Smokey Robinson: "America's greatest living poet"
Absolute radio DJ Pete Mitchell speaks to the Detroit-born Motown icon
When an artist of the stature of Bob Dylan describes a fellow artist as 'Americas greatest living poet' then you sit up and take notice. He was describing William 'Smokey' Robinson, the kid from Detroit who changed music forever and helped turn Motown Records into a global phenomenon. He is as important as Dylan, Lennon and McCartney. At 74 years of age has just released one of his biggest-selling albums, which is no mean feat. The album comprises of some of Smokey's most enduring songs accompanied by a number of A-list duet partners, which has been put together by producer, bass player and the former judge of American idol Randy Jackson, who himself has worked with Aretha, Keith Richards and Maze. The album features the likes of John Legend, Cee Lo Green, Mary J. Blige and James Taylor with the Roots as the backing band. The guest vocalists recorded their vocals at various studios around the world, and Smokey’s dulcet tones were recorded at home in Los Angeles. He was the main architect of the Motown sound, made the vice chairman of the company in his early twenties and this record is a testament to his incredible songwriting. ‘Smokey & Friends’ highlights some of his greatest material ‘You Really Got a Hold on Me’, ‘The Way You Do the Things You Do’, ‘Ain't That Peculiar’ and of course his international anthem ‘My Girl’. The whole project was headed up by Randy Jackson. He contacted people and asked them what their favourite Smokey song was and if they’d like to sing on his new album. Smokey tells me rather enthusiastically when we meet one sunny afternoon in Soho “it’s an album of other artists singing my songs basically. Normally I'm in the studio writing, recording and producing, worrying about the arrangements and doing a bunch of other stuff. On this album all I had to do was turn up and sing. I'm a music fan, I'm not just someone who works in the music industry. I have everything from Bach to Nelly on my ipad, so it was an absolute pleasure to work with many of these great artists”. Smokey was born and raised in Detroit Michigan; he began his career in the fifties and sixties, when the Motorcity was at its economic height. This one time vibrant jewel in the Michigan crowd is broke. The city filed for bankruptcy on July of last year. It is the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in US history by debt. Detroit is also the largest city by population in the US history to file for bankruptcy “It's not the same place and it's never going to be that place again unless some manufacturers go back there and create some jobs” Robinson sadly explains “the economy is struggling there. If it doesn't improve then it will probably never recover because it's too far gone. It's depressing because I love the place, it's where I was born and raised and when I go back now and see the condition it's in, it troubles me. It's heart-breaking.” You can hear Pete Mitchell talking to Smokey Robinson tonight at 6pm on Absolute Radio 60s. Listen here
Brian Jones: the life and death of a Rolling Stone
The Stones' founder was forced out at the height of the band's success and died soon afterwards in mysterious cirucmstances - but there was much to admire about Brian Jones, says Pete Mitchell
The genius of Brian Jones propelled the early Rolling Stones into the higher echelons of the pop charts all over the world. He was a complete one off and there was much to admire about him. Jones was one of the ultimate sixties pop stars with a creative cutting edge, compounded with an out-there fashion sense, who remains a style icon to this day. It seems strange to think that he has almost been air-brushed out of the Rolling Stones history. Juggling his duties as a musician with heavy drink and drug use, he died in suspicious circumstances one summer's night at his rock star mansion in Sussex, forty five years ago this week. He was twenty seven. Brian was not exactly a child prodigy but he showed early signs that he was certainly gifted. During the mid to late 1950's, the skiffle craze was sweeping across Great Britain and the teenagers were going wild. Brian Lewis Hopkins Jones was besotted. He could play the piano and the clarinet proficiently and it would not long before he joined his first skiffle group. He bought a saxophone and formed a band, Thunder Odin’s Big Secret, and began playing venues and parties across London. He admired Blues musician Alexis Korner and met him after a gig in Cheltenham, where they exchanged phone numbers. He was introduced to the music of Elmore James by Korner, it was Brian's most important musical discovery and he was so enamoured by Elmore's work, that he went under the name of Elmore Lewis and began his career as a full time musician. In 1962 he formed the Stones, who built up a reputation as a tight live act almost immediately. Brian was the leader and responsible for the music they played, how they looked and where the band was going. He would soon suffer his first blow, losing control of the group to another young upstart. Andrew Oldham was a hustler on the London music scene who became a publicist for various music acts and for producer Joe Meek. Among his projects were stints publicising Bob Dylan on his first UK visit and The Beatles for Brian Epstein in early 1963. In April of that year, a journalist friend recommended that he see a young R&B band called The Rolling Stones. Oldham saw potential in the group going head to head with The Beatles. He was still a teenager when he took over management of the band, side-lining Jones. He signed the band to Decca Records. By 1967 they had sold over a million more records than The Beatles and they were expected to gross $20 million that year. In 1969 Jones was one of the highest paid musicians in pop music – by the time of his death he was broke. Brian, a heavy drinker from 1964, was on a slippery slope. Heavy drug abuse made him unpredictable and aggressive and he became estranged from the band he had formed. He had bought his pop star mansion in the English countryside and was supposedly living the dream. Cotchford Farm was a beautiful 16th century farmhouse in Sussex, which he had purchased for £35,000. His country idyll was the former home of Winnie the Pooh creator AA Milne. He settled in and began to renovate the property. With a crippling tax bill to deal with, The Stones needed to tour again and plans were drawn up to go out on the road taking in America. Jones was not physically or mentally capable of sustaining a heavy work schedule or tour and it was decided that he was a liability. His time as a member of one of the most success acts of the 1960s was coming to an end. He was unceremoniously kicked out of The Rolling Stones in June 1969 as his drug addled behaviour worsened, jeopardising the band’s promotional plans for their new album Beggars Banquet. The announcement that Jones had left the stones came in May of 1969. He stated "I no longer see eye to eye with the others. The Stones music is not to my taste anymore." Brian was no longer a Rolling Stone. It was rumoured that he was forming a super group with his friend John Lennon and working with Jimi Hendrix. He was not in the best of health, his weight had ballooned and his good looks were now faded and tired but he still liked to party and entertain. Brian held a small gathering one summer's night, inviting friends, acquaintances and the builders who were renovating his property. Brian's death happened on 2 July 1969. His demise is complicated and of course shrouded in inconsistencies and lies. It's doubtful that we will ever get to know the true story of his death. What we do know is that the story of his tragic end has uncovered many falsehoods and lies. One person who wanted to get to the truth was a budding young writer called Terry Rawlings. Terry’s love of music began in the seventies when he was employed as a post boy at The Stones' record label Decca. He heard rumours about the death of Brian and decided to uncover the mystery in a book called Who Killed Christopher Robin. Jones’ death, in his swimming pool, has been the subject of no small amount of speculation and conspiracy, with the official verdict of misadventure undermined by various claims of murder, robbery and cover up. The mystery is complicated but Terry has come the nearest to solving one of the great rock and roll deaths. Listen here. You can hear the documentary Play With Fire: The Death of Brian Jones this Thursday at 7pm on Absolute Radio 60's.
The Absolute Radio DJ rails against the "virulent flu" of the 90s genre and speaks to Stephen "Babybird" Jones and Ocean Colour Scene's Simon Fowler
The so called 'Britopop era' is celebrating some sort of anniversary this year. This widespread self-confidence and hedonism spread like a virulent flu bug down the streets of Great Britain, eventually stopping on the doorstep of Number 10 Downing Street as ‘Cool Britannia’. The term irritates me and I'm not too sure why, perhaps it is just the lazy journalism aspect of describing a phase in music, without any great explanation as to why there was a peak in a certain type of guitar music in the nineties. It was Loaded magazine, football, Blair and Britishness all rolled into one, with a hundred or so mainly pedestrian bands, who were snapped up by labels that for the most part were going nowhere. It was like an ill thought out British Tourist Board campaign. I remember appearing on News at Ten on the week of the ridiculous so called 'Battle of Britpop', the race to the number one slot between Oasis’s ‘Roll With It’ and Blur’s ‘Country House’. Usually this sort of hyped crap was reserved for the Christmas number one tussle around the tinsel. This musical arm wrestle between the two most victorious purveyors of the genre was for me a low point. Although looking back through those rose tinted spectacles, it's rather impressive to think that in between the more weighty world matters such as the Serbs' heavy weapons pounding of Sarajevo, the Rwanda massacre, a cease fire in Northern Ireland, American forces in the Persian Gulf and South Africa holding its first inter racial national election, the news channels saw fit to report on the UK music scene. The major record companies would give their left arm for this kind of coverage these days. Unlike the British Invasion of America from 1964 onwards, it did not travel across the Atlantic this time. The states saw this second coming as rude, brash, unimaginative and worst of all it was accompanied by bad teeth. Many lay claim to the term, rather like a bunch of over eager students trying to impress their tutor by sticking their hand up first and shouting “me!” Its origins go back as far as 1987. The respected journalist John Robb, a writer for the much lamented weekly music rag ‘Sounds’, first used the term to describe the La's, who were supported by the Stone Roses and according to John he judged that they were going to be the band that led the northern revival of guitar bands. The week prior, his paper ran a cover story on the new British punk underground and tagged it Britcore. He ran his piece, describing this ‘would be northern uprising’ as Britpop, a word he had used as far back as the early eighties in the fanzine ‘Rox’. On my show this Saturday, by pure coincidence, I talk to two artists who were in the thick of it. Stephen Jones of Babybird, hit home with a couple of great singles during this period, ‘Goodnight’ and ‘You're Gorgeous’. I asked him if he was lumped into this scene “I was never part of that. The good thing about ‘You're Gorgeous’ for instance in 1996, was that is was never regarded as such. Britpop was made up by the media. The thing that I remember most is the video for ‘Country House’, more than the song itself. Blur came across as these cheeky cockneys with page three models, it was all very strange”. Simon Fowler, the lead singer/songwriter with Ocean Colour Scene, is in session with his new project ‘Merrymouth’. He is out playing folk as a three piece as we speak and has a new album out called ‘Wenlock Hill’. When we spoke there was not one mention of the dreaded 'B' word, just a troubadour going about his business of making music on his own terms. This got me thinking, after this diatribe about a genre of British music and how it is described does not matter one iota. If one kid makes the quantum leap from the dole queue to signing a little deal with a label that backs him and his songs because he was inspired by Oasis and Blur, then we should accept it as a positive action and just forget the frivolous, fluffy, lightweight descriptions and just get on with supporting new music. I also talk to Morecambe band ‘The Heartbreaks’, a young band with a new album entitled rather fittingly ‘We May Yet Stand A Chance’. I rest my case your honour.
