The Joe Jackson Interviews: Recent Episodes
Joe Jackson Productions
Joe Jackson is a journalist, interviewer, author and IMRO-Award nominated radio presenter/producer. He has interviewed roughly 1,400 people in the world of the arts, politics, and entertainment for all major media outlets in Ireland, including RTE Radio 1, The Sunday Independent, The Irish Times, and Hot Press. His articles have been published globally in magazines such as Vox, Rolling Stone, and Snoozer. His radio shows include The Years Go Pop, 26 one-hour documentaries a 26 on the history of popular culture, People Get Ready, 52 one-hour documentaries on the greatest music acts of the 20th century, and Under The Influence, which was nominated for a 'Best Music series' award. In 2018, his documentary about Elvis Presley, Conversations about the King, was nominated for an IMRO Award in the 'Best Music Documentary' category.
Really saddened by the death of Brian Wilson. I will post a podcast based on an interview we did. In the meantime, here is Mike Love - falsely claiming since Brian died, that he himself "co-created all The Beach Boys music" - and who was not a particularly pleasant guy when I interviewed him in 1989. Judge for yourself. 'Love' is a funny surname in this context!
Bono makes magnificent self-promo videos. The latest is on Apple. However, most Irish journalists are aware that he has never told the whole story. Dunphy and I talked about this 30 years ago. He wrote their bio
While watching the funeral of Pope Francis on TV, I was transported by the hymns being sung. It brought me back to my roots. I dedicate this podcast to the memory of Pope Francis
As I say in the intro to this podcast, made March 22, 2025, the week of the Trump dump of JFK assassination papers that still didn't tell us conclusively who killed Kennedy, I have been fascinated by JFK and the murder of the man since I was a child. Hence, circa 1990, when I got to interview Anthony Summers, Oliver Stone, and later Sam Giancana, I was entranced by talking with them all. This is the first of a series of podcasts based on those interviews.
It does not seem like thirty years since I sat and chatted with Dermot before he was forced to leave Ireland to go to the UK to get a TV station to back Father Ted. I'm rerposting this and will repost part two.
Boyzone No Matter What, the Sky documentary being screened globally, originated in The Joe Jackson Archive of 1,400 tapes of celebrity interviews. It uses my tapes and photographs, but there is far more material in my archive that was unused because of time restraints, such as this clip from a 2002 interview with Ronan Keating.
I loved Kris Kristofferson's music since a girlfriend gave me his first LP. So you can imagine what a joy it was to meet and interview the man for the first of four times in 1993. We had a two-hour chat backstage at a Johnny Cash gig in Dublin. Check my website joejacksoninterviewer.com for articles
Kris has died since I first posted this podcast. I love the song, was thrilled ot be able to talk to him abiut its geneisis and about Johnny Cash Enjoy
I wrote a book called Nanci Griffith's Other Voices: A Personal History of Folk Music. For it, I did a half-hour phone interview with Pete Seeger - from Ireland to America – hence the sound ain't great - and for a few minutes, we discussed Dylan's legendary gig at Newport. Pete says he got pissed simply because the crowd couldn't hear the words of Maggie's Farm!
While digitising my Boyzone interview tapes that led to the Sky documentary Boyzone No Matter What, I came across this short clip at the end of an interview, I was taping on the phone with Sinead. She had read and loved my Keith Duffy interview and had choice words to say about Louis Walsh - in 2001.
Another uncut clip from the audio tapes that led to Boyzone No Matter What. The revelation of the series to many viewers seems to be that manager Louis Walsh was the "villain" of the story. I believe there is more to it than that. But these tapes were part of the research for the series, and here's Keith in 2001, ripping into Louis, whom he says he loves nonetheless. Keith told me the same thing at the premiere of the series recently.
The tensions between members of Boyzone may be new and news to the millions of people watching the Sky Documentary Boyzone No Matter What, but they are not to me. The documentary originated in my archive of tapes. Here's a clip that didn't make the final edit. Me and Keith back in 2001.
The new Sky Arts documentary No Matter What originated in my archive of 1,400 celebrity interviews. I also wrote the book Boyzone Our Story and interviewed the lads in-depth from 1994-2002. Here is the first set of interviews I did with lads when all, apart from Mikey, were still in their teens. I warmed to some more than others from the start, and when I met Shane, Ronan and Keith at the recent premiere of No Matter What, my feelings remained the same. Fame changes people, sadly
As I say in the intro to this podcast, hastily put together on 'the evening of the day' I heard Marianne had died, she was one of the most fascinating women I met, in, or beyond the world of celebrity interviewing. She also was an infinitely superior artist to certain rock stars with whom she was endless compared and who I won't name.
I love this phone chat I had with Leonard. It was our third interview and showed me and - when published in The Irish Times - that Cohen had a great sense of humour. But I am guessing that Bono doesn't like what he said. Lighten up, man!
It's coming up to forty years since I, as a Cohen fan, and writer, not journalist, conned my way into meeting Cohen by getting a commission to interview him for a rock magazine. It left me feeling so transcendent I decided to become an interviewer! Incidentally, the editor in question said it was crap and that I should have asked Leonard more about "sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll." Yawn! Cohen told me he thought it was "a great interview" then added, "Thank you, man." I was only a kid!
It's been. more than thirty years since I did this phone interview with Joan Baez. I'm reposting it because of the release of the movie A Complete Unknown. I'd prefer to listen to the real Joan Baez, telling her own story and touching on her time with Bob
Boy George telling me to tell Bono that if he still hadn't found what he was looking for, he should look behind the drum kit, was just a quip. But the quote made it around the world thanks to MTV news. It's just a bit of fun. We talked abut it years later
Tommy Tiernan is now an interviewer who aspires to do in-depth interviews on TV. I commend his aspiration.
Here is part of an in-depth interview he did with me.
Am I kidding about any of this?
You decide!
Imagine falling love with a song when you are 16, the, later in life meeting the guy who sang it and who asks yo uto write his life story! This is a tiny section from the chapter about Macarthur Park, from my book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven.
Its that time of year again. I've loved Elvis's Christmas album since I was a kid. That;s why it was such a joy to interview in LA in 2004, the writers of its opening track, Santa Claus Is Back in Town.
This was recorded in my kitchen at home, hence the echo. I love getting on tape the memories of someone like Brush about "Philo" or anything else.
I grew up listening to my Dad's Sinatra LPs, and was an Elvis fan, so it was surreal to have this chat on the phone with Nancy. Even more so to see we agreed about Elvis's gospel songs
This time thirty years ago, Shane and I sat in the Shelbourne Hotel and had this chat. We also, as he says, met each other a lot while drinking late at night in clubs in Dublin. Shane is gone. I'm reposting this to try in my small way to ensure he is not forgotten
A song loved by millions of people, still, and by me since it was released and because I knew a woman like its subect. It was a delight to talk with its creator, a lovely guy.
As a kid I argued against anyone who said Elvis used drugs. But later i life I got to interview the likes of Tom Jones and got to know more about Elvis's use of drugs.
I always loved Taylor's music and was delighted that he turned out to be such a provocative thinker and interviewee.
Imagine the scene. It's a morning after the Grammy Awards show, I'm sitting in Frank Zappa's studio in LA, watching Tom Jones record with The Chieftains. Zappa, who rarely gives interviews, is told that U2 are more appreciated in Ireland than The Chieftains, gets angry, and gives me one of his rare interviews. It was also one of his last
Gray was at the peak of his popularity in Ireland when we did this interview in his home. He talks with great passion about Dylan, Morrison and Springsteen. It's a team of solicitors! Kidding
I love celebrating the music of the Irish in particular, because I am a proud 'Paddy"! Here I am in 2004 discussing some Irish great with Damien Dempsey.
We all remember the music that first moved us. I did a series of interviews with musicians about just that. This is a chat I had with Mr Elliot, from Def Leppard.
I bought that Sinatra album when it was released. It has been reissued this month. It isn't Sinatra at his best vocally, but he's still bnuiriong it up and the band is fantastic, including Benson
I have many reasons for reposting the podcast from The Joe Jackson Archive.
One is that it has Dermot, a man I very much admired, angry at the fact that he was driven out of his homeland and ours in order to make Father Ted.
Sometimes, a country scatters its finest to the furthest shores.
A relative of mine died from a heroin overdose. My Dad died addicted to drugs. Being anti-drugs in the Irish rock music scene worked against me for years. I don't care.
Drug use is on the rise again, in Ireland, and elsewhere
Christy's story is more relevant than ever
I became an interviewer to track down and talk with my music heroes. Kris Kristofferson was one of them. He influenced me greatly. This is my tribute to one of the greatest songwriters in any genre, who died yesterday. Kris R.I.P.
As part of a radio interview we did in his recording studio, Diamond and I talked about the roots of one of his most resonant songs, I Am; I Said. He even joked about the talking chair!
I like reposting this to remind people of Sinead's love of music. When all the the stories are forgotten about Sinead, her music will be remembered. In this podcasts she talks about her early influences
I am reposting this to go with the upcoming movie. I remember Bono telling me in 1994, 'I discovered Aznavour." I was too cool to tell him, so did I, 20 years earlier!
I interviewed Flatley once, he wasn't happy with the interview. So?
I interviewed Jean twice. She was.
Here is the backstory of their clash.
My final interview with Richard took place in the Savoy Hotel in London a year before he died. It lasted nine hours, and forms part of my book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven.
This is a fun story
It wold have been inappropriate of me to ask Scott Walker if he was gay. This is as close as we came to discussing the subject
As a child I loved The Monkees TV show, It was a delight to interview Mickey and it shows! Great chat about, among other things, the 'postmodern deconstruction of The Monkees' that was the movie Head!
Let's go back to the glory days with Oasis. Here, in an interview we did in Dublin the morning after an Oasis gig I attended, Noel discusses gigs, fans, songs and his music heroes such as John Lennon and Burt Bacharach. It fades at his claim,'I am a romantic" which we will discuss in our next podcast!" Is he?
During the 1970s, I discovered those 1960s Walker recordings of Brel's songs. In the 1990s we got to talk about them
Summer re-run of the fun, and fractious encounters I had with my fellow Irishman, the moody Van Morrison
Broadcasters are rarely remembered after they die. Larry Gogan should not be forgotten. He brought great joy in generations of Irish radio listeners.
k.d. one of the great singers, talks about here heroes Joni Mitchell, Roy Orbison and Leonard Cohen. Four amazing talents
I am the Elvis fan who, on the day he died felt disillusioned but the lies being told about Elvis and the lies he told about himself.
I went in search of the truth about the King and interviewed many who knew him
I am the Elvis fan who, on the day he died felt disillusioned but the lies being told about Elvis and the lies he told about himself.
I went in search of the truth about the King and interviewed many who knew him
I am the Elvis fan who, on the day he died felt disillusioned but the lies being told about Elvis and the lies he told about himself.
I went in search of the truth about the King and interviewed many who knew him
U2 tried to "mincemeat" Dunphy in terms of aspects of his book he once told me.
If they did, why, one wonders?
A clip from one of the four interviews I did with Tori that make up my Ebook, Tori Amos Soul Searching and Uncensored.
What she says about gun control still applies
I made a radio documentary about Doris Day and it changed a former girlfriend's opinion of the woman in an hour.
I do think it is time for a rethink abiut the music, movies, persona and person that was DD
I posted this podcast when Christine died. It's always good to listen to her in conversation. It was a joy for me to get to talk with her.
I dug out our 1992 cassette tape and made this podcast within a half- hour of hearing that Edna O' Brien has died. Id I sound sad in the intro. I was.
Edna O' Brien Rest in Peace.
I was around when the Beatles broke through, As an Elvis fan I wasn't supposed to like them but as soon as I heard You Can't Do That' I became a fan of at least Lennon. Then I grew to love The Beatles, whose songs formed the soundtrack of my life as pre-teen and teenager. So, meeting George Martin was a total joy
I am writing a memoir, so new podcasts are few. But fellow Bowie fans might enjoy this chat I had on Irish radio in 1997
This is one of the few occasions Neil talked in public about the Mafia.
His management weren't impressed that he did. Neil told me he didn't mind.
I am reposting this because in five days it will be a year since we lost Sinead.
In 2000 she told me the song she'd want played at her funeral.
R.I.P. Sinead O'Connor
I posted this when the movie was released. I stand over all my criticisms of Luhrmann who turned Elvis's life story into, he said "the love story between Parker and Presley" and made him a male Judy Garland because Baz loves Judy. The mov ie is a tissue of lies, to quote Shakespeare.
This is the section of a tape I used for my Harris biography, Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. What he says may upset some actors, including those he criticises but I was one of the few journalists to whom Harris told the truth so here it is! Enjoy
At the time of this interview Roy Carr a British journalist claimed that Elvis was discovered at Sun Records because he peddled his moter's diet pills to musicians. Sam told me that was crap!
Mike was my mentor in RTE, and we stepped on a lot of toes with this interview.
But neither of us ever worked in the PR business!
Enjoy
That was the headline my Billy Joel interview in an Irish newspaper. We did the interview backstage at Madison Square Garden, I'd never met the guy, but he turned out to be sincere and truthful and free from bs
During our first interview in 1987, Boy Georege said to me, "If you see Bono and he still hasn't found what he's looking for, tell hm to look behind the drum kit" at U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. It was a bit of a laugh. For this Irish Times interview we returned to the subject and much more
I first heard this catchy song when I was a child, so it was a joy to finally meet and talk with tis writer.
Jon Bon Jovi talking about AIDS, gangs, rock 'n' roll and apologising for his insulting use on stage of the word "faggots." Repost
I'm on holdiay, so here's a repost of a chat I had with Joe Elliot about his music heroes. Enjoy. And thank you to all my listeners
On Christy's anniversary I am posting again this staggeringly brave interview he gave to me this time 20 years ago.
