Art Musique
Épisodes
  • E206: John Niven on rock fiction + Bobby "Blue" Bland + Lou Reed audio
    Jul 14 2025
    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.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 13 min
  • E205: Tony Cummings on soul music + The Sound of Philadelphia
    Jun 27 2025
    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.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 23 min
  • E204: Chris Bohn in Europe + Sly Stone & Brian Wilson R.I.P.
    Jun 16 2025
    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.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 38 min

Ce que les auditeurs disent de Rock's Backpages

Moyenne des évaluations de clients

Évaluations – Cliquez sur les onglets pour changer la source des évaluations.