Crowded House's Neil Finn: "Lorde may have blown me out of the water"
The New Zealand rock star tells Absolute Radio DJ Pete Mitchell he may no longer be his country's biggest music export
Neil Finn has just released Dizzy Heights, his third solo album and his first since 2001. It is only when you look back at his discography that you realise just how prolific this man has been over the years. I remember receiving a laser-etched 7" disc of I Got You by his band Split Enz in 1980. The band were roped into the New Wave genre but were probably a little too art school rock to be described as post punk. Neil had joined his brother Tim's band in the late 70s, which went on to have great success in Europe and America, as well as back home in New Zealand and Australia, where the song occupied the number one slot. View oEmbed on the source website When the band broke up in 1984, Neil formed the highly successful Crowded House, again having worldwide hits with Weather With You, Don't Dream It's Over and Fall At Your Feet. All in all, he has been extraordinarily prolific, recording around 20 albums throughout his career. The 55-year-old singer's new album features wife Sharon on bass and sons Liam on guitar and Elroy on drums and was recorded at the studio of producer Dave Fridmann, who has twiddled the knobs for Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips in upstate New York. The title track has some beautiful harmonies and guitar and has a slight funk edge to it, which for me is very edifying. There are lovely falsetto moments on Recluse and White Lies and Alibis, which sound like two people trying to communicate across space. View oEmbed on the source website For any musician, the apprehension one feels before a new record is released is palpable. It is like sitting in limbo not knowing what to expect or wondering whether people will indeed like it. So what goes through his mind before the release of his latest work? “It's exciting because the record has been sitting there ready to go for a little while," explains Neil. "It’s great to have it coming out and it was a very enjoyable record to make with Dave in New York. Songs and albums are kind of amazing because you never know the journey they are going to go on. “Sometimes they don't travel very far, but they turn up in the strangest of places. People who've been robbed and bound and gagged in the Andes and they end up in a cafe being rescued by the villagers and on the radio comes Don't Dream It's Over and they tell you about it two years later and how it made them feel better and everything was going to be alright. So songs go off and have a life of their own, it's amazing.” I actually wonder if that is a true story, it sounds far fetched enough to be. Neil tells me about that worldwide hit, Don't Dream It's Over, released in 1986. “I remember that it was recorded slow, the tape was running slow for some strange reason. When it was mixed, it was slower than we actually recorded it, and we didn't realise this until it was released and being played on the radio. So when people try and play along with it in concert pitch, they will have great difficulty in playing it, because it will sound out of tune. That's what I remember most about that song.” View oEmbed on the source website I asked Neil how it felt to be described as New Zealand's greatest music export. “Well it's a little out of date now because there is a young 17-year-old called Lorde, who seems to be taking the world by storm. She just may have blown me out of the water. It's about bloody time somebody came along of the younger generation. They are an advanced species, I think there is an evolutionary jump happening. “We are doing well at the moment; we have the winner of the Booker prize Elenaor Catton, another young New Zealand woman, with The Luminaries. We have one of the best young golfers in the world Lydia Ko. Our girls are outperforming the boys at the moment. The boys need to pull up their boot straps. There is a team talk coming, I can assure you.” Dizzy Heights is a self assured, layered affair that will have you swooning and dreaming that you are floating in space. Neil Finn begins his UK tour on April 23rd in Glasgow, taking in Gateshead, Bristol, Salford, Birmingham, Dublin, London and Nottingham. You can hear Pete chatting to Neil this Saturday at 10pm on Absolute Radio.
Learn your ABC: Pete Mitchell talks to the 80s band's frontman Martin Fry
Absolute Radio DJ Pete Mitchell talks to the lead singer of ABC about the influences behind the band's classic 80s album Lexicon of Love
Like a shaft of gleaming gold light the Lexicon of Love by ABC illuminated the dance floors across the UK, as the girls and boys got on down to some love strutting. The album's sharp, high-gloss production by the Sheffield- based band saw their long player top the charts in 1982. It took blue-eyed British funk to new heights with the help of the indomitable producer/musician wunderkind Trevor Horn. Along with Fry's heart-rending emotional lyrics, that every girl wanted to hear and every guy wanted to whisper, it connected and found an audience that took it to the top of the British charts with songs for the dance floor like The Look of Love, Poison Arrow, the funk-infused Tears Are Not Enough and its magnum opus, All of My Heart, all helped along by some magnificent orchestration by Anne Dudley. Lexicon still sounds sharp and focused and for me has lost nothing of its original appeal. [embed]http://player.vimeo.com/video/21068572?color=d12502[/embed] The Look Of Love from ABC on Vimeo. Sitting down with the very talkative lead singer and writer Martin Fry is a joy, for one thing you ask him a question and you can sit back and listen in detail to an era when synthesizers were becoming affordable and that huge high drama cinematic production was in its infancy: “We wanted to make something very emotional. A lot of music at the time was about electricity pylons and abstract concepts and we wanted to take our audience on an emotional rollercoaster ride,” explains Fry. “We tried to incorporate two different worlds. We were listening to the Cure and Joy Division along with Earth, Wind and Fire and Chic. It has been a lifelong attempt to try and fuse those two worlds together.” The roots of the album and its writing go back to Martin’s formative years in the north. He was born in Stretford, Manchester, before moving to Cheadle Hulme in Stockport and formed his first band Vice Versa, while he was studying English literature at Sheffield University. He had realised as a kid that he was never going to play for Manchester United and when he saw the likes of Bolan, Bowie and Ferry on Top of the Pops, he saw a way out at the advent of punk. "In 1977 I was going to the Electric Circus and the Lesser Free Hall and I saw the Sex Pistols for the first time. These days about fifty thousand people claim to have seen them at that gig but I was genuinely one of about 200 people there. "The Pistols were fantastic to a 17-year-old like myself, wandering around the streets of Manchester, dreaming of being in a rock and roll band. Punk was exactly what I needed. It opened a lot of doors and it made music more approachable to someone who had no skills like myself. It was inspiring." The production of Horn on Lexicon of Love was a masterstroke that paid great dividends. “We heard Hand Held in Black and White by Dollar, which Trevor Horn had produced and it was like a widescreen record, it was a revolutionary sound and we wanted that kind of sound." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq3-Oz2SWCg "We were full of ourselves at the time and we would talk to the music papers and tell them that we were going to be incredible and then you realise you can talk it, but then you've got to walk it, so we had to make a great record. Every band at the time had a manifesto and we were done with matt and got into gloss. We wanted to make people dance." Listening back now, it sounds lush with high-production values, augmented with a smattering of beautifully crafted songs that got you off your seat. This album must have taken acute, detailed planning and an age to make? “The record was recorded in about six to seven weeks; back then other bands would spend a year or more making an album, so it was done quickly by comparison. It was strange when it was finished. We didn't sit back and enjoy its success, we were too busy looking over our shoulder to see what Soft Cell, Spandau Ballet or Duran Duran were doing, we had little time to pat ourselves on the back”. You can see ABC performing Lexicon of Love accompanied by the South Bank Sinfonia, conducted by Anne Dudley in March at Birmingham Symphony Hall (28th), The Lowry Salford (29th) and at the Theatre Royal Dury Lane London (30th). You can hear Pete chatting to Martin Fry of ABC on Saturday 15 February on Absolute Radio. Lexicon of Love, a one-hour special, is broadcast on 16 February at 9pm on Absolute 80s. Listen here.