I'm posting this again because it reminds me of the first time I met Dolores, at the start of her career, when she was so young and so innocent, and it shows.
I used this interview in my Ebook, From Darkness to Light, becuase it is a story that may inspire people who are going through hard times. That's always been my main aim as a writer.
My father once said to me, 'Joseph, working-class people like us are not supposed to write poetry." He told a few people that he wrote poetry. I still write poetry and rarely show it to anyone. But 46 years after I found him dead from a fall at the age of 50, I am putting this poem in a podcast to celebrate the love a son can feel for a father.
It's great when you interview a musician who turns out to be as fanatical about music and certain music heroes, as you are
Richard, as I say in his bio, Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, hated the idea that all his fans wanted to hear about were his brawling and women and drunkenness, but this is a bit of fun!
I always championed the Sawdoctors, and here we have great fun about the music they love and created.
When this interview was published nearly thirty years ago, a magazine editor cut this section about Dunphy's experience with U2. I think it should be on-the-record.
I had a bit of fun with my namesake while we discussed his musical influences. Btw, he was originally 'David Jackson' and I was always 'Joe'!
A great wide-ranging chat with Boy George, who had told me in 1987 that he fancied Larry!
A timely repost for this fun recording made in my home studio in Dublin, where Nils saw an 'Elvis guitar' I had and said "Bruce would love that." He didn't say Bruce who.
This was an amazing chat I had with Taylor in a hotel in London in 1988. It remains provocative and controversial. Repost
I think we all should define for ourselves what is "cool." At one point it was decidedly uncool to liker the music of the Carpenters, but here I happily celebrated them on an Irish radio show
Here in 1993, I took Jon Bon Jovi to task for using the word "faggots" on stage, and he talks about all that other stuff. A slice of rock history.
For people like me who love John Lennon's song. A Day in the Life, and early Fleetwood Mac, this little chat is a revelation!
Not one of my favourite interviews and far from one of my favourite interviewees. But here, from my archive is a repost of the Gene Simmons interview from 1996
I knew Bob socially, growing up in Dun Laoghaire, but he complained to an editor that I was "too hard on him: during this interview, You decide. Repost
This is a podcast from my archive, first posted during the COVID pandemic and what Cohen says applies to us all, singers or otherwise
This interview happened by chance when I attended a Chieftains recording session in Zappa's home. It was one of his last interviews
I'm reposting this because it helps set in a historical context Beyonce's country album. Ray went there first, sixty years ago, and we touch on that subject
Great exchange with the late Gordon Stoker, one of the Jordanaires who tells it like it really was and not as you will read it in books about Elvis and that Sinatra show!
Mike Love and I backstage at a Beach Boys gig in America in 1989, reflecting on classic albums such as Pet Sounds, and more.
This was originally a radio show, and it became one of my first podcasts in 2020. Time for a repost, of this revealing encounter with the man who has since become President of Ireland.
The rapport I had with Nanci, apparent in this 1993 interview, led to her asking me in 1998 to co-write her book Nanci Griffith's Other Voices. I'm told, from Texas, there is a resurgence of interest in her work. That thought delights me. I dedicate this podcast to anyone discovering Nanci!
Joan was a joy to interview, and even meet. Her story is hugely inspiring for those of us who sometimes yield to dark feelings
I am posting this again because I have learned that I was one of the few journalists to ask Neil about his ties to the Mob, who backed, he says, the Bang record label - with its logo, a smoking gun!!!
Dory Previn said to me in 1986, "I hope that someday you write about my songs and life the kind of
psychosexual study you did of Sinatra's work." We made tapes, starting that year, and recorded up to 2000, with this in mind or me writing a one-woman show about her. Now, my hopes are set more on me and someone who is equally passionate about Dory, making a film.
Here she talks about the background of her songs Theme from Valley of the Dolls, Leomon Haired Ladies and Beware of Young Girlks. The latter two were directed at Mia Farrow.
Tapes copyright: Joe Jackson, not to be used commercially without my permission in writing.
This clip was recorded backstage in Madison Square Garden at a Bob Dylan/Joni Mitchell gig, and the sound is not great. Be warned!
But it is a historic clip, of Joni chatting about the song she wrote, The Magdalene Laundries, that was soon to be released on a Chieftains album, Tears of Stone.
And it will give you a flavour of being backstage
I previously posted parts of this as podcasts, but after some listeners pointed out that Cillian rarely is as open during interviews, particularly when it comes to his private life and deepest feelings, I decided to post the full exchange.
I was a fan of Dory Previn, who became her close friend and the person she asked to chronicle her life and songs. We never finished that work, but I have 20 hours of audio and some video and feel duty-bound to spread the word about Dory, one of the most groundbreaking singer-songwriters in rock .
When I was a kid I stole from a local cinema a picture of Elvis and Nancy in Speedway. Interviewing her was a delight. We shared similar views about Elvis.
Talking with Joan Baez was a total joy for me. I hope fellow fans share this joy. Repost from 2021
I am reposting this becuase it was supposed to be a radio broadcast that was cancelled at the last moment, and never broadcast. Some fans and friends of Sean say it is the best interview he ever gave.
This is a repost because the subject matter is as relevant today as it was when Tommy and I had this chat. I'm glad to see he is continuing my style of interviewing!
This is a repost from when the song became a hit again. I post it for the Irish diaspora in particular.
When I was recording this cassette I knew I was capturing on tape contemporary Irish history. Thirty-one years later the tape is even more significant historically.
I had a bit of fun arguing against the universally accepted lie that Doris Day had no sex appeal. I also did a documentary about her and know the real story!
Dunphy wrote the book; he should know. But there is only so much he is unafraid to tell
Cute memories of my homeland, from Mick Fleetwood. An excerpt from a much longer Irish Times interview
It's been nearly thirty years since I first interviewed Andrea Corr; I see they are back on tour. Here's a slice of Corr's history for their fans
This was a great moment for me. After Mike Love, a sometimes tediously arrogant person, said we Irish wouldn't understand something as intangible as Transcendental Meditation, I responded, 'You mean the race that gave the world James Joyce?" He didn't like the interview, but what the hell? I still love the music of The Beach Boys
As a kid, I bought I'd Rather Go Blind, so even at that level, it was a delight to talk with Christine McVie, and I told her so!
Mike Murphy was my mentor in broadcasting. We worked together for more than a decade on The Arts Show, and he asked that I be his substitute presenting the show in 1995, which started my broadcasting career. This is an interview we did when he was retiring from radio - a great loss to broadcasting in Ireland. His made the arts popular
Irish radio listeners will not need to be reminded that Larry Gogan, one of our most beloved DJs, had a 'Golden Hour' radio show. Hence my title for this podcast, which I originally posted after the man died. Let's remember our DJs!
Part 2 of my 2004 interview with Cillian. Here, we talk about his early music career, what he learned about the music business and his transition into acting. We had done a previous interview over the phone back in the 1990s and we refer to that.
Joe Dolan was great fun to talk to. Here we talk about his musical influences and life.
Yesterday, January 19th 2024, I was talking to a guy working in my local Spar shop about Clapton, who was on the radio at the time. He knew Clapton's son had died, which is what I talked with Clapton about, but he hadn't heard about his racist comments during a gig. And he laughed when I said, "Some fans used to say, 'Clapton is God.'
I'm reposting this because it will be part of a film I plan to make. I became an interviewer to meet my music heroes. Jerry Lee is one I wish I'd never met.
This is one of my "Singles" podcats for fun! You'll have to listen to find out why I asked Cillian in 2004 if he wanted me to break his nose. Enjoy!
I am glad so many people, particularly here in Ireland, where Tommy does my style of interview on TV, listened to part one of this twenty-year-old interview. It may be the only in-depth interview the usually guarded Tommy Tiernan ever gave. Copyright: JJ!
I'm reposting this becuase I am writing about my own near-death experience five years after Neil told me this story. Such experiences c an change a life.
Someone said to me recently, 'I see that Tommy, on TV, tries to do the kind of interviews you've done all your life!" Maybe he does. Check this and see.
Sedaka's claim in that headline will be disputed on all counts! But every since I was a kid I've admired the man and his music, from the early days of Oh Carol to 70s LPs such as The tra-La Days Are Over. It may not be hip to like Sedaka, but to hell with hip! We should all define hip for ourselves.
This is a radio interview I did when Dino died. I always thought he was far. more cool than Sinatra. And he didn't lick up to the Mob!
It's coming up to Bowie's birthday - same date as Elvis's - so I am reposting this little tribute I did to the man and his genius in 1997
It's coming up to what would have been Elvis's 89th birthday, and I still believe Bas Luhrman got him wrong and did the story of his spiritual quest a disservice. Here's an edited version of a radio show I made five years ago
Happy Christmas to all my podcast listeners. Here's a repost of a bit of fun I had with Leiber and Stoller, two of rock's greatest songwriters who wrote for Elvis the Christmas classic Santa Claus is Back in Town
An exchange with Leonard during our 1988 interview that should be taken on board by all singers. Find, then sing in, a voice that is true and true to you.
I became a music interviewer to meet and talk with my music heroes. I have always loved the work the Jordanaires did with Elvis ever since I heard the gospel album His Hand In Mine. I'll do a podcast about that. But here, Gordon Stoker tells a little-known story about Blue Christmas and Millie Kirkham, who sang the "high part" and hated it!
Happy Christmas to my podcast listeners.
I knew Bob socially as a kid growing up in Dun Laoghaire. I photographed the launch of the Boomtown Rats' first album and interviewed Geldof for the first time in 1989. I also interviewed Paula Yates while they were married. Bob has hated me since this interview in 2000. Maybe he has every right to, given this line of questioning. You decide.
This is an "outtake" from the Sinead, Chriusty and Shane podcast I posted earlier. I agree with Christy.
This podcast anthology, with clips from three previous podcasts of mine, is my attempt, at the end of 2023, the year in which we lost Sinead, Chrirsty and Shane, to bring it all back to where it all began - their music. And that space in which they will live forever. Amen.
Now that Fairytale of New York is back in the charts let's not forget the late Kirsty McColl, who adds her own musical magic to that timeless Christmas classic. In 2020 when I originally posted a podcast of just her talking about the song, I realised I was doing her memory a disservice, so I immediately followed that podcast with this. Repost.
Today, December 8th 2023, here in Dublin, Shane MacGowan's funeral will take place. To mark this tragic moment I am reposting this 2020 podcast based on my 1993 interview with the late Kirsty McColl, who says, ironically, "Shane will probably outlive us all." May Shane and Kirsty rest in peace. By the way, I am also reposting the full Kirsty interview.
The third and last podcast I am sharing with people to mark Shane's passing. Here, we talk about the music that moved him - the likes of Lou Reed, Ronnie Drew, Hendrix, Elvis, Coletrane, etc - poetry in song form and his belief that Smokey Robinson is a better song poet than Dylan. Oh, yeah, Shane also insists that intellect is overrated and that most rock critics get it wrong! Excuse me while I disappear!
I uploaded the first part of this 1994 interview as a podcast in 2020. I reposted it two days ago when I got the tragic news that Shane had died. May his soul rest in peace. This "singles" podcast is part two of three podcasts from that Irish Times interview. I am delighted that so many people in Ireland in particular, have listened to and downloaded the first Shane interview and put him at the top of an Apple Irish Music interviews podcast charts. And I love, as many will, him saying here to me, "I'm proud of Ireland and good that a lot of Irish people are proud of me."
First, Sinead O' Connor. Now Shane. It is truly heartbreaking to be reposting at a time of their deaths podcasts I made when both were alive - especially given that each was someone I knew, albeit only socially. We all partied together in Dublin at one point. Here, you have Shane this time 29 years ago, sitting in the tea rooms of Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel, talking with me about the music he loved and we loved.
A bit of fun I had on Irish radio back in 1994, which annoyed some people who didn't want to know that their favourite rock songs may have gay connotations to be gay. Seems silly to deny it now.
I introduced Tori Amos to the works of Dory Previn and wish Dory had not been written out of most histories of rock, even histories of women in rock. If anyone wants to make a documentary about her, I have the taped interviews.
This is a programme I made for my radio series, The joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, but which was never broadcast. It's based on an Irish Times interview I did with Christie in 1993, and that is a moral warning to anyone wanting to enter the music business.
A near-death experience can change a person's life. Mine was five years after this interview. I pass on this podcast, hoping it might illuminate the lives of some listeners.
I made this podcast a few years ago. Elvis has gotten many new fans since then. During this interview with Sam Philips, founder of Sun Records, we talk about the rumour that Elvis was really discovered after he peddled his mother's diet pills to musicians at Sun Records.
The Beatles are back at No. 1; it seems like a good time to repost this podcast of my 1987 interview with PJ Proby, who recalls partying with John Lennon - until drugs replaced booze!
As I say in the intro to this podcast, I haven't heard this tape for thirty years. I found it fascinating. I hope fellow Beatles fans do too - love it do!
This is part of a revealing chat I had with George Martin thirty years ago when the Beatles' Red and Blue albums were released. He explains how the Beatles ended up having EMI by the "short and curlies."
There is a lot of hype around this week about the Beatles "last single, Now and Then, a song that, in my opinion, has a decidedly underdeveloped lyric and is far from the best of the Beatles. In this podcast, George Martin talks about his role as their record producer.
Paul Weller remains as popular as ever. Here's a chat we had about the music he loved and the music he made. It was recorded in his studio in 2000
Many fans wonder what it might be like to sit and have a drink and chat with a singer they admire. If Joe Dolan fits into that category for you, why not join us, in a sense, for this chat we had in the Clarence Hotel in Dublin in 2000?
This was only a phone chat, but as you will hear, I love the music of Ray Charles and have loved it since I was a child, and I got to thank him for that! A total joy, talking to Ray.
i made this podcast a few years back when there was a Phoebe Bridgers controversy about Eric Clapton. It's key question still stands.
Jerry Lee Lewis has died since I first posted this podcast three years ago. I don't want to speak ill of the dead. So, I won't. But I've loved his music since I was a kid, still do, yet this was my less than pleasant encounter with the man in 1996
I championed the work of Dory Previn, who was my mentor and friend and one of my influences as a writer, and I introduced her work to Tori Amos. Here, I compare them.
I was set to broadcast this radio show the same week Glen died, so I had to change the intro. To me, it remains the most intense and personal interview I have ever heard with Glen Campbell.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding the documentary Elvis's Women. I haven't seen it yet. But it seems timely for me to repost this chat with one of his first lovers, June Juanico. The documentary, which I heard about a year before it was released, seems to be agenda-driven. June Juanico isn't. Nor am I.
This was a remarkable conversation with Taylor, whose music I had loved since 1970. We did the interview in the Halcyon Hotel in London, and even though he was resistant at first to some of my questions, particularly those about Carly Simon, we connected, and it shows. His observation on pampered pop stars is not one you would hear many express.
This is just a bit of a laugh between Cohen and myself during a phone interview when I informed him that Bono fluffed a lyric line in Hallelujah.
The response in Ireland to this broadcast in 2022 was remarkable. I was told that it changed people's perspective of Richard Harris in fifteen minutes. That's what I set out to do with my first Harris interview in 1987. I hope the podcast does the same thing.
I made this podcast a year ago, in late 2022, to coincide with the publication of my book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, and the release of the movie The Ghost of Richard Harris - of which I was an associate producer and that was based on my Harris interview tapes from 1987-2001. I am reposting it because I feel that the film, in a sense, led people astray because it cut from the final edit all references to Richard's search for God. This aspect of the man's life was central to who he was for at least the last dozen years of his life. Hence, I want to do my best to make people aware of this fact.
A repost of my second Savile podcast, to coincide with the broadcast of a new drama about him on BBC TV.
This podcast is the second based on my 1998 print interview with Patrick. Be warned. Many will find offensive his jokes about Princess Diana and sexuality, Adams and Clinton performing a particular act outside the White House and Daniel O Donnell's sexuality. But please remember this conversation took place e a quarter century ago and was true to Patrick's comedy act at the time.
A new drama, starring Steve Coogan as Jimmy Savile, will soon air on BBC television. It feels like a good time to revisit my 2001 interview with Savile
Elvis brought rock 'n' roll to Las Vegas and ended up hating it because it stole his soul, he said. Bono is now on Elvis's stomping ground. So I'm reposting this podcast
The world is awash with media hype about U2 and their Las Vegas gig, so I am reposting this podcast.
This was a provocative section of an interview when I first published it in 1987. It remained as controversial in 2022 when I included it in my book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven
Gabriel Byrne plays Samiel Beckett in a new movie. I believe that Richard Harris, who loved Beckett's work, was once asked to act in Krapp's Last Tapes, and who didn't rate Byrne highly as an actor, would not approve!
In my 2022 book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, I tried not to focus on the obvious side of Richard's life, the brawling. But many people seem to love these stories of his fights!
Some sections of certain interviews deserve to be heard by those who may benefit from them. I dedicate this to all teenagers struggling with depression. Hold on, you can make it through. I did. So did Tiernan.
They say you should never meet your heroes. I don't agree. But this podcast tells of a positively surreal meeting I had one night with Van Morrison.
My first meeting with Dolores, in Dublin's Central Hotel, in 1990, a sweet and innocent Dolores.
Thirty years later, people might find it interesting to revisit this Gerry Adams interview. It should appeal in particular to fans of the Wolfe Tones
It's been more than a quarter century since Eamon Dunphy and I did this interview. The clip here was cut from an Irish rock magazine
My favourite memory of this interview is that Neil's manager couldn't believe I had asked Neil about his ties to the Mafia. But Diamond himself had no problem answering ther question!
Interviewing was never just a job for me. I'm not even a trained journalist. I come from the world of the arts nad happily admit that I was searching for "timeless, universal truths" and "transcendence from the start. How's that for pretentiousness!!!
This is just a bit of fun I had interviewing in 1993, the future, and now current President of Ireland
My Ebook Gabriel Byrne: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus, remains very popular. Here, for those who read it, is part of one of the interviews in the book
There are those who say Bob let Phil down by not asking him to take part in Live Aid. Here, Bob remembers Phil fondly
Circa 1993, a rumour circulated that Elvis was discovered at Sun Records because he supplied musicians his mother's diet pills - speed - which he was using, it was claimed. To me, the rumours were bs perpetrated by a Britsh rock journalist called Roy Carr, so I phoned Sam and asked him and that. This is from my eBook, Elvis, Sam Phillips and Sun Records Revisited.
This is one of my most popular podcasts. I am reposting it to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the interview .
A repost because the boys are back on tour. And I stand over my support for the band thirty years ago. I said their songs would be timeless and they have turned out to be.
Anyone who loved the Baz Luhrmann movie about Elvis needs to listen to this. Especially in terms of the lie that Elvis used only prescribed drugs to get high. As a kid, when the King was alive, I defended Elvis against any suggestion that he used drugs. Many fans still can't accept this truth about the man. The truth shall set you free. This is the third of my Elvis podcast reposts to mark the anniversary of his death.
After this interview, Nick Cav e chased me down the stairs of a hotel while other people were waiting to interview him. He wanted to talk some more about my having met Sam Phillips. That says it all. This is the second of my three Elvis podcast reposts to mark the anniversary of his death
It's coming up to August 16th, a date in 1977 when the lives of every Elvis fan, including musicians such as Dylan, were upended after the King died. This is a repost of a radio tribute I made in 2018
To some rock fans, it is heresy to say that missing from The Band, one of the greatest roots records in rock, is the influence of Native American music but in 1994 the late Robbie Robertson agreed with me that it is. I repost this chat in memory of Robbie
Sinead was a healer. In this 2000 interview, part two of my podcast about her music, we talked about that. Her funeral is tomorrow. She is deeply missed but forever present. And her music still heals. R.I.P. Sinead
As I say in the intro to this short podcast, I was too upset to listen to my podcast re-post Sinead O' Connor: The Music That Made Me, the night I heard Sinead had died. It wasn't until a listener told me last night, July 27th, I realised that Sinead had told me what song she wanted played at her funeral. But I love what she says about death. It doesn't mean that a person's magic is gone." Amen
I never expected when I posted this podcast two or so years ago - today is July 28th 2023 - that Sinead would be dead by the time I reposted it. Her death, which has moved deeply millions of people all over the word, adds another dimension to this interview, which many saw was the most revealing she ever gave.
I always loved this little exchange with Sinead. It's on The Music That Made Me podcast I posted of Sinead and me in 2000. But I cut the song. Following her tragic death this week - the response to which has proven to me she may be the most beloved Irish musician of all time – her plaintive singing of a song she first sang aged seven sounds more poignant than ever. She described Elvis as an "Angelic,' during our chat. So was Sinead. So is Sinead. R.I.P Sinead
anyone who, like me, was lucky enough to come in contact with the beautiful but troubled soul of Sinead, will be brokenhearted by the news of her death. May she rest in peace, finally.
I am delighted that so many people listen to, and downloaded part one of this repost. It's good to know that Dermot is not forgotten.
I love Tony Bennett's music and was blessed to interview the man three times and have dinner with him on one occasion, as his guest. May he rest in peace.
It doesn't seem like thirty years since Dermot and I had this chat, as he set off to the UK to make a TV series, some may have since heard of, called Father Ted. Repost
Mr Fanning is the news in Ireland, having denigrated Christy Dignam before he was even buried and also attacked a government committee investigating misrepresented payments to his agent. But here, he talks some sense about how to deal with the death of a parent. A repost
Hard to believe it's been thirty years since Bono gave me a world-exclusive preview of the Zooropa album. This is a radio show - never broadcast - I made in 2016. To mark the 30th anniversary of this album, I am reposting this 2020 podcast
I am reposting this old podcast simply because a lot of people seem to have become more interested my own story since I published in 2022 my best-selling book in Ireland, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. It's all the same story, actually!
The day Christy died, I decided not to repost this podcast. I went for a podcast based on a celebratory chat we had about music. But things have changed. I am now reposting this podcast because Dave Fanning, an Irish DJ, seems to have suggested on RTE radio that Christy may have been lying about the link between rape at a young age and drug addiction later in life. It would have been better had Fanning remained silent. Here Christy Dignam tells me the truth, a truth I would never contest, about the black hole in his soul.
I am truly saddened to read about the death of Christy Dignam today, June 13th. I met the guy only a few times, but whenever we did interviews, Christy spoke his truths fearlessly and was mercilessly honest in the hope that by doing so, he might help other people. Too many rock stars I interviewed were full of bullshit or full of themselves. He was neither. I send my deepest condolences to his family, loved ones, friends and fans.
In 1993, I had a weekly. music slot for The Irish Times and, frankly, there were few musicians who didn't want a three-quarter page spread in that newspaper. Amid the hundreds I interviewed, there were those, such as Joan Baez, who I admired deeply, in her case politically as well as musically, and it was a joy to talk with her.
A re-post to mark the thirtieth anniversary of this interview I did with Michael D, which was hugely controversial at the time. More recently, in 2016, I tapped into the tapes for an edition of my radio show The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. This is it. Higgins unleashed ina way that, as President, he can't be today.
I fought on the side of Elvis against the Beatles during the 1960s as a child, but who couldn't love the music of the Beatles? It was an absolute joy for me to sit and chat with their producer, George Martin.
Since I made this podcast, Baz Luhrmann has released his version of Elvis's story, which is mostly lies! Elvis himself once said, "I never sang a rhythm tune until I went to Sun Records." I'd read that line as a kid but forgot it when I finally got to interview Sam in 1989. Yet, I still believe Elvis set out to be a singer in a gospel quartet or a pop singer. All his early demos were ballads! But here, Sam gets pissed when I suggest all this. Nevertheless, we went on to become friends, and I shall post other podcasts from my hours of taped material with Phillips.
I am reposting this podcast because people have reminded me that the film, The Ghost of Richard Harris, is screened on almost a weekly basis on Sky Arts in the UK. I did a two-hour interview for the film, of which I am an associate producer, and that is based on my interviews with Harris, but the best parts of this interview were cut from the film, I believe! As Richard Harris so often told me about movies he had made! The full text of all my interviews with Richard is in the 2022 book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven.
I interviewed Pamela in 1989, and we discussed aspects of her book, and life, that maybe not many male journalists discussed with her. I sure as hell didn't ask her who had the biggest .... and she loved the fact that I didn't care about such trivia!
I have written two Ebooks about Scott, but I am re-posting this podcast because it seems that many people agree with his assertion that The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore, as recorded by the Walker Brothers, is one of the best pop singles ever made. I bought it as a kid; I never thought I'd get to meet its lead singer and talk with him about it. Join us and enjoy!
"So, are you Joe Jackson, the singer?" I admit I have been asked that question so often - usually outside my homeland of Ireland, where it's widely known which Joe Jackson I am! - that I may start to say, "Yeah, I am!"
More seriously, to clarify that I am not Joe Jackson, the singer, and can't even sing, but I love doing interviews; here I am with the other JJ back in 2001.
It was thirty years ago I got my "world exclusive" interview with Bon about U2's yet-to-be-titled next album, which turned out to be called Zooropa. This podcast is one of two parts based on my 2018 radio show The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited: Bono. The full interview is in my ebook, Bono: Soul Searching and Uncensored.
Patrick Kielty will be the next host of The Late Late Show; it was announced this weekend. A quarter century ago, we sat down and did an in-depth interview, upon which I base this, the first of perhaps three podcasts. I haven't heard the tapes myself since 1998, and boy, is it wonderfully irreverent, funny and revealing. Enjopy.
Sean Keane died yesterday. This is my tribute to the man, his memory and the music of the Chieftains. it is a short clip from a one-hour show I did with the Chieftains
I am deeply saddened to hear of the death of Sean Keane. I got really close to all the members of the Chieftains because I championed their work in the same way that most of my fellow music critics in Ireland choose to champion U2. I prefer the Chieftains. Their music is the soil and soul of Ireland, but it also is timeless and transcendent and universal. It was a total joy for me to have this chat with all the members of the Chieftains back when the world was a little kinder to us all. Sean Keane R.I.P.
Bruce is back in my home city of Dublin. I have great memories of this interview in 2009 when Nils called to my home, and we did this interview for a radio show of mine. I'll never forget him holding a toy Elvis guitar I had since I was a child and saying, 'Bruce would love this." Listen to a great chat between two music nuts!!!
The Ghost of Richard Harris, a documentary based on my interviews with Richard Harris, which also sit at the soul of my recent book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, may win an Irish Film and Televison award on May 7th. I was an associate producer of the movie and argued that the section I include in this podcast should have been in the movie. It isn't. But this was a seminal exchange with Richard, and I think he would want it to be heard. Repost.
A repost because this weekend in Ireland, the film The Ghost of Richard Harris, inspired by and based on my interviews with Richard over a fourteen-year period, may win a BAFTA award in Ireland. I am in the movie and was an associate producer of it. I did a two-hour interview - maybe the best I ever gave about Richard - and only fragments were used. This is part one of three podcasts that will make it all public.