Oscar Isaac on Inside Llewyn Davis and the impact of Bob Dylan
Absolute Radio DJ Pete Mitchell hears about the inspiration for the Coen Brothers' Oscar-nominated new movie
Inside Llewyn Davis is the new cinematic offering from the enigmatic Joel and Ethan Coen. It's inspired by the singer/songwriter Dave Van Ronk, a relative unknown to the mainstream but a folk luminary, who trawled the clubs, bars and cafés of Greenwich Village from the late 50s onwards until his death in 2002. He is now deemed “legendary”, and the film is loosely based on his posthumously published memoir, The Major of MacDougal Street. Born in Brooklyn in 1936, Van Ronk moved to the Village as a teenager and stayed. His debut album, Van Ronk Sings Ballads, Blues and a Spiritual, was released in 1959, leading Bob Dylan to pronounce that he “sang like a soldier of fortune and sounded like he paid the price”. His best known song is a cover of Fed Neil's Green, Green Rocky Road, which is used in the film. It’s a sparse, nervy and exquisite recording. View oEmbed on the source website I know it’s difficult to imagine a folk world without Dylan and this is exactly what the movie is all about. Set in the Village in 1961, it portrays an insular guarded and blinkered music scene that opposes change and is all about curating the folk songs of the old world. It was an intellectual and politically charged period but, dare I say it, slightly dull. It was a scene waiting for a charge of electricity and by 1966, much to the chagrin of the old establishment “Judas” Dylan had turned it up to 11. The folk messiah moved to New York in 1961 and began to play around various clubs in the Village. He wrote and performed Blowin' in the Wind for the first time at Gerde's Folk City in April 1962 – he was 21 at the time. The movie covers a particularly turbulent period in the life of a frustrated singer who doesn't want to move on and is teetering on a breakdown, meltdown or maybe both, in a world closing in on him. He is suffocating. View oEmbed on the source website Llewyn Davis is played by relative newcomer Oscar Isaac, who is totally believable as a paranoid singer who smells change and resents it: “It's a bit of an apocalyptic film, it’s a story about a man walking around in the end times before the rapture and the second coming when Dylan arrives on the scene, completely changing everything,” explains Oscar when I meet him in a posh Covent Garden Hotel. “The scene is changing and the floor is shifting from underneath him. This was a time when folk singers were preservationists, they were looking backwards and curating these old songs and bringing them to the forefront. Dylan arrived and looked backwards and forwards at the same time. Llewyn Davis plays the old songs and doesn't write anything new. Elements of the scene want to hear new songs and it's not what he does, so he spirals into an existential crisis.“ How did he prepare for his most important part to date, imitating or reimagining a semi-fictional folk singer at a pivotal time in the development of folk music? “I started playing in the village in little coffee shops and open mic nights and I met a musician who played with Van Ronk, who lives above the old Gaslight on MacDougall Street. I opened up for him and he gave me guitar lessons. I just immersed myself in the whole thing. I sang badly for many years, until I finally got to the tipping point where I began to sing OK. I had to learn a whole repertoire of Van Ronk songs, along with this style of guitar playing known as 'Travis picking', and of course it was nerve-racking.” This technique of playing the guitar is achieved by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips or fingernails or with picks attached to the fingers. Donovan taught John Lennon how to do it and you can hear him playing it on Julia and Dear Prudence from the White album. I move to the adjoining hotel room to talk to the musical director on the movie, the very tall singer/songwriter T Bone Burnett, who has played with Dylan and has a long illustrious 40-year career. We talk about the village and its importance in the emerging folk scene. He says: “I first arrived in Greenwich Village in the mid sixties and at that time it still remained unchanged, it was post Dylan so folk rock had happened and there were a lot more clubs by then, but it was essentially the same. There was a real sense of change but at the same time there were people who continually looked backward, the traditionalists if you like. The likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie could be seen hanging around Washington Square Park in the Village, along with the beat poets. At that time it was like a country town on Manhattan and people would gather around the park exchanging ideas and trying to move things forward. “We were all trying to work out who we were, when in walked Dylan who said this is the way we will do it, we will reinvent our music and make it real and relevant for now. Dylan understood that the history is in the DNA, it's not in the story telling, it’s in the characters of the people in the songs. Music is at its most powerful when it's creating identity.” I suggest the change was given a leg up by the British Invasion of 1964, which was spearheaded by the Beatles. Burnett responds: “You're right. America had been flattened after the assassination of JFK and the spirit the Beatles brought from England, was the exact same spirit that we were all able to reinvent ourselves with. It was an inspirational time.” Bob Dylan is one of the 20th century’s most important musical figures. His contribution to social and political issues, along with his huge canon of work, is unparalleled: “The first Dylan was Elvis Presley, he went back through the music of the 20th century and reinvented it in the same way Bob did,” beams T Bone. “Dylan had Elvis to work off, who knew how to take something old and completely make it new. It's amazing to think that we have been able to invent these great Johnny Appleseed characters. These guys, who grow up in a small town like Elvis in Memphis, Chuck Berry in St Louis or Robert Johnson in Mississippi, these guys grew up with nothing and they walked out of their houses with a song and they conquered the whole world. In Memphis in 1955 for instance, there were five guys: Sam Phillips, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. They had no college education and yet they changed the entire world. That's the power of music. Music confounds the machine.” Pete Mitchell talks to Oscar Isaac about his role in Inside Llewyn Davis on Saturday 25 January from 10pm on Absolute Radio and Sunday 26January at midday on Absolute Radio 60s. Listen here. Follow @RadioTimes
The Sex Pistols of fashion: the brothers behind label Gio-Goi
Absolute Radio DJ Pete Mitchell talks to the Donnelly brothers about the ups and downs of their fashion career
London has long been at the forefront of the fashion scene in the UK. Since the coffee bar culture and the birth of the teenager in the 1950s it has reigned supreme. During the 1960s Carnaby Street and “Swinging” London hit the heights with its mod look and target image, making front page news around the world. It was the birth of “Cool Britannia”. In the mid- to late-70s the capital was once again involved in another musical uprising. The beginnings of the punk movement began around the Kings Road in Chelsea at Sex, the notorious clothes shop headed by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. The safety pin coupled with John Lydon's sneer exemplified the movement and once again made front page news. When acid house arrived a decade later, the focus of attention switched to the north of England. It was during the 1980s that Manchester began to prise the fashion crown away from the capital. The dawning of the acid house movement and street clothing changed nightclubbing in Britain for ever, as the streetwise fashion guru brothers Anthony and Christopher Donnelly took charge. They were at the forefront of the new movement organising and promoted Manchester's first illegal warehouse party, which was attended by 1,500 people including New Order and Noel Gallagher. They were way ahead of the pack and their northern grit would take them right to the top of the fashion world. View oEmbed on the source website Through the acid house haze and illegal raves rose Britain's most credible clothing range, Gio-Goi, the brothers’ very own fashion range. Manchester became as cool as Paris, Milan and New York. I seem to remember for a while that everyone was wearing their clothing. Gio-Goi became as ubiquitous as the James flowered t-shirt design. The label became a worldwide phenomenon as the “Madchester” scene took hold when the likes of Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and New Order all began sporting the country’s coolest clothing brand. The Donnellys made the front page of Vogue, leading its editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman to proclaim, “Manchester's importance to fashion is unquestionable.” They were Britain’s answer to Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. In 1994 the brothers were arrested thanks to alleged connections to Manchester’s infamous Quality Street Gang; they were jailed and lost everything. In a classic rags to riches story they made a remarkable comeback in 2005 dressing the likes of Pete Doherty and Kate Moss, Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse, Arctic Monkeys and Liam Gallagher. The Gio-Goi brand went on to hit the top of the Sunday Times list Fast Track 100 in 2009 with an annual turnover of £19 million which would peak at £40 million, before eventually crashing, losing the Donnellys millions. Making more comebacks than Frank Sinatra, the brothers of fashion are now way down the road with their new business venture, Your-Own: a company set to become a billion-pound worldwide concern. They state “It's not a rags to riches story. Our story is that we have just kept on going. We are very resilient.” All is revealed in their fascinating biography, “Still Breathing”, the story of their rise and fall and rise again, which is out now. “Staying around and doing it was the thing. We never ever gave in, we dusted ourselves down and starting again” states Anthony. They sensationally made front page news in 1994 when ecstasy, heroin and guns were seized. Even the front cover of the book reads “From Organised Crime to Kings of Fashion”, accompanied by a picture of the brothers looking like the modern day Krays. Anthony isn’t that happy, “Me and Chris didn't agree on the layout, I didn't like the picture for instance, we look too menacing. We are really positive and hard working and don't judge a book by its cover, we were guilty by association. Most people who read the book are blown away with our story.” The street clothing pioneers have been described by Vivienne Westwood as “ambassadors of a generation” and I suppose having the backdrop of the Manchester music scene was the perfect grounding. Anthony said, “It's impossible to deny Manchester's influence and we found a way of exporting the 'Madchester' scene and its style. We ended up representing 'Cool Britannia' around the world.” The mid- to late-80s in Manchester was a unique time. The Hacienda and ecstasy were at their height, the music poured out of every bar, pub and club and the university applications almost trebled. The city was at the centre of youth culture in Europe and everybody wanted to go and experience what it had to offer. Inevitably, things moved on and people’s tastes changed. The brothers had to reinvent themselves. Anthony continues, “When I was growing up in Wythenshawe, Manchester, Ben Sherman was the thing. We all loved and wore their stuff and it was really significant. Now people look back on Gio-Goi with affection and nostalgia but we had to move on.” And move on they did. “2008/9 was a great period for us. Hanging around with Pete Doherty, Kate Moss and the Arctic Monkeys at Glastonbury was a high point. The picture of Amy Winehouse is one of my favourites and the image of Pete Doherty is a work of art. Ian Brown with the knuckle duster is also amazing. Our clothing was once again appealing to a new generation.” It's all about the here and now for the very likeable Donnellys, and their unquestionable self-belief and determination will see them conquer and succeed once again. “We continue to be active and Your-Own: is now a global company. You can see Wu-Tang Clan sporting it along with actor Michael Fassbender and Ian Brown. They all adore it,” says Anthony proudly. There are many facets and components that make a scene and what happened in the 80s was a coming together of many disparate groups and individuals to create something tangible and unique. Foremost it was about youth and music, compounded by a look and attitude, and for a while the fashion came first. It was an identifiable uniform that showed a real sense of unity and a common collective sharing of a time and space. Designing that look takes talent and a lorry load of attitude and the boys from Wythenshawe cut a swathe through it all. The Donnelly's were described as the Sex Pistols of fashion who made people look pretty, oh so pretty, and as they say, “it's not where you're from, it's where you're going.” Pete Mitchell's show is at 10pm on Saturdays on Absolute Radio. Listen live here.
Cocaine, fine wine and Viagra: Alan McGee's rock 'n' roll life
Absolute Radio DJ Pete Mitchell hears some of the outrageous stories from the Creation Records boss's new biography
The founder of one of the UK's most out-there and exciting record labels has just published his first memoir. Creation Stories: Riots, Raves and Running a Label is Glaswegian Alan McGee's story. The 300-page biography tells of his working-class beginnings and his out-of-control life in rock ‘n’ roll. He famously signed Oasis, as well as Primal Scream, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, Super Furry Animals and My Bloody Valentine. Talking with Alan is always a complete and utter joy. Only the other day we chatted for the best part of three hours about everything from family to the possibility of a Smiths reunion and his love of the new Morrissey biography. We covered the Stone Roses along with another truly hilarious McGee story about one of the most famous men in music — who shall remain nameless — who insisted that unless his promoter immediately supplied him with Viagra, he would refuse to go on stage. The promoter duly obliged and the international superstar went on at the SECC in front of 12,000 people with more than a smile on his face. There a hundreds of stories like these that never made the book; the lawyers had a field day. Everyone written about in this fascinating insight was sent a copy before publishing for approval and the majority went with it. I have heard many of those unpublished stories, and the ones left out for legal reasons are stuff of legend. “Someone suggested that I write a no-holds-barred account, naming names and incidents. It was suggested that I deposit it in a bank vault only to be published in the event of my death,” he says. I'm not sure if he's bluffing but he is always convincing. McGee is a brilliant raconteur who can talk the hind legs off a donkey. Noel Gallagher says of the man, “He gave me, and many people like me, a chance to change my life.” His oldest friend Bobby Gillespie states, “He was an instigator and motivator, a born upsetter.” We spend time talking about his addictions. His energy came from booze, pills, cocaine and music. His drug habits changed dramatically when Sony bought a 49 per cent share in Creation for £2.5 million. He explained, “Overnight I went from buying one gram of cocaine at a time to buying seven”. He was becoming very unpredictable. He was out of control and it was only a matter of time before it all caught up with him. On a flight to Los Angeles with his sister, and without any enhancements, the fear gripped him. His heart began pounding and he went into severe panic mode: “I felt like I was on a bad acid trip”. By the end of the 11-hour flight he was in a bad way. The paramedics who met him off the flight diagnosed him with “nervous exhaustion”; he was hallucinating and on the verge of a breakdown. It was rehab time back in London after a spell in hospital in LA. McGee recalls, “I knew when the guys in orange jumpsuits were putting the oxygen mask on me and carrying me out that I'd f***ked up.” Alan is now 53 and looks back at his past predicaments with great humour. He is self-deprecating and reverential and loves to take the mickey out of himself. He took his foot off the gas and straightened himself out and is now dry and drug-free but admits to drinking the odd tipple a few years back. I put it to him that at least he could afford to drink a decent bottle of wine. He said, “Yes that's right, but my problem was that it was two bottles a night, so that had to stop.” Alan is a voracious reader and I asked him what makes a good biography. He pondered, “I think humanity, to give something away about yourself, is what it's all about, that for me is what makes a great read. I think I explain in the book why I am the way I am, it's quite honest. One review said it was shockingly honest. It stands up as a book and I'm not embarrassed by it.” Reading the book you may well be shocked and inspired but he offers up something that you won't find anywhere else. “My career doesn't define me. I am many things to many people – a father, husband and brother and I have a lot of other interests. Making music is not about making money for me, it's because I want to do it,” he says. I was present at his book launch and there was an enormous amount of respect and love for the man in the room, something I think overwhelmed him a little. “To be honest with you I do find it quite hard, that kind of thing, because I'm Scottish and we just assume everybody hates us. I start from the basis that I expect nothing from anyone or anything.” As we while away the afternoon putting the world to rights we talk more about addiction. Alan is an addict. These days however, he is simply addicted to rock ‘n’ roll and will always be. Here's to volume two. You can hear Alan McGee talking to Pete this Saturday at 10pm on Absolute Radio.