I included the full text of this interview in my 1996 book, Troubadours and Troublemakers. I uploaded the podcast in 2021, before my podcasts had as many listeners, as it now has, thankfully. So I am posing it again as my way of marking the recent anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
You have to laugh at the fact that in his teens, Tommy Tiernan saw himself as a "dour, bearded, penitent, Russian monk," and he has now adopted that look in middle age. More seriously, I hope this is a helpful chat about dealing with teenage depression, which Tommy had, I had, and millions of teenagers have.
The U2 media machine is going full tilt re The Sphere and will involve countless media folks who will go along with telling their story as U2 want it told. But what if, after they go to back Elvis and shuffle off their totally mortal coils, we find that they were living a lie, all of them? Eamon Dunphy and I pondered that question nearly thirty years ago. A timely re-post I hope.
Who doesn't love the classic pop song Hello Mary Lou? I am reposting this podcast to bring the song back to the attention of people.
One thing Roseanne Cash and I had in common was that we didn't like the movie I Walk the Line. She was Johnny's daughter, and I interviewed him three times. The movie presented him as little more than a lovesick fool. But here is Roseanne reminiscing about her dad and talking about that "revolutionary" recording, You Don't Know Me, by Ray Charles.
Since I made this podcast, Baz Luhrmann's ludicrous tissue of lies, the movie Elvis, has been released. Happily, as an Elvis fan on a mission to tell the true story of El, ever since my heart was broken the day he died, I was able to get to the source, and here I push Sam re that's All Right. Even so, after the interview, we became friends, and he said, "I think you really understand what me and Elvis and Sun Records were all about. I thank you for your in dept, investigative approach."
Others have copied this concept of 'The Music That Made Me' but this is now a legacy interview - I did 1,400 interviews in all! - recorded in Weller's studio nearly a quarter century ago. I loved interviewing people who were as passionate about music as I have been since I was a child. Weller was, and remains, cool.
I recently saw the Sinead O'Connor documentary, which I loved, even if it was a bit too hagiographic and programmatic for my tastes. It reminded me of this chat Sinead and I had in 2000, or thereabouts, and that includes,m arguably, a deeper look at the music that made her and why. So I am re-posting this.
Since I posted this podcast in 2021, many people are using the title 'The Music That Made Me.' Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Francis and I had great fun during this interview. I hope it makes you smile.
This is a phone chat I had with Tori - it's quoted in part in my Ebook Tori Amos: Soul Searching and Uncensored - after I was told that an interview we did, during which Tori revealed for the first time the full details of the rape experience that led to her song Me and A Gun, was not suitable for the newspaper we di dit for - The Irish Times. It's a re-post from three years ago.
Dave Fanning and I do not like each other. We never have. But during the one interview we did when we both were working for RTE, we had an exchange about dealing with the death of loved ones, such as a mother and father. The fact that Fanning and I dislike each other is irrelevant. I hope this conversation heps listeners.
Jerry Leww Lewis has died since I posted this podcast a few years back. I became an interviewer to track down and talk with my music heroes. As a kid during the 1960s, I adored the music of Sun Records, including everything recorded by Jerry Lee. During the 1970s, I loved his country music. But he and PJ Proby are the two of the music heroes I wish I had never met. This podcast may explain those who say 'you should never meet your heroes' are sometimes right.
There are more lies than truths about Elvis's love life, in Baz Luhrmann's movie. And June Juanico is one of the many women Elvis loved, whom Baz deemed to be unworthy of even a mention, even though Unchained Melody was "their song," and June wondered if, in the end, he sang it to her. She's a wonderful, feisty, forceful woman and maybe if Elvis wasn't such a 'Hound Dog' to women, she might have become his wife.
The 2022 documentary, The Ghost of Richard Harris, now showing on Sky Arts and elsewhere and nominated for an IFTA award, came into being because its director, Adrian Sibley, became aware of the taped interviews I did with Richard from 1987-2001. He decided to use them to voice the 'ghost', and this adds an extra depth to the film, said the Guardian newspaper. I also am an associate producer of the film and one of its interviewees alongside the likes of Russell Crowe and Vanessa Redgrave. Aye, but there's the rub, to quote Shakespeare. The interview I did with Adrian for the film lasted two hours, and only two minutes were used. That's the way things can happen in the movie-making business. Even Richard once told me that some of his finest scenes in films ended up on the cutting-room floor. And so, I recorded the full interview, and this is the first podcast based on that recording. The interview was done after my book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, was finished but not yet published.
This is a re-post of one of my first podcasts in 2020. I am re-posting because I am currently reading through my journals for a proposed documentary that may be made about me, and I came across something wonderful Eartha Kitt, a woman I admired greatly, said to me after this interview in 1987. She said, "I feel you are interested in me, in the spirit of Eartha Kitt, not the image." I was. Also, this was one of my first interviews, and I was, from the start, doing my damndest to do interviews that outlasted the latest issue of whatever newspaper or magazine in which my articles appeared. I had no intention of giving my life over to throwaway interviews. That is why, in 2018, when The Irish Times choose the Eartha Kitt edition of my radio series, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, as its radio highlight of the day and said it was "an extraordinary hour," I was delighted. It remains one of my favourite interviews. Enjoy.
I think all singers should listen to this podcast. It's a clip from a 1988 interview I did with Leonard that I decided not to include in my Ebook: Hallelujah: A Conversation with Leonard Cohen, which is about our first interview that re-routed my life and made me decide to become an interviewer. Here we talk about the quest to sing truthfully. Eight years later, during an interview with another of my heroes, Scott Walker, he talked about singers who try to imitate his dark, sad, sonorous voice and said, "but I can always tell when the voice of a singer is not true." So can I. In fact, it is rarely one hear's a voice that is true, in any area of life! Emjoy.
This is a fun re-post from 2021, with me remembering teenage encounters with Mr Geldof in Dun Laoghaire and showing just how cool I was as a kid - not! It's one of my 'Singles' podcasts because it lasts roughly the same time as, say, a single such as I Don't Like Mondays. I hope it makes you smile. No, Bob, I don't mean you!
I was reminded of this exchange when I saw the tsunami of nonsense in the media, social and otherwise, about U2's latest ventures. Even David Letterman, a brilliant interviewer, has become a U2 media groupie, hyping their latest album and forthcoming tour. Frankly, when I read a headline that quotes The Edge as saying U2 choose to do a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas because the venus is "state of the art," I so want him to add, "and besides, we are making a bloody fortune to top up our 700 million, by not touring and insisting that if fans want to see us in 2023, they must come to see us in Vegas!" So has U2, seemingly in its endless pursual of making money, finally sold out on their vision? Or was making money their vision?
This is a companion piece to the Paula Yates podcast part one I posted to mark the screening of the Channel Four documentary about Paula this week. Bob Geldof, who I knew socially growing g up in Dun Laoghaire, has not spoken to me since we did this interview in 2000, Though he did grunt a "hi" once, in 2016!
This week I saw on Channel Four part two of a fascinating documentary about Paula Yates and her final years. I have yet to see part one. I am reposting this podcast in memory of Paula and to remind people what a joyful, life-affirming and fabulously flirtatious woman she was. I'll also re-post a podcast based on an interview I did wth with Bob Geldof - missing from the TV show - and in which I asked why he mocked Paula in a song he released after her death.
It's the Academy Awards weekend - which will be forgotten next weekend! But to celebrate the fact that so many of my countrymen and women are nominated this year, I am posting this podcast of part of an interview I did with Richard Harris - the full text and Richard's life story are in my new book Richard Hazrris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven - in 1990 even before he was nominated for a Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in The Field. He gave me a new perspective e on the Academy Awards, especially when he said bluntly, "I don't give a f**k about Academy Awards. " But his best line, and a line worth remembering for any winner, is, "don't think just because you had one success that you know it all." A certain actor who portrayed Pfresley is already exhibiting that tendency, unfortunately!
Today, March 7th, Adrian Sibley's documentary, The Ghost of Richard Harris, which was inspired by my taped interviews with Richard and uses them to voice the 'ghost,' and of which I am an associate producer, was nominated for an IFTA award as one of the best documentaries of 2022. My book, Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, was published to coincide with the film, although it is an independent entity. I'm marking the nomination by reposting this podcast. Enjoy.
Earliest this week, on the actual 25th anniversary of Dermot's death, I reposted part one of this two-part podcast I made in 2021. I am delighted that so many people listened to it and responded on Facebook, Twitter and so on. I stand over my assertion that he need not have been driven out of Ireland to make Father Ted and to become yet another Irish icon abroad. And he sure as hell died way too young.
I notice today that RTE is marking on social media the 25th anniversary of Dermot's death. I hear him laughing somewhere, ironically. In this podcast, which I first posted a few years back, he explains why he had to go to the UK to make Father Ted and so on. He was a great guy, I loved doing this interview, and I hope he rests in peace.
I saw in this interview that I don't particularly like Elvis Costello. That, with apologies to his many fans and the man himself, if it would concern him in the slightest, applies to the interviews we did and his music. But I love the music of Burt Bacharach, particularly when he worked with the truly poetic lyricist Hal David. Burt died this week. This is the second and last of my two podcasts celebrating the man and his music.
I love Burt Bacharach's music. Simple as that, though I wish more people would similarly celebrate the work of his greatest lyricist, Hal David. Either way, Burt died this week, and in this, the first of two podcast tributes I want to upload, I read an interview I did with the man over the phone in 1998. My one regret is that we never did a face-to-face interview. And, by the way, after I told him I had a bootleg of Elvis's recording session for Any Day Now, he asked me to send him a copy, and I did.
"This man seems to have a bottomless well of things he wants to tell you," said one of my editors, Madeleine Keane, while reading the last interview I did with Richard in 2001. When I told him that, he said, "tell her she's right!" It's a great quote. But it's not in my latest book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. Why is it not? Becuase, as I say in the introduction to this podcast, I didn't discover the long-lost tape until after I finished the book. I also say that hearing the tape for the first time in 2023 saddens me because it reminds me that Harris and I were friends and that I still miss the man.
At the heart of my best-selling Richard Harris biography is a tale that tells of the seminal bond between Richard Harris and myself - and it is a tale with which many fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters, will relate. Sadly, this aspect of Harris's life, soul, and psyche was not an area of exploration in the released version of the 2022 film The Ghost of Richard Harris, of which I was an associate producer and that used my tapes to voice the 'ghost.' It was part of an earlier cut that included the poem Richard recites in this podcast, On the One-Day Dead Face of My Father, but is not in the final cut. The poem brought me to tears when I first heard it in 1972. And reading it for me in 2001 left Richard in tears. Some wounds never heal. My book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, is nearly sold out in hardback, so grab it while you can, if you want.
I am reposting this 2021 podcast right now, in February 2023, hoping that Christy will hear it during a difficult time for him, his family, and his fans, and thinking that it just may make us all smile for a while. This is me and Christy talking about something we both love - music, which, in and of itself, can be transcendent and help our spirits rise above everything that sooks to oppress us. I wish Christy well and pray he gets well soon.
This is the second of maybe three podcasts based on interviews I did in late 2022 and early 2023 about my book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven - the first hardback print run of which is nearly sold out I am happy to say
Here is a half-hour chat - minus music which I can't use for copyright reasons - I had with the ever-effusive Marty Whelan, a legend in Irish broadcasting who works for RTE, a station I worked for between 1989 and 2018. Looked at from another angle, you could say this is two Richard Harris and Jimmy Webb fans chatting as they would over a pint in a pub. I thank Marty. We had great fun that day.
I made this podcast when the movie Elivs was released in 2022. Now that it is nominated for Oscar awards, many of which it deserves - happily however Baz wasn't nominated as a director or as a screenplay writer - but I stand over my assertion that the movie ultimately betrays the soul of Elvis Presley. His real story is infinitely more fascinating and too deep for Baz to explore. This podcast has led to me being attacked verbally by many of my fellow Elvis fans. So be it. I say what I believe.
My podcasts are now available on Audible. So, I am putting free on Audible, which usually charges listeners to hear authors read their own work, and on other podcast servers, a podcast of me reading a section from a chapter in my book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. It's part-memoir, because Haris was my friend, and this is a chat we had about Richard's nearly deadly affair with Mia Farrow. By the way, the book became available in the US on January 10th 2023
Ninety or so minutes ago, here in Dublin, heading towards midnight, I read that David Crosby had died. As someone who came of age and fell in love for the first time during the early 1970s, the songs of Crosby, Still and Nash, particularly their debut album, meant so much to me. I also later in life became an interviewer and got to interview Crosby, Stills and Nash during one session circa 1990. I haven't listed to the tape since then. I didn't listen to it tonight. But I wanted to share with fellow rock fans, David's friends and family, and anyone who cares, this wonderful and provocative and funny conversation I had with Crosby. May his soul rest in peace.
In late 2022/ early 2023, I was interviewed many times on Irish radio about my book, Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. In other words, as a professional interviewer, the tables were turned on me. This is the first of two podcasts based on those interviews.
Tommy Tiernan is back on RTE televison with a new series of interviews. Here he is, interviewed by me nearly a decade ago. However, Tommy should not expect all his guests to be as forthcoming to me as he was. Every interviewee has the right to draw a line in the sand.
This podcast is a blend of Richard Harris 1987-style mocking the "method" approach to acting, which he once practised and espoused, and its practitioners, such as De Niro, in The Untouchables, and me reading a section of my new book Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. It will be available in America from January 10th onwards. In the section I read - because it was a pub chat with Richard - he mocks the likes of Gabriel Byrne and Patrick Bergin. And praises Brendan Gleeson. It's all in good fun. I hope we don't hurt those named actors!!!
It's nearly 2023. This is a repost. Nowadays, Tommy does on TV what I did with him and all my interviewees all my life - went soul searching with them. But when I use that phrase, I don't mean it only as searching for the soul of the interviewee. My new book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, highlights that fact. I hoped, pretentious as it may sound, to find truths that would enlighten my own soul and the souls of those who read my articles or books or listened to my radio shows. The same is true of my podcasts. This is part one of two. And it is Tiernan, as you never heard him before and probably will never hear him again - unless you heard the podcast already!
This is a repost as my tribute to Sean Hughes nearly thirty years after we did the original interview - which was done for a Christmas issue of a magazine in Ireland. It's been five years since Sean died, and I wanted, at Christmas 2017, to mark that event by including this programme in my radio series The Joe Jackosn Tapes Revisited. However, I was asked not to broadcast it as RTE Radio 1 had other plans to "mark his passing." If they did, I never heard that show. But here, you can hear this one. Let's not forget our old heroes - especially those who blessed us with laughter.
In 2000 Scott Walker asked me to allow him to use a 1990 12,000-word two-part article I wrote about his work as the essay for his 5-CD box set Five Easy Pieces. Sadly we couldn't come to an agreement on the deal. So, I have published the essay and its backstory as an Ebook. This clip, however, is from a major in-depth interview we did in 1994, and we talk about what Scott rightly described as one of the best pop records ever made in the UK.
Here, I read from my book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, the opening section of Chapter 14, Lovemaking or 'Hate-Making' in a Sexual War Zone.' This is a lead into Richard Harris's highly contentious views on men and women during the late 1980s. But a word of warning, much of what he says will enrage feminists, such as 'women should have thoughts and not be allowed to express them.' Was he being serious when he said things like that to other journalists? That's what I wanted to find out. You decide.
Firstly, coming up to Christmas 2022, I want to thank sincerely and wish a Happy Christmas and a fulfilling New Year all those who listen to my podcasts and inspire me to keep making them! No one wants to podcast into an abyss of silence!
This is a bit of fun from my new book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. Harris at 70, remembers his last fight.
Yesterday, December 9th 2022, I read the sad news that my one-time fellow broadcaster in RETE Radio 1, Ronan Collins, is vacating his daily music show, though he will still do occasional programmes for the station. Even so, for 43 years, his voice has been part of the social fabric of Irish society, so, today, I put together this, my personal tribute to the man - even though he slagged me!
Today, December 10th, I have published in the Irish Independent, a letter under the headline, 'Why review of my Harris book made me laugh.' It is a reference to Daily Telegraph writer Jasper Rees. Today also happens to be the 90th birthday of Richard Harris's only remaining sibling, Noel. He told me he "felt sick" when he read in the Irish Independent the review by Mr Rees. This is my response.
This is the third and last, for now, reading of one of the articles that were published to coincide with the publication of my new book, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. This book extract appeared in the Limerick Leader and tells of Harris's hatred for Frank McCourt's misery memoir Angela's Ashes. It also tells of how enraged he was when folks said that the Harris's as part of the Limerick elite looked down on the 'peasants' dying en masse from poverty and starvation.
This is the second in a series of three podcasts I'll upload today, December 2nd, 2022, during which I read recent articles about my book Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. Or extracts from my book that were published in newspapers. This article was published in the Belfast newspaper, The Irish News. Other recent reports, based on the film, The Ghost of Richard Harris, of which I am an associate producer - I wasn't too fond of the final edit - highlight only the fact that Harris was, allegedly, on an IRA hit list. Here I reveal he was a target for the IRA and Loyalists.
'My friend Richard Harris. Joe Jackson recalls some fiery encounters.' That was the headline on the front cover of the Irish newspaper, the Sunday Independent, on September 4th 2022. It was a 'hook' for 'A Turbulent Journey,' a 4-page article in the newspaper's Life magazine. The strap for that article said, 'Richard Harris and Me: The Journalist who cracked the actor's 'fake facade,' revealing the human behind the hellraiser. Journalist Joe Jackson interviewed Richard Harris for the first time in 1987. A deeply insightful and occasionally fiery encounter, it was the catalyst for a friendship that would endure until Harris's death in 2002. Here, Jackson looks at the conversations that inform his forthcoming biography of the star.'
That book, Richard Harris: Raising hell and Reaching for Heaven is now published. In this podcast, I read the above article.
Well, it's Christmas time pretty baby, and... I am reposting this fun chat with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 2005
I am deeply saddened to learn that today Christine McVie died. At the start of this interview we did, I told her that, ling before she joined Fleetwood Mac, her version of I'd Rather Go Blind, with Chicken Shack, was a single I bought and loved. May her soul rest in peace.
For the first decade of the 2000s, I did a music series called Under the Influence. That title then was "borrowed" by MTV for a similar series of their own. Cool. Now I see that the substitute title I choose in 2020 for the podcast version of that series, is being used as a series in an Irish newspaper! So, I am reasserting my ownership of the title and letting people hear again some of my favourite shows.
Today, November 17th 2022, the biography Richard Harris once asked me to write, is finally published. It's called Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. This short podcast explains why I choose that title and tells you something few people know about Richard. My book is full of such revelations, mostly in his own words, as in here.
I am an associate producer of the documentary, The Ghost of Richard Harris, directed by Adrian Sibley. Tapes I made with Richard over a fifteen-year period - many for the biography I have finally written, Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, published later this week - voice the 'ghost' and I am interviewed in the film. Sadly one of the most revealing scenes in relation to the hidden soul of Richard Harris, in my opinion, ended up on the cutting room floor. This has not made me happy. So, here is the backstory of that clip and, what was a two-minute film clip, extended to a great degree.
The middle section of Richard Harris's definitive version of MacArthur Park became my anthem when I bought the single in 1968. The song is loved by millions of people. Harris said, "it is the story of my life." Here, in a section from my upcoming book Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven, he talks about the battle he had with c composer Jimmy Webb who, according to Harris, didn't want him to record the song. This is not how Webb tells the tale, I hasten to add. Then again, my book shows that they both have vastly different memories of their relationship.
Here, Richard Harris, on August 8th 2001, discusses with me his 1968 recording, Didn't We. And takes some sideswipe at its composer, Jimmy Webb. It is from my new Biography of the man, Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven. In the book, I finally tell the full story of his relationship with Jimmy Webb - at least from Ricard's perspective. And he could lie!
Let me clarify the claim in the title of this podcast. If you live in Ireland, you may have heard my 2015 two-part radio documentary, Richard Harris Revisited, based on interviews I did with Harris over the last fifteen years of his life. Or, if you live in Limerick, you may have seen my one-person show of the same name a year later. More recently, in 2022, in fact, you may have seen in a cinema the feature-length film The Ghost of Richard Harris. My tapes voice the 'ghost'. His son, Jared, said, "Joe's tapes allow my father to tell his story in his own voice." Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of Richard's death, and my association with that film, I have finally written the biography he asked me to write. This podcast is the back story of the book. Richard Harris Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven will be published on November 17th and is available from Amazon etc.
This is an extended, contentious, hilarious, and revealing clip from a longer podcast I am making called Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven - the title of my long overdue Richard Harris biography. How long overdue? Thirty-three years! Richard appointed me to write this book in 1989 but died before we could finish it. I've now written it to mark the 20th anniversary of his death and because my audio tapes with the man voice the 'ghost' in the Sky Arts documentary The Ghost of Richard Harris. But it uses only sound bites. This is one exchange uncensored and as it needs to be heard - in full.
The Crown has returned for a new season on Netflix. That fact reminds me of a brutally honest interview Sarah Ferguson gave me in 2004. The most telling part, besides the comments about herself, and Prince Andrew, is her suggestion that the Royal Family damaged her marriage from the start. Listen, between the lines.
Jerry Lee Lewis died today. He was a great rocker and a great country singer and a great pianist. I loved his music all my life. Then I met him...
This podcast was inspired, if that is the right word, by my seeing the detestable 'Blonde' movie on Netflix this week. A disgustingly reductive travesty of Marilyn Monroe's life, talent and legacy, it omitted more about Marilyn than it included. And it reminded me of a brief chat Anthony Summers and I had in 1990 about Marilyn's death. This is that chat.
This was an Irish Times interview I did with Garth Brooks in 1991. We did three major interviews at the time. It was said in public by Dave Pennyfeather, Garth's European representative at the time, that I "helped break Garth Brooks in Ireland." How do I feel about that, now that Garth is King of Country in Ireland again? Strange!
This is a repost and heavily edited version of my 'Elvis Fan responds to Baz Luhrmann's movie' podcast. I have cut out the twelve-minute section about my history as an Elvis fan which led to the powerful feelings I have about what to me are the lies Luhrmann tells in his all-flash-and-no-substance movie. The film has received enough praise, excessively so, globally, but, happily, at least some critics and many fans have not been blinded by the hype. This is the first of three podcasts on the subject.
I love the fact that Baz Luhrmann's movie Elvis has brought the King of Pop, as we called him when I was a child, back into public consciousness globally. And that Elvis's music is getting 67% more streaming than before the movie was released. Luhrmann must receive the highest praise for all that. But, as a so-called "Elvis expert" and someone who has written countless articles about Presley since 1977 and made fifteen one-hour radio documentaries about the man and his music, including Conversations about the King, which was nominated for a Best Music Documentary award in 2018, I now hope to highlight the aspects of Elvis's art and life, that Baz has excluded from his movie. And in some cases, sadly, misrepresented, such as denying or belittling Elvis's roots in white gospel and country music, and, above all, the "never-ending spiritual search" his daughter Lisa says he was always on. This is the first of 3 podcasts.
Elvis is back in the building becuase of the Baz Luhrmann movie. But I believe that where he should have probed he skims over the soul of Elvis in so many ways. So, I'm reposting some of my in-depth conversations about the King. Here BB King, with whim Elvis did not have a friendship, despite what Luhrmann suggests in his move, talks about his own career and about Elvis
Elvis is back in the building becuase of the Baz Luhrmann movie. But I believe that where he should have probed he skims over the soul of Elvis in so many ways. So, I'm reposting some of my in-depth conversations about the King.
Elvis is back in the building becuase of the Baz Luhrmann movie. But I believe that where he should have probed he skims over the soul of Elvis in so many ways. So, I'm reposting some of my in-depth conversations about the King.
Elvis is back in the building becuase of the Baz Luhrmann movie. But I believe that where he should have probed he skims over the soul of Elvis in so many ways. So, I'm reposting some of my in-depth conversations about the King.
Elvis is back in the building becuase of the Baz Luhrmann movie. But I believe that where he should have probed he skims over the soul of Elvis in so many ways. So, I'm reposting some of my in-depth conversations about the King.
Elvis is back in the building becuase of the Baz Luhrmann movie. But I believe that where he should have probed he skims over the soul of Elvis in so many ways. So, I'm reposting some of my in-depth conversations about the King.
Elvis is back in the building becuase of the Baz Luhrmann movie. But I believe that where he should have probed he skims over the soul of Elvis in so many ways. So, I'm reposting some of my in-depth conversations about the King.
I am told there is a new Netflix documentary about the monster Jimmy Savile. I was the first Irish journalist to raise with him rumours about him being a paedophile. I didn't get under his skin, I readily admit in this podcast which I made in 2020. But at least I raised the issue and got some strange answers
If the trailer is anything to go by, and it was premiered by Baz today, February 17th 2022, and the 'Elvis' movie makes Tom Hanks playing Colonel Tom Parker a hero in the Elvis movie it will be a travesty of Elvis's life and a historical lie. The signs are not good for the movie being anything but all flash and no substance, like Baz himself, sadly.
Gabriel is back in Dublin doing his one-man show. I am re-posting this, the first half of a one-hour show I made for RTE radio in 2016. Included is what Gabriel described as "the first totally honest, soul-searching interview" he ever did
Prince Andrew is back in the news. It all reminds me of a brutally honest interview Sarah Ferguson gave me in 2004. The most telling part, besides the comments about herself, and Prince Andrew, is her suggestion that the Royal Family damaged her marriage from the start. Listen, between the lines.
I wrote the book, 'Nanci Griffith's Other Voices, ' which Nanci then read and loved. We lost her this year. On Christmas Even, I decided to make this podcast in her memory and by way of a tribute. Its' the first ten minutes or so of 15 hours of tape interviews we recorded at her home in Franklin, Tennessee, for the book. Nanci Griffith R.I.P
When I was a kid, I was a fan of Clapton, particularly Bluesbreakers. I photographed him in concert in 1977. I loved a few of his songs. But when I interviewed him in 1991 I didn't know the full extent of racist comments he once made. I am re-posting this, and stepping out of any kind of Clapton appreciation society, because I am so pissed off that multi-millionaire Eric, sued a woman who sold on eBay a bootleg CD her late husband bought of Clapton. He won the case. But he has lost me, and many former fans, completely this time, I suspect. As someone said his music is a bootleg of black blues.
One day in 2000, I was standing chatting to Mickey Dolenz in Dublin Hotel before we did an interview for radio. Billy Bob Thornton walked over, said, 'Hey, hey! I flew all the way to Dublin to see the Monkees show! Aren't they cool, man?" I said, "They always were." And they were. Even as a child I knew that. So, I am very sad to hear of Mike Nesmith's death. I never interviewed him but this is me and Dolenz telling the story of The Monkees in a way that he said had never been told before. I loved their music.
In this podcast, following my first podcast about Peter Jackson's movie Get Back, I say that I now suspect it was meant to be a Disney version, in every sense, of the break up of the Beatles, an antidote to Let It Be, I include two clips from my 1999 documentary about the band. Gimme Some Truth sang Lennon, a teenage hero of mine. I am not saying my documentary was true or that Let it Be or Get back are. But somewhere in between all three is the truth I happen to believe.
As I say in this podcast when I saw let It Be, in a cinema, I thought 'this is all about Paul.' I didn't know he had asked the cameraman to focus on him a lot, and that he wanted to be seen as the great conciliator, which he wasn't. I hope Peter Jackson doesn't turn Get back into another promo for me, me, me Paul and a historical lie.