The man who shot Jimi Hendrix, Kate Bush and Oasis: 50 years of photographer Gered Mankowitz
Absolute Radio DJ Pete Mitchell talks to the renowned music photographer about a half-century in pictures, accompanied by some of his most famous portraits
Renowned rock photographer Gered Mankowitz has just printed his half century in celluloid with a book called 50 Years of Rock and Roll Photography. Inspired to take up the profession by Peter Sellers, he opened his first studio in 1964 and found himself at the centre of “Swinging London”, the birth of Cool Britannia. He soon established himself as one of the most sought after music photographers, working with the Rolling Stones from 1964 to 67 and snapping the crème de la crème of British and American acts along the way. It’s hard to image now but the British music scene at that time was in its infancy and there was no precedent or blueprint mapped out for the burgeoning musical uprising. 1963 was a pivotal year for Gered; he began taking his first pictures at the same time as the Mersey Beat sound was being birthed. The Beatles had just released their second studio album and were touring with Helen Shapiro — they were fourth on the bill of 11 acts. The group trod onto American soil for the very first time in February of 1964, their stepping stone towards worldwide domination. This was an incredible achievement executed by a small number of creative individuals who were investing in the relatively new concept of “the teenager”. Mankowitz was one of those early architects and creators of “Swinging London”, giving Britain a cool image that was marketed with incredible effect around the world; it was brand Britain. He explains, “You didn't know what was happening. I think that a big part of it was that suddenly people of my generation felt empowered and that we had something to offer that the old establishment seemed to want.” He continues, “The realisation that within the stifled established music business of the time, certain individuals knew that there was a huge market out there to capitalise on and we needed to tap into it. They needed communicators, photographers, designers and art directors, who were plugged in naturally to the environment. We were given this extraordinary power, even as early as 1963 we were laying down the blueprint to what was to become this huge worldwide industry.” The British Invasion of America in late 1964 was a product of this fertile scene and its Svengalis like Brian Epstein, Andrew Loog Oldham, George Martin and Chris Blackwell. America and the rest of the world fell in love with the Beatles and British culture. The excitement that surrounded this period was palpable. Mankowitz remembers, “It was all new territory and everything was ground- breaking. Artists having control and a say about their career was completely new. You had these talented young music entrepreneurs and this extraordinary period for youth and energy for new ideas. It was amazing to be part of that, even if you had no sense that it was to go down in history.” To try and imagine what this “pre-Beatles fame” period was like is akin to describing the basics of thermonuclear dynamics, impossible to comprehend or convey. To think that at one point in time nobody knew what the faces of the soon to be “biggest band in the world” looked like. Yes, at one point John, Paul, George and Ringo could buy a tin of baked beans at the local corner shop without a whiff of hysteria. Mankowitz recalls this time by saying, “I first heard Please Please Me on the radio and it most definitely said something to me, but I had absolutely no idea what they looked like or who I was listening to. It sounds extraordinary now, but they had no image. “This was the world I was trying to be part of. I wanted to make images for these people and to reflect their passion and talent. Their music certainly struck a chord, but I had no idea who or what they looked like.” He went on to take some of the most iconic album cover photos and portraits in the history of music, from Jimi Hendrix to Kate Bush, and from Annie Lennox to Oasis and on. He’s seen the music industry change beyond all recognition, and the advent of the CD and downloading has had a damaging effect on his long, illustrious career. Less space to represent the artist has almost signalled the end of the album cover, another drastic effect of the ever-changing entertainment business. His last shot was taken three years ago with an artist called Patrick Wolf. “I was running out of steam and I knew I had lost a lot of my appeal to the contemporary music industry. The business has changed so dramatically and the CD, on to eventual downloading has brought about a huge change as to how bands are represented visually. “The 12-inch record cover was just a wonderful space for a photographer. I remember shooting a quadruple gatefold sleeve once. It was so amazing to have all of that space to be creative with. Now that important album cover is almost nonexistent.” Pete Mitchell presents Saturday Social on Absolute Radio every Saturday at 10pm. This week Pete talks to Pete Hook, bass player with Joy Division and New Order.
No ordinary person: Pete Mitchell talks to John Legend
The Absolute Radio DJ hears from the award-winning R&B star about church music, Michael Jackson and the origins of his biggest hit
American R&B superstar John Legend has just released his impressive fifth solo album Love in the Future. Since he first got his big break playing piano on Everything Is Everything, a track on the multimillion-selling album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the humble and reticent singer has gone on to sell records all over the world. Seven million in fact. His vocals can be heard on tunes by Jay Z, Alicia Keys, Dilated Peoples and Britney Spears. He also bears a striking resemblance to a young Marvin Gaye and has recently married his beautiful model wife Chrissy Teigen, who appears semi naked in the video to All of Me. Yes, he's got it all going on. View oEmbed on the source website John was born in 1978, so he missed Motown's golden years, although he was a Michael Jackson and a Boys II Men fan as a teenager and both acts were at one time signed to America’s greatest record label. He talks about the show he was working on with Stevie Wonder when the news came through that Jackson had died: “Stevie was so overcome. That night in concert he starting playing Michael Jackson records from the stage and the place erupted. He would play them from start to finish. It was very sad and yet incredible uplifting at the same time.” John is obviously in awe of the label and its incredible roster, and when you are short of inspiration all you have to do is put on a Motown record and the rest will look after itself. “We lived a few hours drive south from Detroit in Springfield, Ohio, so we are in the same cultural area of the states where Motown was born. My father was an auto worker just like the parents of the majority of musicians who worked at Hitsville.” John enthusiastically explains, “Growing up in the church and hearing Motown music was so important to me. I grew up around music, my grandmother was the church organist, my mom was the choir director, my grandfather was the minister, so the music of the church was a heavy part of my childhood. “That's where I developed my chops, as they say. My church was pretty small, maybe a few hundred members, and I became the director of music by the time I was a teenager. All of my band pretty much started out playing in church. It was so influential.” Growing up in Springfield — one of 11 Springfield townships in Ohio alone — the emerging hip hop scene was his biggest influence: “Hip hop was huge when I was growing up and new jack swing was very important to the kids on the street. Acts like Bobby Brown, Bell Biv Devoe into Jodeci, Boys II Men and Blackstreet, then into Mary J Blige and SWV, it was all happening. So that was the dominant form of music that my peers and I were listening and getting on down to in high school.” View oEmbed on the source website It’s not too difficult to ascertain just where his success lies. Young, talented, gifted kid brought up on gospel, Motown and hip hop meets Lauren Hill; bumps into Kanye West, who signs him to his label and writes one of the greatest songs of the modern era. It all sounds far too easy. His debut album Get Lifted was released on Kanye's Good Music label in 2004. The record sold an astonishing three million copies worldwide and bagged Legend a couple of Grammys, one being a gong for the Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for a song that changed his life for ever. View oEmbed on the source website John talks proudly about its origins: “We were in New York and Will.I.Am called me up one day and asked if I would like to come to the studio and write some hooks for the Black Eyed Peas. He plays me a whole bunch of beats and I begin to sing Ordinary People, just out of nowhere. “I started singing the melody first and then the words began to form and Black Eyed Peas were going to rap it. The more I thought about this new song, the more I thought I could write a really beautiful ballad around it. I asked Will if it was OK for me to record it and he said, ‘Yes, as long as I can produce it.’” “I’d just signed a record deal around then and in 2004 I went to Europe with Kanye West, and during every sound check I would work on the lyrics and music to Ordinary People. By the time the tour was over I had finished the song and those people who heard me singing it said it was a special song. I recorded the demo and sent it over to Will.I.Am and we never changed it. The demo is the version that you hear today and it became an anthem.” To write something as simple and as effective as Ordinary People doesn't happen everyday. To make it sound bare and exposed is an art form in itself and if it was that easy, we would all be doing it. So what is the secret of its mass appeal? John explains, “I think everybody feels it's about them and I always say that a great song is very personal and universal at the same time. It's not generic; it just connects with real life. These type of songs don't always come easy and yet you can just stumble into them.” You can hear Pete Mitchell in conversation with John Legend on Soul Time this Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 6pm on Absolute Radio 60s. Listen Live here Follow @RadioTimes
Return of the Mac: Pete Mitchell praises rock's Scottish Svengali, Alan McGee
The Absolute Radio DJ hears from the record label boss about discovering Oasis - and his latest signings
Scottish music Svengali, the irrepressible Alan McGee, returns to the fold with a new label, 359 Records, and his first autobiography, Creation Stories: Riots, Raves and Running a Label, which is out in early November. I can never be too sure whether Alan likes or hates the music business, but for now he's back and I'm glad about that. I have known him on and off for years; we used to DJ together at his Death Disco night at Notting Hill Arts Club and he has appeared on my radio shows many times over the years. He’s always exceptionally good value. His label, Creation Records, has gone down in the annuls of music history. He discovered Oasis, which is his defining musical moment, and he released records by the Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Scream, before selling on his label in 1999 and launching Poptones, signing the Hives and releasing their album, Your New Favourite Band, which crashed into the top 10 in 2002. View oEmbed on the source website There is more to McGee than meets the eye. He used to deal in drugs but these days dabbles in art and property instead and is now once again running his own record label. Alan is funny and a wonderful raconteur. He regaled me with a few tales that unfortunately will not make his forthcoming memoirs, due to legal reasons. One particular story about Knebworth had me rolling on the floor in laughter, gasping for air. His discovery of Oasis is legendary. Love them or loathe them, they inspired a generation with their anthems and antics and the very thing that made them stand out, the exhausting sibling rivalry of Noel and Liam, was the very thing that tore them apart. I am hearing rumours they have been offered a substantial amount to perform their greatest album, the debut Definitely Maybe, to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2014. Would anyone be surprised if a tour happened? Maybe not, but for me I think it's way too soon. Not enough time has elapsed in order to create "fever pitch", to have fans buying tickets up for thousands of pounds, for a nation to wait with bated breath to see the squabbling brothers back on stage one more time. This will eventually happen but it's some years off. For now we have the return of the Mac, the man with the Midas touch, the alchemist and soothsayer. Will he be able, one more time, to create a phenomenon, a cultural change? "You can never dictate was is going to happen because whatever you say you’re going to do, the opposite happens," beams McGee knowingly. "In a perfect world I will have a great roster and enjoy doing it, but what invariably happens is that something blows up and you have to deal with it and it has happened a lot of times to me." McGee recently said that there is more to him than the man who discovered Oasis but I put it to him that he does have the knack. "I've got the luck. I've been in the right place at the right time. Finding Oasis was just that. The way I remember that night is that I went to the gig to try and get off with my sister's mate, who was a model, but she never showed up so I just stuck around. This unknown Manchester band bullied their way onto the bill. I think King Tuts in Glasgow, the venue I saw them at that night, took pity on them and said you have driven a long way so go on and play. They were very moody and it was easier to let them play four songs than to tell them to go home. I could have easily not seen them and it could have been a whole different story. It was a total fluke." View oEmbed on the source website Fluke or not, if this kind of thing happened to me with alarming regularity, then surely I would be tempted, periodically, to go out and see if I could wave my magic wand, so to speak, and discover the next big thing. So is Alan once again rubbing his hands together maniacally? "We have six new acts and a whole roster of people waiting in the wings. The first six signings were acts I already knew about. My first signing John Lennon McCullagh, and that's his real name by the way, he is from Doncaster and was introduced to me by his father. He got in touch with me on Facebook and I ended going to DJ in Rotherham and to see John senior play. I drove up and it was a terrible venue and there were about 30 people there. Big John asked me if his 13-year-old son could play before him. I thought this is Rotherham, only 30 people are here and it can't get any worse than this. I thought to myself, 'Oh no, I better think of something nice to say, no matter how bad he is.' "John Lennon McCullagh Junior went on and nailed it. He played a few Bob Dylan songs and finished by playing The Masterplan by Oasis and he nailed that too. I said to him immediately that he should go away and write his own songs and consequently he became the very first signing to my new label." View oEmbed on the source website They say things always come full circle. Will Alan and his new venture bear fruit? Only a fool would bet against that happening. For me it's just good to have him back in circulation and maybe just maybe, something big is about to happen. Welcome back to the fold, Alan McGee. Catch Pete Mitchell on Saturdays from 10pm for Saturday Social on Absolute Radio. You can also hear him on Absolute Radio 90s from 8pm on Saturdays for Pete Mitchell’s 24 Hour Party People. absoluteradio.co.uk/listen Follow @RadioTimes // //
Pete Mitchell pays tribute to the late, great Tony Wilson
The Absolute Radio DJ uses the 6th anniversary of the death of one Anthony H Wilson as an opportunity to look back on the life of Manchester's answer to Diaghilev
This month marked the 6th anniversary of the death of TV presenter and music entrepreneur Tony Wilson. From his devil may care style of TV presenting to his chaotic running of his record label, to the shambolic financially draining and influential night club the Hacienda, the man will never be forgotten – and if one or two leading luminaries get their way, we will see a permanent memorial to him. My attention was drawn to his anniversary by singer songwriter Richard McNevin-Duff on last Saturday's show who, along with his band the Space Monkeys, was signed to Tony's legendary label Factory Records (he started the company with the inheritance of £12,000 left to him by his mum). For me it was very satisfying to hear from one of his fledglings inspired by Wilson and his legacy years down the line, and still making music under his new guise as Giant Star (check out Happy Pills on iTunes). Richard owes his life in music to Tony, as so do an army of others including Joy Division/New Order, Happy Mondays and Duritti Column. The city and its people owe a great debt to his legendary efforts and shenanigans and of course to his eternal spouting off, to anyone who would listen, about tales and talent from his beloved metropolis in the north. The ubiquitous Anthony H entered my life through What's On, his weekly tea-time music slot on Granada Reports. He would feature non-mainstream new music on his fifteen-minute slot, much to the chagrin of his myopic bosses. The one thing I found off-kilter was his theme music, Bruce Springstein's Born to Run – but then he always was contrary. He would introduce anyone from Magazine, Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop, Joy Division and Blondie. Seeing Debbie Harry for the very first time on early evening TV in a leather mini-skirt, thigh-high boots and a shock of blonde hair, whilst my mum was frying chips in the kitchen, is something that is indelibly etched onto my fading memory. Tony looked besotted. When I was an apprentice electrician I would ring him up at Granada and leave a message about some band I had heard and seen and he would get back to me days later. He would stand near me in the Stretford End at Old Trafford every other weekend. We got to know each other better when I landed my first radio job at Manchester's Piccadilly Radio. I still have many hours of Tony and I talking, what can only be described as 'a load of old bollocks'. He was a master of that and we all loved the guy. I also got to appear on his televised debate show a few times over the years and I think fondly about one particularly surreal heated debate on the Prodigy's controversial video to Smack My Bitch Up alongside art critic Brian Sewell. Tony's stories and antics are legendary. I could tell you many tales about his black nail-varnish or his water-only diet when he was at Jesus College Cambridge, or him wading in about legalising drugs in front of James Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, during a meeting when the Hacienda licence was up for renewal. It was, unsurprisingly, revoked. Terry Christian weighed in on Twitter with a link to a great article on his website about Tony and the lack of a memorial to the most important Manchester music magnate. DJ Dave Haslam also commented 'He made this city a better place, more cultural, more musical, more exciting. He opened doors for people; he was a great enabler, although he had an ego like everybody else'. Tony was self-effacing, pretentious, aloof and funny and when I put it to him that he was responsible for so much many years ago, he raised an eyebrow and launched into one of his long diatribes: "When did I say I was responsible for any of this? I take the blame for everything from people's deaths to putting the Hacienda stage in the wrong place to building a metal detector on the door that never worked. That's why I get called a twat quite a lot. I've always said that Rob Gretton wanted to build the Hacienda and I tried to stop him. I can't write songs, I can't design sleeves but you could say that I was a Diaghilev figure (Russian promoter of the arts who revitalised ballet by integrating the ideals of other art forms like music and painting). I like to think that I was a Graham Nash type figure. When he joined up with the geniuses that were Crosby, Stills and Young after he left the Hollies, it is said that he was the glue that joined them all together. So maybe I was a Nash type character of the eighties, glueing all these talented folks together." Tony was a silent member of the Duritti Column, the first band he signed to his label in 1979. In those days nobody really signed contracts, although it's rumoured that the members of Joy Division signed a piece of paper in blood. Tony went on to describe his contribution to the group: "Drummer with Duritti Column, Bruce Mitchell, describes my relationship with founder member Vini Reilly over twenty years as like watching Van Gogh paint, while some geezer lurks over his shoulder shouting 'no, no not that green mate, the other green.'" I'm not entirely sure about a bronze statue to commemorate the great man, I don't think it's his style. Perhaps a free working space for underprivilged young aspiring musicians, artists and creatives in the city centre, financed by the arts council and private sponsorship, along with a permenant exhibition of his life and work. As for a street or building to be named after him, I think the Mancunian Way should be renamed 'The Tony Wilson Way'. God bless you Anthony H. Catch Pete Mitchell on Absolute Radio on Saturdays from 10pm, and on Absolute Radio 90s from 8pm on Saturdays for Pete Mitchell’s 24 Hour Party People
Chance, coincidence and Green Onions: Pete Mitchell on Otis Redding and Stax Records
The Absolute Radio DJ hears from Booker T and the MGs rhythm guitarist Steve Cropper about his first meeting with the soul legend
Memphis, Tennessee, is the home of Stax Records, the studio and label that discovered one of the most magnificent singers this world has ever heard, Otis Redding. They also produced some of the greatest soul music of 1960s America. Along with Motown in Detroit, Atlantic in New York, Chess records in Chicago and Fame down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, they released records that went on to sell millions of copies worldwide. American R&B was as popular as Elvis and the Beatles, and Motown boss Berry Gordy observed, he knew who he was making records for and how to sell black music to white America, and the competition copied him. When you listen back to, say, Marvin, Aretha, Sam, Ray, Etta, Diana and Smokey, it's incredible to think that these artists and labels were releasing conveyer belt-style music almost daily struggling to cope with the enormous demand. It was the zenith of the 7'' single and teenagers bought them as regularly as a loaf of bread and a packet of cigarettes. When I was younger, aunties and uncles, older brothers and sisters, would proudly boast of how many Motown and Stax records they owned; it was kudos and currency all at the same time and above all, it was very cool getting on down to American soul music. Having trawled America making documentaries on this particular subject, what fascinates me most is how this actually happened: how did Berry Gordy gather so much talent in one place? What vision did Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, the owners of Stax, have (look carefully at their names and you will see where the name of their company came from)? What I was looking for was the elixir, the magic potion, a secret locked away in the vaults of a large bank safe that explains how it was all done. They more I searched, the more cases of “chance” and “coincidence” seemed to crop up. This revelation was compounded recently when I met producer, songwriter, rhythm guitarist extraordinaire and founding member of the Stax house band Booker T and the MGs, Steve Cropper. He was a lifelong friend of Otis Redding and co wrote (Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay, Mr Pitiful and Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song), among many others. Steve was raised on country music and little else in Dora, Missouri, before moving with his family to Memphis for work in the early 1950s. Hearing gospel, R&B and the newly emerging rock ‘n’ roll sound for the first time, he was captivated. Cropper began copying Chuck Berry riffs and, along with a school friend, formed the Royal Spades, who eventually renamed themselves as the Mar-Kays and scored a national hit with Last Night. He also had a part-time job at Stax, which led to him forming one of the greatest rhythm sections of all time, Booker T and the MGs. They recorded Green Onions in 1962, which went on to become one of the best-known mod anthems of all time. View oEmbed on the source website His first encounter with Otis could have been so different but for an unusual set of circumstances. In 1963, Steve and the other MGs were going about their daily duties searching for a groove to put on a song, when all of a sudden a big black Cadillac screeched to a halt, pulling up outside Stax to drop off a group called Johnny Jenkins and the Pine Tops, who were signed to Atlantic and, under the insistence of label boss Jerry Wexler, had come down to Memphis in search of a follow up to their first big hit, Love Twists. Steve takes up the story: “I saw this big, tall guy jump out of this Cadillac, go to the trunk and start offloading microphones and amps, he looked like he was setting up for a gig. He was chauffeuring the band around town and his name was Otis Redding. All day long Redding was bugging MGs drummer Al Jackson to hear him croon. ‘Well, maybe later, after the session ends. If we have time, we'll hear you sing,’ replied Al. “The recording ended and we decided to give him a go. I sat down at the piano and Otis asked me to play a few church chords, as he called them, and off he went. I hit a big B flat and he burst into These Arms of Mine, and wow that was it,” beams Cropper. Can you imagine being right there at that moment, a moment in musical history that changed soul music for ever? “Can you imagine, the hair on the back of my neck and arms stood on end. I bolted up from the piano and said to him, ‘Stay there, don't move, don't even leave the building!’ I ran out to catch bassist Duck Dunn who was loading his guitar into his car before heading off home. I shouted, ‘Get that guitar back into this damn studio, now! We've got work to do.’ “We gathered the assembled MGs in the studio and recorded These Arms of Mine right there and then. It was an unforgettable experience.” A lifelong friendship began that day, which lasted until Redding's untimely death at the age of 26 in 1967. For many at Stax Records, the death of Otis signalled the end of the label, it was like being woken up from a magnificent dream. So was this a pure case of chance or coincidence, could Otis have knocked on another studio door and received the same reception with the same conclusion? Maybe not. Chance or coincidence, you still need a modicum of talent to shine through, but looking back you automatically assume that Otis would have made it whatever happened. Just think how many failed Otis's there are out there, awaiting their one chance to prove that they are one of the greatest singers that ever lived and don't get the chance to shine. Yes, making it needs talent, but you also need that chance meeting, that weird coincidence, that one-off strange coming together of disparate, like-minded people. Pete Mitchell talks to Steve Cropper this Saturday at 10pm on Absolute Radio
Cool it for a minute: the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park, then and now
Absolute Radio DJ Pete Mitchell looks back the Stones gig in Hyde Park in 1969 and hears from Mick Jagger backstage at this year's concert
The current phase of the Rolling Stones’ 50 and Counting world tour goes on hiatus after their second sellout Hyde Park show this Saturday. Last week's show was hailed as “biblical” in some quarters, as 60,000 fans went home sunburnt and happy, safe in the knowledge that they had witnessed a performance by one of the greatest bands of the 21st century. Much has been said and written about the Stones first historical performance in the park some 44 years earlier, which according to some sources was attended by nearly a half a million people. How could the Tube, cabs and buses cater for that amount of people in one place at one time, virtually without incident? There has been much debate about the sound levels in the park — “turn it up” is the usual mantra from the crowd these days as noise pollution threatens all of human existence. You may remember the farcical “pulling of the plug” during Bruce Springsteen's duet with Paul McCartney as they audaciously dared sneak past the nightly 10.30 noise curfew one Saturday evening last year. Bruce had introduced Macca by saying “I've been waiting for this for 50 years,” just before silence fell over the park minutes later. Forty-four years previously, in July 1969, the Stones performed at a free outdoor festival in the park in front of a sea of human beings that stretched back as far as the eye could see. Check out the excellent Granada TV documentary filmed on the day. View oEmbed on the source website Dressed in an Ozzie Clark white outfit, Jagger opened with a eulogy to the recently deceased Brian Jones. He had died a few days earlier in a mysterious swimming pool incident at his home in Sussex. He was just 27. Mick quelled the over-excited crowd by telling them to “cool it for a minute”, then recited a Shelley poem and released hundreds of butterflies into the park. This gesture caused some consternation within the botanical and park keepers’ world, as Mick explained to me backstage before last week's show. “It was a sad occasion but a wonderful gig attended by lots of wonderful people, but the releasing of the butterflies didn't go down very well with the park keepers. We got complaints from the park because they didn't know we were going to do it, and they were of course the wrong kind of butterfly, which went on to eat the wrong kind of things.” The Rolling Stones not only threatened the establishment but the entire ecosystem of Hyde Park. Looking back at the event through the camera lens of the Granada TV doc, it looks as if health and safety had yet to be invented. Hundreds of fans were clinging on to the branches of the trees without any fear of what might have happened if they gave way; very few police officers seemed to be in attendance; and the PA, or the “amplification” as it was known then, was suitable for a village church hall — and yet no one complained. It was organised chaos, even the tiny stage that the Stones performed on looked woefully inadequate — it could have easily crumpled under the weight of the amount of people on stage alone. Adding to all of this, the band had not performed live in almost two years. When you consider what happened in December of that year at Altamont in northern California, this ramshackle show was a complete and utter triumph. I can find no record of any arrests or incidents that day apart from the controversial releasing of the butterflies by the not-too-eco-savvy lead singer. View oEmbed on the source website Sitting backstage a few days before the first of their two Hyde Park shows with Mick Jagger in the office Portakabin of the Stones, you realise that this is a quantum leap from the lackadaisical free show of 1969. The Rolling Stones are a global brand, bigger now than they have ever been, and are up there with the likes of Coca-Cola and Apple in terms of awareness. The backstage area is impressive as hundreds of ant-like workers and assorted PAs, PRs, secretaries and assistants come together to make this one of the greatest music shows on Earth. And sitting at the epicentre is a man about to celebrate his 70th birthday: Mick Jagger. He is relaxed, looks healthy and is in total control of this well-oiled machine. How long can this rock ‘n’ roll circus go on for, is the burning question. Reading between the lines it seems to me that this 50 and Counting tour is far from over, maybe even only half way through. When you consider that 80 per cent of the audiences are seeing the band for the very first time, then surely they will roll out the show into Europe and beyond later this year and into 2014 and maybe just maybe beyond. I enquire as to the band’s future plans and Mick is a little guarded but offers up a hint of what may be around the corner. “I'm always writing new songs, so hopefully we'll record some one of these days. Maybe there will be things beyond that, but right now this is the summer and I'm looking forward to these shows in the park. We will then have a bit of a break,” he says with a glint in his eye. On present form you would not rule out the 70 and Counting tour. When the dreaded day comes and the nuclear warheads drop, eradicating the world and all its contents, the only things to survive will be cockroaches, the Rolling Stones and perhaps the odd butterfly on the wheel. Hear Pete Mitchell celebrating 50 years of the Rolling Stones this Saturday at 10pm on Absolute Radio – absoluteradio.co.uk/listen
2-4-6-8 celebrate: Pete Mitchell on Tom Robinson and Rock against Racism
The Absolute Radio DJ recalls the Tom Robinson Band's fight for equality and headline set at the first Rock against Racism gig
EMI have just released the Tom Robinson Band Anthology 1977-79, a four disc box set that contains both TRB albums, singles, sessions, live concerts and a hour-long Granada TV documentary broadcast in 1978. I worked briefly with Tom at BBC 6 Music and always found him affable and generous with his time; he was always excited by new music and would chat quite happily about something exciting that he had received in the post that day. He is a great champion of the up and coming and radio needs more of his type. I remember his debut hit single 2-4-6-8 Motorway in 1977, the year the band formed, which through a series of lucky breaks and plenty of diehard support from their then loyal following, hit the charts. We all enjoyed his uplifting sing-along ditty which sat rather uncomfortably among the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and the Clash, who were all part of the punk movement, and the Tom Robinson Band were part of this so-called attack on the establishment. View oEmbed on the source website He was miscast in this new musical uprising. For one Tom was older and maybe more wiser — his first foray into music was a semi-folk outfit called Cafe Society who were bizarrely signed to Konk Records and produced by Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks. The project never really got off the ground. The thing about Robinson is that he had a conscience, he wanted to strive for fairness and equality in society, and had good reason to follow this turbulent and uncomfortable path. “For me, having grown up gay in 1960s Britain, where you could be imprisoned for falling in love with a person of the same sex, was very tough, but I started to embrace gay liberation when I came to London in the 70s,” explains Tom enthusiastically, “but it wasn't just about gay liberation, it was also about combating racism and inequality, it was about giving a voice to people who were marginalised by mainstream society. We were fighting for a fairer world. The Tom Robinson Band were about a fair society for everyone.” His band logo is a direct lift of the black clenched fist logo of the Black Power movement that was prominent in the late 60s and early 70s and which went a long way in improving race relations in America and beyond. The first time I became aware of the movement was during a presentation of the medals of the 200-metres race at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, where athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised a black gloved clenched fist for the entire American national anthem after they were awarded their medals on the podium in front of the world’s media. It was the most bold, brave and controversial political statement in the history of the Olympics. In 1978 at Victoria Park in east London, Rock Against Racism held its very first open air concert. The movement had started in 1976 as a reaction to the now infamous remarks bleated out on stage in Birmingham by Eric Clapton (Clapton had made a declaration of support for Conservative minister Enoch Powell, telling his audience they should vote for Powell to stop Britain from becoming a “black colony”, before descending into racist epithets). 80,000 people turned out to watch the Clash, Buzzcocks, X Ray Spex and the Tom Robinson Band perform. Billy Bragg was in the audience that day and was inspired so much, that he began his musical career that day. He was inspired not by the Clash but by Tom stepping up to the microphone, backed by the 80,000 supporters, and breaking into Sing If You're Glad to Be Gay. It was a moment. View oEmbed on the source website “It was a very jittery time. We had the three-day working week, a discredited government who were stumbling from crisis to crisis, far right-wing parties marching through the streets of immigrant areas, beating up residents, and it felt like the whole country could go down the pan. There was a real sense of fear and menace but also one of opportunity to change things.” Robinson recalls. “The Rock Against Racism gig for me was a very proud moment. We didn't get paid, it was not a big corporate gig, there was no hospitality and no changing rooms. We had no idea how many people would turn up; we were expecting about 20,000. It was an important thing to do, it was important to stand up to the National Front. The spirit of the event was so great.” I seem to remember that the refuse collectors were on strike and our streets were waist high in rubbish, Johnny Rotten had been stabbed and the Pistols had been talked about in the House of Commons. It was a very gloomy black and white time but there was a wind of change in the air. What Rock Against Racism did was give me a real sense of change, hope that everything will turn out fine if we collectively make a statement of intent, that we will not tolerate injustice, racism, inequality and homophobia. Tom heralded change. The Tom Robinson band headlined the concert, which caused a little consternation with the support act, as Tom recalls. “The Clash were a little moody about the whole thing and kicked off because they wanted to headline, because they felt they were more important, and indeed they were. They played over their allotted time and my set was disappearing against the curfew. In the end my manager pulled the plug on them. The Tom Robinson Band went down in history as the bad guys that pulled the plug on the Clash because we were jealous of them. Which is so far from the truth.” Hear Tom Robinson in conversation with Pete Mitchell this Saturday at 10pm on Absolute Radio. Listen live here: www.absoluteradio.co.uk/listen