This clip is from my eBook Tori Amos Soul Searching and Uncensored. It was recorded in 2001 when Tori released her album, Strange Little Girls. Here we allude to the other Joe Jackson and talk about Lennon's song Happiness Is a Warm Gun, and related matters
Astaire was a great dancer but also the singer of choice for many great songwriters. This is my appreciation of the man and his music.
This is one of my "Singles" podcasts, running less than five minutes. I was part of a small group of journalists supposed to interview Paul McCartney about his Liverpool Oratorio. But Beatle fans and McCartney fans might enjoy this tiny clip from before the real interview started.
I love Dean Martin's music, have done so since I was a child. He always struck me as infinitely cooler than Sintra! This a radio tribute I did after Dino died.
A bit of fun I had in Galway in 1992 hours before attending a Sawdoctors gig. Here I interview for a laugh a member of their "support band" that night, The Popsuckers, aka The Sawdoctors themselves. Funny as it may be, it also may as well be me interviewing, say, Bono.
Paddy Moloney died today, October 12th 2021. Here, from a radio show, we made in 2000, he remembers - in the company of the other Chieftains at the time - the music that influenced him at the outset of his career. A small man, in stature, but a giant in the world of Irish music. He will be missed. By, among others, some of the greatest musicians in the world, who played with the Chieftains.
This podcast made quickly while I was still telling from there news of Paddy Moloney's death, today October 12th 2021, is a reminder to people of how highly even music greats, such as Frank Zappa, rated Paddy Moloney and the Chieftains. He laughed at the idea that U2 were more highly rated in Ireland in 2000. I laugh at that idea, today, but I laugh ironically. Paddy Moloney R.I.P. He was a friend. I will miss him.
It is very sad to see the latest news clips of Tony Bennett, who has Alzheimer's disease, but who still becomes as sharp as a knife when he sings. Singing is a redemptive art, for him and for those of us blessed to love the man's music. Here, by way of a tribute to Tony, is the second clip for one hour interview we did in 1995. I asked Tony to tell me how he originally defined his style and boy was his reply an education and a joy. Enjoy.
I am preparing Part Two of this sub-series in The Joe Jackson Interviews Podcasts, so I am posting again, this podcast from mid-2020, not long after I started podcasting and before I had so many listeners. Btw, I thank you all, and welcome my new listeners in Russia!
Many Scott Walker fans have bought my two Scott Ebookks during this year. So I am re=posting this chate we had about the magnificent singe, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
This is a cllip I separated from my Podcast 'Joe Jackson Celebrates the music of...Neil Diamond,' because it is a bit of a laugh!
Neil Diamond is too often stupidly dismissed by rock snobs, witness his treatment in The Last Waltz. I've loved his music since I was a child, especially songs such as Shiloh. In 1996 I was proud to celebrate his music in Irish radio and to talk about the interviews we did.
I bought my first Aznavour album when everyone else was buying Ziggy Stardust by Bowie. his songs have become an intrinsic part of my life. I soon realised why Dylan, on the back of his album Another Side of Bob Dylan, a decade earlier had written of 'listening to Aznavour in the Village.' In 1996, I write about Aznavour for The Irish Times and did this radio slot that followed the article. I hope it helps some people discover Aznavour
Today, September 30th 2021, I learned that Bob Geldof is to be honoured tomorrow night by The Late Late Show, in Ireland. It will look back on his life and achievements. Some staggering, others less than impress, I believe. But the news prompted me to make this tongue-in-cheek podcast.
This podcast, as with Brendan O' Carroll's distinctive sense of humour, may offend some listeners. So if you are of a delicately sensitive nature - rugby players, politicians and so on - feck off! I'm kidding. But do tread carefully. The clip is from my Kindle ebook, Brendan O' Carroll: Soul Searching and Uncensored. Btw, sorry about the sound but the tape s 30 years old and the interview was recorded in a hotel lobby in Dublin
A review I did if Vauxhall and I, short as a single, meaning it suits my "podcast singles ' concept to a T, lasting roughly three minutes! Will I be "crucified" by Morrissey fans, as I say during the review. Maybe!
Dancing with Michael D Higgins, my former co-worker in an Irish magazine and now the much-loved President of Ireland. This is from a long interview - maybe the most extensive ever done by President Higgins - we did in 1993 and should not be taken seriously. It was just us having a bit of fun, man!
Mike Murphy and myself on Irish radio in 1999 singing the praises of The Carpenters music and casting a critical eye over their career. Has their music lasted he asked me nearly a quarter-century ago? Time has proven that it has.
As part of my "Singles" series of podcasts, running roughly five minutes, this is Mary Black talking with me about discovering Joni Mitchell, specifically her song, Big Yellow Taxi. If, like me, a song ever similarly rerouted your life, this may fire some old memories. Enjoy
Bob Geldof, who I knew, albeit only socially since we were kids growing up in Dun Laoghaire, described this 2000 interview as a "f*g tennis match of an interview." To continue his analogy, some will say Bob won the match, some may say I did. Some may say no one did. Either way this fifteen-minute clip comes from my eBook anthology 'Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus.'
This is me having a bit of fun, fun, fun with Mike Love. I love the beach Boys, have all my life, since I first heard, I Get Around, as a child. So meeting Mike was a joy, even if at first he was a tad condescending! But we got over that, and after this gig at which the interview was recorded, I rode in his limo back to New York City where we talked some more. But that will be another podcast, this one is about Good Vibrations etc, man!
This is a short exchange - fifteen minutes - from a ninety-five-minute interview, I did with Dave in 2002 for the Irish newspaper, the Sunday Independent. I did nearly 400 such interviews and in all, I set out to find people who had travelled through dark times, endured and in some cases had epiphanies. I hope that might help readers. I have put the best in an eBook called From Darkness to Light, this podcast focuses on mostly Dave talk g about the deaths of his mother and father, but, as an aside, I also refer to the trauma of finding my father dead from a fall when he was only 49 years old.
Despite the relatively light-hearted title of this podcast, neither Irish stand-up comic Tommy Tiernan nor myself, treat teenage depression with anything with the utmost seriousness. Here, in this fragment from an interview, we did nearly twenty years ago, Tommy talks about how the "shadow was born" in his own psyche.
This day last week, Friday, August 13th 2021, I posted on Twitter a picture of the cover of a book I co-write, Nanci Griffith's Other Voices, along with the following message, which was posted while I was still in a state of shock only minutes after hearing that Nanci Griffith was dead. ‘In 1998 I was immensely proud when Nanci asked me to co-write this book. I am deeply saddened to hear that she has died. I hope that her soul rests in peace.’ Seven days later I'm still receiving responses to the tweet and even more inspiringly comments from people who say they are finding solace from re-reading our book. Also, a week ago, by way of celebrating Nanci’s life, I uploaded a podcast based on a radio interview I did with her in 2000 about her musical influences. It was recorded after a gig she did in London's Royal Albert Hall. However, in this short podcast, which is part of a series of podcasts I call ‘Singles’ because they run approximately 5 minutes - although this runs a little longer - I want to play the start of an interview we did in 1993 just before she released her album Other Voices, Other Rooms, which was already being bootlegged by the lies of Bono! It is my way of continuing to celebrate Nanci's life, art and memory. the articles are at joejackson.interviewer.com
It has been barely a day since I heard the heartbreaking news that Nanci has died. I wrote a personal tribute to her which will be published in the Irish newspaper, the Sunday Independent, tomorrow. But this podcast, the master tape of an interview we did in 2000 for my radio show Under the Influence, is another kind of tribute in that it will remind us how deeply she loved music and what she tried to pass on to people when she was alive. No doubt she will continue to do so.
Nanci Griffith RIP
I am marking August 16th 2021, the forty-fourth anniversary of the day Elvis died and I set out on a personal quest to make sense of his death, and life, with this podcast, the first in a series called In Search of Elvis. Here, Gordon Stoker talks about his appearance with Elvis on the historic Ed Sullivan shows, Elvis's claim that he "wasn't up the calibre of" Sinatra and the Rat Pack and how Elvis, his musicians and the Jordanaires were seen as hicks by Sinatra and the clan. This is the history of Elvis as you never heard it before. Or read it anywhere, no matter who wrote the book. Copyright JJ.
As part of my podcast "Singles" series, running roughly five minutes, here we have Kris Kristofferson and me in 2002 talking about the music that originally inspired him. It is a clip from my radio series, Under the Influence, which was broadcast from 2000-2009.
A bit if fun from an interview I did with Elvis Costello for my Under the Influence radio series. Here we talk about some of the great pop lyricists that influences him, namely Lorenz Hart and Cole Porter and I light-heartedly ask if he, like both is a "closet gay"!
This podcast is my way of celebrating the 95th birthday of an artist whose music I have loved all my life. Furthermore, I was blessed to meet and interview Tony three times. And at one point during this mid-1990's interview, he told me a childhood story that suddenly gave me a seminal insight into the man and his art. If you want a definitive overview of Tony's music, and painting, and philosophy, listen to what he has to say.
In 1990 I interviewed Crosby, Stills and Nash, separately, on the same day. This interview with Crosby is, arguably, his most revealing ever, in terms of drug abuse, his sex life, relatively privileged background, music, and, oh yeah, who he believes killed JFK. Prepare to have your mind blown, as hippies used to say!
On March 1st 1985 I decided to become an interviewer because a one-hour conversation I had with Leonard Cohen, one of my life-long heroes, left me feeling transcendent. So much so that I felt I had to track down more of my music heroes to talk with. Apart from Elvis and Sinatra, I pretty much interviewed them all! I learned many a lesson, good and bad, from those conversations. In this series of podcasts, I hope to pass on to listeners some of the lessons I learned. Enjoy.
I became an interviewer to meet my music heroes. I'd loved PJ's music since I was a child and finally got to interview the man in 1987. He turned out to be a far stranger man than I expected. But here are his sometimes hilarious memories of hanging out with John and Cynthia Lennon before John shifted focus from getting drunk to getting high.
Around the time of this fundraising concert, on April 3oth 1989, Irish actor Richard Harris had appointed me to be his official biogrpaher. This project involved me taping all of my conversations with Richard, "even our personal phone calls" he suggested. It also involved me taping Richard's contribution to that 'Night of the Stars' at the Abbey Theatre. But, as I say, in the intro to this podcast, as someone who loves the poetry of William Butler Yeats, I ended up taping far more than just Richard's contribution. This is Bono half singing and half reciting Mad as the Mist and Snow. But, be warned, the sound is most definitely not Hi-Fi! Btw, I call this podcast a "single" becuase it last roughly five minutes. Enjoy.
A year after doing this interview with Paul Durcan in late 1987, I began doing political interviews with political representatives from all sides in terms of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, starting with Danny Morrison and Ken McGinnis. However, as with this exchange with the poet Paul Durcan, I also talked with countless cultural figures about what I knew even then to be the single most important issue when it came to the future of my homeland, north and south. I had intended to make a for RTE Radio 1 a 12 part radio series called Troubled Voices in 2018, but certain people silenced the series. So, now it is a podcast series. It is our history. Arguably, as never heard before, simply becuase these interviews were for the print media, not for broadcast. Hence, the likes of Durcan could speak at leangth.
Even since I heard in my teens the works of female singer-songwriters such as Dory Previn, Joni Mitchel and Carole King, female artists have been central to my love of music. In 1994, while doing a weekly interview slot for The Irish Times, for which I got to interview Dory, Joni, Alanis and Melissa, I did a piece on radio about such artists.
This is part of an Irish Times interview I did with George Martin in 1994 when the Beatles "red" and "blue" albums were released on CD. When I was a teenager my dad heard Elanor Rigby and said "the genius behind that song is George Martin." The idea fascinated me. More than a quarter-century later, I got great delight sitting down with George Martin in Air Studio - also present was his son Giles who you will hear at the end of this podcast - and asking him about how important he felt his role was as the Beatles' producer, and if he felt he received due credit. I hope what comes across in this podcast is part of that sense of delight.
This clip comes from a phone interview I did with Nancy Sinatra in 2004. I didn't use the exchange in the printed article and hadn't heard it again until this morning, June 16th 2021, when I was putting together a Nancy Sinatra podcast I posted earlier. But this is great fun, Nancy revealing herself to be a bona fide U2 fan, telling her Dublin driver in 1995, basically, "forget James Joyce, I want to see Bono's house!" The moment high culture in Ireland gave way to pop culture perhaps! I better be careful or what I say m ay end up in the U2 museum that is planned for Dublin. Maybe Mancy and I can go to the opening! Enjoy.
From 2000-2007 I did a series of interviews with people who had gone through dark periods in their lives, survived and in some cases had epiphanies. I hoped these interviews would help illuminate the lives of readers. In 2020, when COVID-19 began to shadow the world, I put the best of these interviews in an eBook called From Darkness to Light. This interview, which isn't in the book, has Nancy Sinatra, whose music I have loved since I was a child, refect on hits like 'These Boots Are Made For Walking,' 'Sugar Town' - "did your dad know it was a drugs song!" - and darker times involving Tommy Sands abuse of prescription drugs, the loss of her second husband Hugh, to cancer, and the death of her dad
It is rumoured that U2 may do a 30th-anniversary Achtung Baby/Zooropa tour. So, in this podcast, the first in a series based on my world exclusive interview with Bono during the recording sessions for Zooropa, I play the part where he tells me about how he plans to use in the Zooropa tour a poem he wrote, called In Cold Blood. The complete interviews are included, with a backstory, in my eBook Bono: The Joe Jackson Zooropa Interviews Uncensored.
This is the uncensored second part of a chillingly explicit, soul searching conversation I had with Christy Dignam - and it remains his most revealing interview by far. Here, we talk about the cost, financially, in terms of his family, public image and career-wise, of Christy's heroin use and addiction. It does not make for easy listening and it should not. On the contrary, I hope it scares the hell of would-be heroin users, and users alike and makes them rethink their lives, as Dignam did.
At one point while watching on TV last Thursday's EUFA tournament football match between England and Denmark - in the podcast I describe the moment - I burst out laughing because I remembered the part of a chat I had in 1996 with Eamon Dunphy during what has been described as a legendary interview we did. It certainly was controversial in our homeland, Ireland. As for the subject highlighted in the title of this podcast, it grew organically out of a wider discussion we were having about Dunphy's attitude to sex and stemmed in part from a recent thesis I had read. I didn't agree with the thesis that football is a coded way football players can express gay leanings, and not did Eamon. But it it sure became a talking point and maybe will again.
This is a rather unusual podcast in my "Singles" series, namely podcasts that last roughly five minutes, though here it is nearer seven minutes long. Firstly, I set the scene, Monty Python-esque, as far as my weird mind is concerned, by telling a tale of the first night I met Van socially and he shot at me "daggers from his eyes."And that was only the beginning. Secondly, the podcast is based on vox-pop I was starting to do at a lig after one of Van's gigs, in Dublin, and the sound of the crowd makes a lot of it hard to make out. But let me preface the audio confusion by saying that the "Steve" Van and I refer to is Steve Collins, whom I had interviewed, and Van described as a poet. As for the row Van had with one of his musicians, Richie Buckley, it went on for nearly fifteen minutes and seems to have started because Richie described as a "gentleman" some guy Van described in a polar opposite way, as you shall hear, I hope. And yes, everyone in the reception area in the Morrison Hotel, did fall silent as soon as the row erupted in plain view of all concerned.
In this, the first part of a two-podcast series based on a 1989 interview I did with Pamela, I focus on what may have propelled her to become a "rock groupie," the quest to reconcile sex and romance, and ask if rock stars reciprocated when it came to love of "giving head." We also talk about the feminist response to her book, and how and why some feminists hate her and some don't.
In 2018 I was given a commitment by RTE Radio 1, Ireland's national radio broadcaster, that it would back a series I wanted to do based on the more than one hundred interviews I did between 1988 and 2003, related to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. These were in-depth discussions with 76 politicians and countless cultural figures, such as Christy Moore, Richard Harris and Sinead O' Connor, about what was incontestably the single most important issue facing Ireland's future. RTE backed out of supporting that broadcast, for reasons that had more to do with internal politics, perhaps. So, now, I have decided to tap into many of those tapes in a new podcast series Troubled Voices, which, as with the radio series is basically an update of my 1996 book, Troubadours and Troublemakers. If you want access to the full tapes, contact me via joejacksoninterviewer.com
Elvis's death, in 1977, left me as a lifelong Presley fan, shattered at a psychic level. I decided to write a book, called In Search of Elvis, which has never been finished. Bono read an early draft and in February 1994, decided to add his name to those of the likes of Sam Phillips, June Juanico, and Leonard Cohen who had spoken to me about Presley. I ran part of our chat in 'The Joe Jackson Interview' slot in The Irish Times, This is the first part of the unedited tape which I will present in three podcasts.
This is the first part of a radio show I did in 2000 with Sinead O Connor. Here, we talk about what Sinead describes as "the politics of spirituality and representing the world of soul" in music, and how that came across in the work of her chosen artists.
In 1996 music critic Diarmuid Doyle wrote in the Irish newspaper the Sunday Tribune, a scathing review of Christy's latest album Grafitti Tongue, and he claimed that Moore had soul out. I responded with my own review of the album in The Irish Times and Mike Murphy then hosted a war of words between Doyle and I.
This is part two of an interview I did with Nick Cave in 1994, and which is available in print form on my website joejacksoninterviewer.com.
Here we carry on the discussion from the tensions that tore Elvis apart - that's how I ended Part One of this series of podcasts - to the subject of the tension that sit at the soul of Nick Cave himself. And how he views love in a more realistic sense than in usually the norm in pop/rock music, and movies, namely a battleground in which the one you love is also your tormentor.
For Elvis fans only, maybe. This is a section I took from my Nick Cave interview part one podcast, and given that I am an Elvis nut, and he is, to coin a phrase many might use, I decided to make the king the focus of this podcast. If you don't like Elvis, Nick or me, best to avoid!
This is the first part of a ninety-minute interview I did with Nick at the time of the release of his album Let Love in. We kicked off by talking about his passion for his heroes such as Scott Walker, Leonard Cohen and Elvis Presley
This was the second interview I did with Damien, and true to form, he took the chat beyond the usual trivia people too often talk about on music shows. Here he is telling truths and talking "real stuff" about, yes, the music that made him, and his own music, but also about a far broader range of relevant subjects.
In 1995 I wrote for The Irish Times an article in which I said the recordings of Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett and, in particular, Doris Day needed to be seriously reaccessed. I sure as hell stand over that, in terms of Doris Day whom, a quarter-century later has not, I believe, been given the credit she deserves as a vocalist. For the Doris Day "endless virgin" movie stereotype and listen without prejudice as George Michal might say.
Yesterday, June 4th 2021, I uploaded a celebration of Neil Sedaka and his music. Sadly, one group of Sedaka fans claimed Neil "would never" use the language I said he had during an interview with me when he dismissed any comparison between himself and Barry Manilow. I do not like being accused of telling lies about interviews or interviewees so for the record - and much as this will upset fans of Manilow - here is the actual quote from Neil and oh yeah his admittance that he tried "reefers" in the 60s. Now don't go saying he didn't say that!
This is a personal appreciation of the music of Neil Sedaka. It's a radio show broadcast I did in 1997, having interviewed Sedaka twice and whose music I have loved since I was a child. He hated being compared to Barry Manilow and di say "I have balls, I have soul, I have substance, Barry Manilow doesn't." Oops!
Part two of the interview I did in David's home in 2000 at the time of the release of his album Lost Songs 195-1998. In this podcast he plays for me some of his favourite songs by The Specials and Madness, talks about the phenomenal success of White Ladder, in Ireland, and sings a few songs from Lost Songs 1995-1998
In early 1997 Gay Byrne, Ireland's finest and most famous broadcaster interviewed me about my latest book, Troubadours and Troublemakers, an anthology of my interviews with the likes of Richard Harris, Bono, Edna O'Brien and Gerry Adams. However what Gay, who was fascinated by any tale involving adopted children, really wanted to talk about was my father Joe Jackson senior, who had not only been adopted but also sent to remand school - where we now know he was sexually abused by Christian Brothers though I wasn't aware of this at the time - for stealing a few slices of bacon. This is the first of a two-podcast series and in the second Gay interviews myself and Miriam Dunne, my father's sister who I met for the first time thanks to the interview in this podcast.
As a music interviewer, it is always a joy to meet someone who speaks with passion, insight and intelligence about their heroes. Here, David Gray, in part one of a two podcast series, does so when it comes to Bob Dylan, Van Morrison. and Bruce Springsteen. If you love music, as I do, this is well worth a listen, guys!
It was a joy for me, as a life-long fan of Gene Pitney, to meet and interview the man in 2002 for a radio series I was presenting on RTE, Ireland's national radio station. Here is a clip where we talk about his recording of It Hurts To Be In Love, by way of leading into a chat about Hello Mary Lou, one of my all-time favourite songs. If you like it too, check out Gene's story about the song and who it may have been about!
One of the great joys during an interview with a singer or musician is when I get to ask them about a recording I love. What follows, as part of what I call my singles podcast because they last less than five minutes is me discussing one such song with one such musician. By the way, if you want to gain access to the full tapes for personal use or professional use contact me via my website joejacksoninterviewer.com. But here we have George Benson talking about the staggering recording Sinatra made of Mack the Knife.
I am a lifelong Elvis fan who, after Elvis died, in 1977, began writing a book about growing up as an Elvis fan and how much his music meant to me, especially tracks set on tape in Memphis in 1969. I never finished the book, but here is part of an interview I did with George Klein. Look at it t his way. In 1969 George told Elvis during dinner at Graceland, that he should record in Memphis and this little interview was recorded during my dinner with George in Memphis more than a quarter-century later. How cool is that. The podcast is my tribute to George who himself died in 2019. RIP George Klein.
I have uploaded five podcasts thus far based on my three in-depth interviews with Tom Jones. In this clip from the 1992 interview, Tom revealed for the first time that he was propositioned by record producer Joe Meek and that he at one point thought that performing sexual favours for men was "the only way" to break into Britsh showbusiness" in london and decided "if so, I am headed back to Wales."
Sinead once asked me, not long after this interview took place if I would be interested in working with her on her biography. However those exchanges came to nothing, I am glad to say, because I prefer memoirs written by the person they are about, - as in Sinead's new book, Rememberings. She says she's not doing any more promo for the book, so I hope this podcast inspires some people to actually buy Rememberings.
Charlie McCreevy said in 2017 that the highly controversial interview we did in 1989, "captured Fianna Fail in Flux and going through an identity crisis." In this radio show, I made based on the interview, we discuss McCreevy being "the nearest thing to Satan" as far as some Fianna Fail fanatics were concerned, Charlie Haughey- "I'm as arrogant as he is" - and how Fianna Fail can avoid "vegetating in the bogs of history."
In my eBook, Hallelujah: A Conversation with Leoanrd Cohen, I tell the tale of how meeting LC, my lifelong hero, led to me deciding to become an interviewer to track down more of my heroes to talk with. This clip is from our second interview, and he tells me about the structure of songs like First We Take Manhatten, recites a "discarded" verse from the original version of I Can't Forget, and we talk about the quest to "speak" in a voice that is true. Podcasters take note!
I became an Elvis fan when I was nine, and a fan of Tony Joe White when I was eighteen. So it was heaven, twenty or so years later, to sit and chat with Tony Joe about Elvis's "out there" live version of Polk Salad Annie and the sessions that led to Elvis recording other Tony Joe White songs such as For Ol' Times Sake and I've Got a Thing About You, Baby. A view from the inside!
This is the final part of a trilogy of podcasts I uploaded to mark the release of Tom's latest and greatest album, Surrounded by time, on which he looks back over his lifetime of eighty years. In 1992, when rumours were rife that his wife Linda had finally had enough of his extramarital affairs, I pushed him on this issue, which we had discussed during a previous interview. Tom, to his credit, didn't flinch or draw back from any question and he was honourable enough to fall silent in the end rather than tell me lies. I have interviewed 1,400 celebs, he was more honest than most and totally free from bull....t!
This is part two of a trilogy of Tom Jones podcasts I am uploading to mark the release of his new album, Surrounded by Time. Here, during this interview we did to mark the release of his album Carrying a Torch, Tom talks about working with Van Morrison - "he's a searcher" - taking the drug amyl nitrate, thinking it was a cold decongestant, toning down his language and God. Part three will follow later today May 8th 2021
The 1988 interview I did with Gabriel Byrne was the focus of an earlier podcast I posted, and it is one of the two major interviews, and a backstory, that makes up my eBook, Gabriel Byrne. The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus. However absent from the previous podcast and the eBook is the story I tell in this podcast. After Gabriel and I did that 1988 interview in Hollywood, Eoghan Harris, an Irish newspaper columnist, claimed, in a letter, that Byrne had phoned him and said he felt "manipulated" by me. It was all but...t as it transpired and here is the chat I had about it all with Gabriel, on an admittedly not-so-clear phone link up! Enjoy
A wide-ranging interview I did with Francis Rossi, who talks, a lot, about The Every Brothers, early Fleetwood Mac, Pictures of Matchstick men, In My Chair, cocaine nearly ruining his voice, Bono, Van Morrios and God, in that order. Great fun overall.
This is a section from my eBook Conversations with a Loudmouth. The Eamon Dunphy Tapes. Eamon has since told me he never gave an interview like this before and hasn't since. He likened it to being grilled by Anthony Clare for In the Psychiatrist's Chair. I promise you, this is "Eamo" as you never heard him in public
Actually, I am kidding, to a degree, about the subject matter of this, the first of three podcasts I am making to mark the release of Tom's latest album, Surrounded by Time, on which he looks back over a life that has lasted 80 years. But during this 1991 interview, in which I run by him that comment about the "talismanic" aspect of those knickers being thrown - a phrase I stole from a BBC TV documentary - we do discuss the subject and his attempt, at the time, to move the focus from his groin to his voice! Have fun with this one. I did.
This was the first programme in my 2016 radio series, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. RTE Radio 1 promoted it as 'A previously unheard interview with President Michael D Higgins.' The press release - included on the YouTube version of this podcast - also read:
'In tonight's episode, acclaimed journalist Joe Jackson takes a revisionist tilt on his controversial 1993 and view of the now president of Ireland Michael D Higgins, in which “we learn a lot more about the man in his politics than he usually revealed, “ according to Joe.
During the four and a half-hour interview conducted over a two day. Joan Michael D discussed subjects such as cultural politics third world politics Bob Dylan drugs Eamon Dunphy and Gerry Adams.
“My abiding memory of the interview,” says Joe, “is of how formidable, ferocious and funny Michael D Higgins could be when defending himself against his critics."
During this staggeringly honest and truthful and timely interview Father Brian D'Arcy, an Irish priest, gave me in 1996, he basically ended up deconstructing Catholicism and admitting that the spiritual training he had was "life-denying" and that he had to "re-learn a vision of goodness." A hugely provocative conversation.
This is a clip from a 1990 interview I did with Tom. PJ Proby, whom I had previously interviewed, claimed that Tom stole his act after Proby was banned from performing on stage as a result of splitting his trousers during performances! Tom took his place on the tour. Here he tells me about calling Proby out for a fistfight!