What's going on?: Pete Mitchell on the first Isle of Wight festival and his most memorable gig ever
The Absolute Radio DJ looks forward to this weekend's Isle of Wight festival and recalls the best worst gig he ever attended
This weekend Absolute Radio decamps to the Isle of Wight for the annual weekend festival of live music, fun and frolics. Headline acts the Stone Roses, the Killers and Bon Jovi will entertain the 60,000 gig goers. This historic festival began in 1969 and featured Bob Dylan, who had been recovering from a motorcycle accident three years earlier. The rumour was that he might never play live again. Woodstock began that year and it was almost a given that Dylan would make his comeback there. The promoter put on the monumental gig at Yasgur's farm in White Lake, New York, a few miles from where Dylan lived, in the hope of enticing him to play. The expectation was mounting. It was one the most important gigs of all time – and Bob Dylan was nowhere to be seen. He gave Woodstock the middle finger and headed for the Isle of Wight, leaving on the day it began. The spindly Jesus-like figure performed in front of an estimated 150-250,000 followers and he could have parted the English channel. It was the second coming. View oEmbed on the source website For those that attended this messianic happening, it must have been extraordinary. This got me thinking about my gig-going experiences. One night stands out like no other. It was not necessarily the best performance, but the one that means more to me than any of the other thousands of gigs I have attended over the years. The most important gig of my life happened at ABC Theatre Manchester (now the Apollo) in September 1976. It was a grey day as my mate Tony and I boarded the orange and white 205 bus from Dane Bank, Denton, passing through Gorton and Belle Vue Zoo along the way, to the ABC Cinema some 15 minutes away. Tony was wearing a fairly expensive long leather black jacket that his parents had bought him. I looked bedraggled next to him and I was totally jealous of it. We had seats in the front row of the stalls and the tickets cost six quid each. We were looking down on to the stage, which had an orchestra and band set up, and the atmosphere was heavy and the smell of weed was all around. As the house lights went down Andy Peebles of Piccadilly Radio introduced one of the most important artists in music history. Everybody jumped to their feet. From stage right, wearing a suit and a little red beanie hat, came Marvin Gaye. The crowd applauded him for what seemed like an eternity. He soaked up the applause but you could tell he wasn't enjoying himself. 1976 was Marvin's annus horribilis. As well as heavy drug addiction, his marriage was on the rocks. He was about to be imprisoned for the non-payment of child support owing to his then wife Anna, the sister of his Motown boss Berry Gordy. Compounded with tax problems with the IRS and paranoia, this put Marvin in bad shape. The effects of eating junk food and addiction could be seen on his face. His appearance looked drawn and swollen. Marvin was not in a good place. Reputedly Motown and Smokey Robinson bailed Marvin out and it was suggested that he leave America to avoid prosecution and possible incarceration. Marvin was virtually on the run. Bizarrely he ended up in Ostend in Belgium living with promoter Jeffrey Kruger and his family. For a short while he would repair his mind, body and soul. His promoter friend arranged a European tour to start in September of '76, that included a long-awaited tour of England, the first in ten years. Back at the ABC, the orchestra and band started up and we were strangely treated to medley after medley. I was hoping that he would perform most of my all time favourite album What's Going On, but he didn't. He ran through his duet hits with a nondescript female singer, who to be fair had to dauntingly sing like Tammi Terrell. The songs were very painful for Marvin to sing and you could tell it was a struggle. Tammi had collapsed into Marvin's arms as the two performed at Hampden Sydney College in Virginia in 1967. She was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died in 1970 aged 24. Her death affected him deeply and he never got over it. You could feel his pain. View oEmbed on the source website However, there were a few standout, rapturous moments. He played versions of What's Going On, Inner City Blues, I Want You and I Heard It through the Grapevine, and the crowd adored him. For me it was a little disappointing. I had expected something far greater and I felt somewhat short-changed. With hindsight I now totally appreciate how it took Marvin every ounce of energy to get on the stage that night. He was weak and scared. I later read that he climbed out of a window that night and tried to escape. He ran off down Hyde Road but was recaptured by the promoter and returned. The full house was totally unaware of his fragile state. As Marvin took his bow and left the stage to a standing ovation, the house lights flickered on and Tony turned around to pick up his beautiful, long leather coat and it was gone. It had been stolen and I was secretly pleased, he looked just too cool in it. To this day his mum and dad think I was behind the theft. So the night ended on a high as we boarded the bus home, Tony bereft and I delighted. Listen to Pete Mitchell on Absolute Radio at 10pm Saturday night with highlights from the Isle of Wight Festival absoluteradio.co.uk/listen
Should I deal or should I no? Pete Mitchell on the Clash
The Absolute Radio DJ talks to the remaining members of the influential punk band about Joe Strummer and the delights of Deal or No Deal
The Clash release Sound System, a box set of the band's entire re-mastered works on 9 September. Conceived and compiled by the band, it's a unique collection by one of the most influential British groups of all time. The collection is a powerful and significant reminder of the band's enduring and important political legacy. A legacy that grows and does not diminish. Their music is just as powerful now as it was then when they first entered the fray with White Riot in March 1977. Time distorts this historical moment. Looking at the hit parade from that month, Leo Sayer was at number one with the saccharine When I Need You, Julie Covington belted out Don't Cry for Me Argentina and Mary MacGregor was Torn between Two Lovers. The only tune to cause any stirrings was David Bowie's glorious Sound and Vision. Yes, 1977 was the year of punk but the biggest selling single was Mull of Kintyre by Wings. David Soul was that year's poster boy. The impact that punk had on the top 40 was negligible. Although the Sex Pistols were deemed by the press, government and the majority of the country in Jubilee year as the anti-Christ, they should have crashed into the charts at number one with their second single God Save the Queen. Banned by the BBC and commercial radio it was the biggest selling single of Jubilee week but was mysteriously relegated to number two as the powers that be installed Rod Stewart's I Don't Want to Talk About It at number one. View oEmbed on the source website White Riot reached a lowly 38 on the charts, but it heralded a change. Punk protested against the monarchy and aristocracy and highlighted youth unemployment, racism and injustice. Culturally and politically punk was at the centre of everything. The Labour government of the time thought that this nasty youth uprising would fizzle and burn out as quickly as it arrived. As I sit in front of the assembled three remaining members of the Clash, reunited for the first time in 20 years, I think about the current politicians that cite the band as an influence. I'm not going to waste valuable editorial space name checking the culprits, but they know who they are. Sitting happily is ace bassist Paul Simonon, looking very dapper I have to say, guitarist/vocalist/genius Mick Jones and one of the most technically inventive punk drummers of all time, Topper Headon. View oEmbed on the source website What is striking as we sit down to talk is that there is not a mention of politics, or that breakthrough year of '77, or how times have changed. What I witness is three immensely talented, emotional individuals, talking about the legacy of punk's most articulate ambassador Joe Strummer. No "we did this, they did that" malarkey, just pure unadulterated affection for lead singer Joe, who died from a heart arrhythmia in 2002. The gaping hole is there, it's an enormous vacuum, but that vacuum is filled with love and admiration. You can feel Joe floating around, he could walk in at any moment, late because his cab had not turned up. The atmosphere is strange until the spell is temporarily broken by the hairy face of Noel Edmonds who appears on the TV monitor presenting the latest edition of Deal or No Deal. For a few moments we are transfixed. "Now, twenty six grand, that's a good offer," exclaims Mick. I regale them with the tale of my son's girlfriend's appearance on the show and how much she won. "If she had carried on, how much could she have won?" Paul asks quizzically. "A hundred and twenty grand," I reply. Jaws drop. I compose myself and turn off the hairy face of Edmonds and get down to the job in hand. Paul stares at the blank screen, disappointed that I have ended our little shout at the TV game. It's just lovely hanging out with one of the greatest bands ever and I save my questions about Joe until the end of the interview. Sadness descends as I ask them individually what he meant to them and their lives. "He is irreplaceable," says Topper. "And working on this anthology has made me realise just how irreplaceable he really is. Paul brought the style and the visuals, Mick brought the music and Joe brought the political cutting edge." Mick pipes up: "And Topper was 'le battery', he was the engine that kept us going. We were lucky because we found each other. We came out of nowhere and it's not easy to quantify what happened between the four of us." Paul is looking upset and chokes a little with his reply, "He was one of my best friends really. We experienced a lot together and it's very difficult to talk about Joe. I've lost a lot of friends and you never get over it. You just come to terms with it." We end our conversation a little sad. We all miss Joe. We regroup to have the obligatory photo. As I find myself posing with the group Paul quips, "Come and stand here where Joe should have been." It was all too much. Listen to Pete Mitchell every Saturday night at 10pm on Absolute Radio – www.absoluteradio.co.uk/listen.
Standing up for Sit Down: Pete Mitchell on James
The Absolute Radio DJ looks back at the unconventional career path of the Manchester mavericks
James have retreated into the confines of the recording studio to begin work on a possible new album that will follow up the experimental, simultaneous release of The Night Before and The Morning After in 2010. This current burst of creativity comes off the back of a much lauded and highly successful tour which saw them reconnecting with their loyal, fanatical, obsessive followers. I know it's a well worn and tatty old phrase but this band have always done it their way. Their ubiquitous flowered emblem t-shirt was a hit even before most people had even heard of, let alone seen, them. Every student in every refectory sported one. Never a band to flirt with convention, they reluctantly took a slow seven-year path to chart success in the early 90s and instructed their audience to Sit Down — obligingly they did. Their recent tour has featured Echo and the Bunnymen as support, which at first glance seems a little incongruous but they both have a number of similarities. They came out of "scenes", they were student-land superstars and their respective front men have a hint of the messiah complex about them. They are defiantly both eccentric and quintessentially English. The effervescent guitarist and fellow Dentonian (a small hatting town in Manchester where we both grew up) Larry Gott, shines some light on the subject when we meet. "You don't often see two bands of this calibre on the same stage, but for some critics it seemed off-balance, almost a mismatch. I guess there was some resentment towards us from the reviewers because historically the Bunnymen are influential and are much more quoted, whereas James don't have the same kudos and we are not thought of in the same light. I thought about this. Why is it that they have that perspective and we don't? I think we are seen as mavericks and mavericks are not as powerful as the movement. The Bunnymen were important and part of that Mersey/Indie movement, possibly the most important group of their generation. The whole Madchester scene helped our career no doubt, but we were an aside. As mavericks who stand alone, we are that. When I look at our career path I can't think of anyone who has one similar. We are seven individuals, we are not cohesive and we don't have that leader mentality or one vision, but I think we are respected." Pour moi, James epitomise a movement and its inherent spirit. Drama student Tim Booth, an unsure, misplaced youth straight out of an oppressive private education in Shrewsbury, comes to Manchester in search of enlightenment and freedom. They only thing he can do is dance. Isolated and alone he trawls the cheap clubs and bars just doing his own weird thing. He is randomly spotted at an indie student disco, manically dancing like someone possessed. He is then asked to join a local band called James as their front man and he can't even sing, never has up to this point. This is how scenes and stars are made, and the band were right there at the epicentre of the "Madchester" movement, a few years down the line. The rise from those early t-shirt days, packed shows, Morrissey declaring his undying love for the band (he took them out as support on the Meat Is Murder tour), the Smiths covering an early James song, What's the Word, to their eventual mainstream breakthrough, is nothing short of miraculous. View oEmbed on the source website In December 1990 on a freezing snowbound night at Manchester Central (G-Mex), the crowd filtered into the former railway station. The heat begins to dry off the soaking wet clothing of the ever faithful, causing a heavy condensation to hang in the air. It's as heavy as a thick smog and the floor is drenched. You can imagine that this scene resembles that of the opening day of this railway station in 1880, when it became the northern terminus for services to London St Pancras. Energy, steam and the expectation of the crowd. The mounting excitement is palpable. As the lights turn to illuminate the blinking audience, Tim Booth stands at the edge of the huge stage and with a simple hand gesture commands the audience of 12,000 people to sit down. Slowly and orderly and in great swathes, they begin to hit the deck en masse in their James t-shirts and Joe Bloggs flared jeans. A weird calm descends as Booth quietly sings in an almost lullaby fashion. You could almost hear the proverbial pin drop. Then slowly and meticulously the band start to gather pace, hearts begin beating faster and faster as the anticipation swells and vibrates. Manchester is about to hit 8.5 on the Richter scale. As the group crash back into the big chorus it's like 5,000 volts of electricity has coursed its way through the crowd. Instantly 12,000 wet arses jump to their feet, arm in arm, singing and pointing up at the band in total admiration, "Oh sit down, oh sit down, sit down next to me." It's cathedral like. Although now it seems slightly farcical, it was a moment when the whole auditorium was at one. The connection between band and audience was complete, and centre stage, in the eye of the storm was that slightly odd-looking misfit student, who had previously been seen dancing manically all alone, as people looked on bewildered and bemused. Pete Mitchell talks to James this Saturday at 10pm 11th May on Absolute Radio.
One of the greatest songs ever written: Pete Mitchell on Love Will Tear Us Apart
The Absolute Radio DJ starts his new regular column with a paean to Joy Division's anthem
Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division is undoubtedly one of the greatest songs ever written. Only the foolish would argue it has little or no merit. Released on Tony Wilson's Manchester record label Factory, a chaotic and shambolic company formed with his aunt's inheritance in 1978, it could have quite easily been long-lost and forgotten, if not for the surrounding set of tragic, heartbreaking circumstances. Joy Division defied commercial conventions and pop pretensions and are one of the most original and uncompromising bands this country has produced. The band to this day remain a powerful presence and absence. They were the musical half-light, bathed in a grey, mysterious and perturbing shadow, and Love Will Tear Us Apart reflects a band at their creative zenith. This generational anthem was written in late 1979 and produced by Martin Hannett at Pennine Studios in Oldham in January 1980. The foreboding 12’’ cover artwork depicting a tombstone was chosen before the tragic death of singer Ian Curtis in May. He had taken his own life on the eve of what was to be the band's first American tour. His beautiful epitaph has charted a dozen times since its original release. So how did the group produce this twisted and dark song of love? Peter Hook explains, "It was one of the quickest songs we ever wrote, the track was literally recorded in an hour and a half. Ian Curtis loved the riff and took it home that night to write the lyrics for it. He came back the next day with a scrap of paper with Love Will Tear Us Apart as a finished lyric. When you compare it to say Blue Monday, which took us six months to complete, Perfect Kiss nine months to finish, its remarkable. It's just so intangible as to what makes a certain song so anthemic, it’s extraordinary. In a strange way to be recognised as one of the greatest songs of all time is just so perfect for Ian. Where could we have gone after that, how do you follow up such a perfect piece of work?" Well we could talk about their new incarnation as New Order and the electro masterpiece Blue Monday, the pulsating epic True Faith, the breathtaking Temptation or the heartfelt strains of Regret for starters, they are all equally unique and groundbreaking. Out of chaos comes creation and we have not even discussed the money-draining shenanigans of the Hacienda nightclub, the biggest tax fine ever handed out to a pop group by the Inland Revenue, or the subsequent deaths of label owner and impresario Tony Wilson, the laconic manager Rob Gretton, the troubled producer Martin Hannett or the colossal fall out of Hook and the rest of New Order, which has now reached Greek tragedy proportions and is very much on-going and heading to a high court near you very soon. On a personnel and professional level, Joy Division's short-lived journey is littered with greatness and sadness in equal measure and cuts deep into the heart and soul, but the juxtaposition of their image and sound is one of enlightenment, hope and joy. Their legacy grows day by day without a hint of decay or sentimentality, and the image of a startled Ian Curtis hangs over the Cheshire town of Macclesfield like a shard of brilliant bright light cutting through its heavy grey canopy. Pete Mitchell talks to Peter Hook this Saturday night 4 May at 10pm on Absolute Radio Go to www.absoluteradio.co.uk/listen
The greatest songs in the universe: five of the best from Bobby Womack
Absolute Radio 60s DJ and soul music aficionado Pete Mitchell counts down his top five Bobby Womack tracks - and Damon Albarn talks about persuading Bobby out of retirement
As Sony Award-winning DJ Pete Mitchell talks to Bobby Womack and Damon Albarn about Bobby's career and critically acclaimed comeback (Bravest Man in the Universe: the Bobby Womack Story, 6pm Sunday Absolute Radio 60s), he picks out five defining Womack tracks. Across 110th Street From the soundtrack of the 1973 crime drama film of the same name starring Anthony Quinn, this gritty, heartfelt song about everyday life in the ghetto was written and completed at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in just two weeks, which is remarkable. From the era of the “blaxploitation” movie, it followed in the footsteps of Shaft, Trouble Man and Superfly, and matches them for dramatic and cinematic quality. Accompanied by searing orchestration by JJ Johnson with hard-hitting lyrics and music by Womack that truly reflect the drug-infested poverty-stricken streets of Harlem, you can tell Bobby has lived this life. The Bravest Man in the Universe The title track from his 2012 comeback album after quitting the music business in 1994 through debt and drug addiction. After the persistence of Damon Albarn, who managed to coax Bobby out of retirement to work on his 2010 Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, he returned to work on his first solo album in 20 years. Produced by Damon and XL Records boss Richard Russell, his new work has been described as one of the greatest comeback albums of all time. The track had been written by Bobby for Isaac Hayes and the Memphis Horns but was never completed and lay dormant for decades until Damon heard the song prior to recording the album. At Albarn’s insistence, it became the title track. A killer comeback. Hear Pete talking to Damon Albarn about persuading Bobby to come out of retirement I Can Understand It From the Understanding album of 1972, this was a top 10 hit for New Birth in 1973. Coming in at just under seven minutes long, this tribal-influenced tune has a touch of the native American about its rhythm, which is punctuated with a blistering soulful vocal, all underscored with Bobby's underrated guitar playing. Towards the end of the track it breaks out into a jam with Bobby riffing vocally in a James Brown-style and calling out “I wonder if you would all mind if I played my guitar for just a few more bars”. He then rips into a fuzz tone lead line outro which is blissful. What Is This What this is, is Bobby's first solo hit from 1968 and the first illustration of how good his heavy gritty rhythmic guitar playing really is. He had played on sessions with Aretha Franklin, Joe Tex, Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett by this stage and was developing as a songwriter, eventually penning songs for Wilson Pickett, George Benson and Janice Joplin among others. Although this was his first solo introduction, he would have to wait until the early 70s to see real success. It's All Over Now [with the Valentinos] View oEmbed on the source website Written by Bobby and Shirley Womack, this was originally recorded by the five Womack Brothers under the name of the Valentinos in 1964, and featured Bobby on lead vocals. It had the potential to be the group’s first big hit until the Rolling Stones heard it and covered it in the same year, giving them their first number one. Womack was furious — until he received his first royalty cheque for the million-selling single. Bobby went on to become good friends with the Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and admires the group greatly. Hear Bobby discussing the making of It's All Over Now