This interview - and if you are looking for Hi-Fi sound you came to the wrong place, it's a not-so-clear phone interview - is pretty much a monologue from Gene Simmons, who focuses far and wide on subjects such as sex being at the core of rock 'n' roll, why he thinks Morrissey lacks that energy, being a Jew, Jesus Christ, U2, money, and more. A Kissorama of an interview!
This is an edited section from a longer podcast I made last year. I am separating this section and making it a stand-alone podcast simply because literally thousands of people have listen to, and watched on YouTube my recent podcasts based on a 1993 interview I did with Paula. Here, yes, I put Geldof, whom I knew, to whatever degree - mostly socially - since we were teenagers, under pressure in relation to Paula, and songs on his latest album at the time, Sex, Age and Death.' He later complained to an editor that I was "a bit rough on" him and we haven't spoken since. This podcast is not for the weak of heart!
In her wonderfully written and highly evocative 1997 memoir, 'Elvis: In the Twilight of Memory,' June Juanico recalls her love affair in 1956 with the man she calls "my Elvis." She says he was as 'the first true love" of her life, "perfect." But when we did an interview that year June and I also talked about the fact that their sexual relationship was never fully consummated, because of Gladys Presley interrupting their lovemaking, and about how June reconciled the Elvis she knew with the seemingly sexually licentious Elvis who, she says "wanted to conquest as many women as possible."
Today I learned of the death of one of my peers, and a person I interviewed no less than five times and got to know during a 12-day road trip across America, Shay Healy. In this clip from an interview we did in 2004, Shay says that when he dies he will become "a bit of stardust in another dimension." amen to that. This is my tribute to the man
In 1996 when my apparently legendary Eamon Dunphy interview was published in an Irish magazine, inexplicably missing was the section in which Dunphy talked about his experience with U2 after he wrote his biography of the band, Unforgettable Fire. In my recent eBook, Conversations with a Loudmouth: The Eamon Dunphy Interviews, I included the part that was meant to be published in 1996. Here, kin this podcast is the full exchange we had. It has never been heard before and I want it in the public domain.
If you, like me, grew up loving many recordings Phil Spector produced, you may also be morally torn admitting that fact given that, in the end, he turned out to be a murderer. Either way, here, as my tribute to the late John Prine, is a part of an interview we did during the 1990s, in which we discussed Prine's experiences with Spector.
Maybe, like me, you have to be a child in the '60s, who saw Pitney on TV sing I'm Gonna Be Strong, and who saw on the back of the cover of the Stones first LP, that he played the piano on the track, Little by Little, to get how priceless this little exchange is, that I had with Gene Pitney in 2004. Either way, this is rock history.
As a guy who, like many of my g-g-g generation, was hugely influenced by Easy Rider, it sure was a pure delight for me in 1995 to sit and talk with Dennis Hopper, about that movie and a movie that similarly influenced me, Rebel Without a Cause. If like me, you love movies, this podcast is priceless. I shall upload the full interview at a later date.
This is a short clip - hence the "singles" tag becuase it lasts less than five minutes - from my podcast, The Neil Diamond Story Part Three. But what he says is good information for more than just fans of Neil Diamond.
Just a bit of fun from my most recent Tom Jones podcast. Here he recalls the night Elvis sang to him in the shower and seemed to be checking him out!
I am delighted to see that this interview with Neil - particularly the visualised version on YouTube - is so popular among fellow Neil Diamond fans. It makes all this work on podcasts, worthwhile. Here, in the third and final part of our 2001 interview, Neil talks about his son Jesse growing up in his shadow, a song they wrote together, working with Gilbert Becaud, 20th-century lyricists he loves, divorce, his concept of God, a near-death experience in 19789 and a message for after he is "gone." This is, arguably, the most revealing interview ever given by the great Neil Diamond.
"It's like being in therapy," Paula Yates said to me at one point during this, the second of three podcasts based on an interview we did in Dublin in 1993. She then went on to say "I don't usually talk to people about..." before falling silent. My belief that she was going to say something like "what I truly feel" is fired, in. part, by what Paula then said. "This is bizarre. This is the first interview where I talk about anything!" Either way, this conversation proves to me that Bob Geldof was talking bullshit when he said, angrily, during an interview we did in 2000 after I asked why he mocked Paula in a song from his latest album "you don't know anything about Paula and me apart from the guff you read in newspapers." Am I right to say this? You decide.
Tom Jones, said to me, near the end of this 1989 interview, "talking to you is dangerous. It's like talking to a mate in a pub. I have to remind myself that you are an interviewer and I better watch what I say." I now suspect he was maybe referring to exchanges such as this when I repeated comments Elvis apparently made about the explicitly sexual nature of Tom's stage act circa 1968. Listeners, be warned. This chat is itself explicit, and may offend - if you lack a sense of humour!
I love the music of BB King, have, since I was a teenager. I also happen to be indebted to some black people in New York who befriended me, and fed me, when I was down and out as a student in New York. All of this, plus a profound sense of the racism perpetrated on blacks in America, made me determined to open the eyes of readers of The Irish Times to such subjects in 1993. Incidentally, I met BB in Dublin and he joked "I thought any guy with a name like 'Joe Jackson' was going to be black!" This is a fun and one of my fave phone interviews with a hero of mine
This is an interview I did over the phone in 1993 for The Irish Times. I had to take Jon Bon Jovi top task for using the word "faggots" during a stage show, but we also talked about his gay fans, gangs, male bonding, Elvis, Bono, becoming a father and the greatest high of all, he says, finishing writing a song!
This is a section from my upcoming podcast, Neil Diamond The Joe Jackson Interview 2002 Part Three. I am working on editing the master tape but feel that many fans of the movie 'The Jazz Singer' would like to hear Neil talk, with barely suppressed anger, about how much he hated making that movie! He also talks about "Larry" Olivier, whom he describes as "the greatest actor of his time." Me, I'd opt for Brando! Enjoy.
As one of my Podcast singles, coming in at less than five minutes, here, from a 1996 interview I did with Noel Gallagher in Dublin, while Oasis was here to do gigs, we have Noel and me talking about the social importance of rock 'n' roll working-class heroes such as John Lennon and himself. If on,y for that reason Oasis should get back together!
It is claimed that I helped 'break" Garth Brooks in Ireland, thanks to a series of interviews we did from 1989-2003. But who am I to say if I did or not! Either way, this is a phone interview we did for The Irish Times and in it, he discusses becoming a father, music snobs. country music, critics and the songs of Mick Hanley.
This is the master tape - minus music - of an interview I did with Neil in his recording studio in 2001. Neil may as well be in a psychiatrist's chair! He talks about his music as a travelling salvation show, if he is a hard task master, I Am I Said, keeping the heart open, moodiness, songwriting as a balm, failure at marriage, the pain he feels and pain he causes, the love for his children and father, Angel Above My Head, and the war with Sony, and much more.
While working on the master tape of the second of three podcasts in my series, Neil Diamond 2000: The Joe Jackson Interview, I came across this clip which as a stand-alone may be of interest to not only fellow Neil Diamond fans but also to songwriters. It tells of the genesis of one of his greatest songs.
This chat grew out of an interview I was having with Tom Jones in 1992, for The Irish Times. It was more about Elvis than Tom at least at the start, so it has never been published or heard until now. I knew Tom had been a friend of Elvis I asked him about recent rumours that Elvis had an incestuous relationship with his mother, that Elvis was secretly gay and discovered peddling pills to black musicians at Sun Records. Then we talked about the mob in terms of Las Vegas. This is Tom Jones as you never heard him before - unless it was in my interviews with the man!
This is part two of a two-part podcast based on an interview I did with Tom for The Irish Times in 1992. Towards the end of the interview I apologise for asking "cheeky and challenging" questions and it says, "it's best, it makes it interesting!" Toom Jones clearly had no problem addressing questions such as his reputation as a 'hammer man", the feminist response to his work, if he was a "bastard" to women, and if fans are reduced to passive fantasists. This is a Tom Jones interview unlike any other - apart for the others we did!
I did this interview with Paul in 2006, at a time when the Bell X1 album Flock, had gone straight to number one in the Irish charts. This is Noonan uncensored and soul searching on subjects such as 'Uaneen, Damien, arty and life' to cull a headline from the magazine in which the article was printed. This is the first of two podcasts that will include the complete interview
In my eBook Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus, Bob - whom I have known, socially, since we were kids - reacts angrily against the questions I posed in defence of Paula Yates, who had died. He said I didn't really know anything about her or about their relationship. Did I? You decide. Here, in the first half-hour podcast of three, is Paula uncensored, soul searching and having lots of fun talking about owning Napolean 's dick, her book Village People, feminism, the role of a mother, being tortured by tabloids since she was 14, lusting after Daniel Day-Lewis, her children and a certain Mr Geldof. If you are tight-assed it might be best not to listen, there are no holds barred.
In my eBook Tori Amos Soul Searching and Uncensored, I tell the tale of the time in early 1994, when The Irish Times, for whom I did weekly interviews, told me they didn't want "this woman" in the newspaper "at all" with her "ramblings about Jesus, masturbation and rape." I had to break the news to Tori, which I did by leaving a phone message. This podcast contains her initial response and a longer chat we had - during which I readily admit I talk too much, maybe because I was still incensed at The Irish Times - about my plans to rework the interview and publish it in full elsewhere.
In 1987 during my first interview with Boy George, he said "tell Bono if he still hasn't found what he is looking for, to look behind the drum kit!" The quote was winged around the world courtesy of MTV News. Six years later, we did our second interview and that subject, naturally enough, was raised at the start. But much as Boy George lusted after Larry we then went on to discuss, for The Joe Jackson Interview slot om The Irish Times, a broad set of issues and subjects in-depth - but always with Boy George's irrepressible sense of humour.
This was the third interview I did with Tom and given that in The Joe Jackson Interview slot in The Irish Times myself and my editor Paddy Woodworth were attempting to redefine pop interviews in the newspaper, this time around Tom and I were free to discuss, yes, his music, of course, and sex appeal but also topics he rarely discussed in public, such as Welsh Nationalism, the fact that he as a Protestant married, Linda, a Catholic, and the pressures this led to, not only becuase she was pregnant at the time. Tom once said I was "dangerous" because he said, "talking to you is like talking to a mate in a pub, and I have to remind myself that you are an interviewer!" I loved talking to the guy. This is part 1 of a two pare podcast
As I say in the intro, to this short podcast - hence the 'single tag' as it runs roughly five minutes - I came of age as a kid during the Beatles era. Their songs, up to and including those on Let It Be and, better still, Abbey Road, were an intrinsic part of my life. So, sitting with George martin in a London recording studio a quarter-century later, was heaven to me! Here, from our ninety-minute interview, is George Martin telling me the story of Let it Be and how it led to Abbey Road. Copyright Joe Jackson.
An amazing sound collage from Boom! The Joe Jackson History of Popular Culture, podcast one, 1945. Winston Churchill got digs at Eamon DeValera, vis-a-vis Ireland's neutrality during the Second World War and 'Dev' punched him right back! Also included is Edward R Murrow, reporting from Piccadilly Circus on VE Day
I have already uploaded the first podcast in my series, Boom! Joe Jackson's History of Popular Culture, but here, as part of my 'Singles' podcasts, lasting less than five minutes, is a still-staggering sound collage evoking the day the world's first A-Bomb was dropped.
In 1998 I wrote and presented on RTE Radio 1 radio my first major documentary series, The Years Go Pop, a title I hated. Either way, I set out to give in a series of one-hour programmes my view of the history of popular culture from 1945 to 1989. I definitely did not want to tell a traditional history of rock or pop if only because most took a musicological tilt on the tale where I was more interested in pop culture as a socio-political phenomenon. I set out my case at the start, in a half-page article in The Irish Times and at the start of the show, when I pointed out that I would play not just those singles or albums that put the art into pop art but songs that help change the way we see ourselves, the way we dress, dream, engage in sexual politics, fall in love - in other words, the way we live. And I said that even though most rock histories start in 1956 I tended to side with the view of social commentators who suggested that year zero was 1945. Now an abridged version of the series is called, Boom! Joe Jacksons History of Pop Culture. This show was the first and focuses on 1945.
The sound of this clip I recorded on cassette at Dublin's National Stadium on October 14th 1970, as a fan of Taste - that is me you hear saying "they are breaking up! Thank God I'm here!" - is appalling. But as I say in the intro, the recording was made by a teenage Taste fan, with a Sony cassette recorder strapped around my shoulder and a mic half-hidden in the pocket of my "John Lennon army jacket!" But this is a slice of Irish rock history and I was not only there- I got it on tape. This is the first in a series of flashback sound bites
Please be aware that this interview, done in 2004, and prompted by Christy's devastatingly honest memoir, 'This is Christy Dignam,' has sections about his rape experience that some listeners may find disturbing. I have edited out the most explicit passages, but I need to remain true to Christy's story in this the first of two or three podcasts about how that experience as a child later led to heroin addiction.
Tom Jones during this interview in 1989, the first of three, laughed and said: "you are dangerous!" I said, "why?" He said, "becuase talking to you is like talking to a mate in a pub! I have to be careful about what I say!" That may apply to his revelation that Elvis told him in the late '60s, "I tried everything" alluding to drugs, then he added, "to stay sane." Tom also claims that later in life, the Memphis Mafia were "rolling joint after joint" for Elvis at home. If true, this is not widely known. Although Diana Dors has said that Elvis was smoking dope in 1956. It also is staggering to hear that Sinatra tried to help Elvis in the end and asked Tom to do so.
Two for one. My 1990 critique of Scott - now published as an ebook called The Fugitive Kind- was quoted in the sleeve notes of the 1991 album Scott Walker Sings Jacques Brel. Herem, from my second new eBook, Scott Walker: Looking Back (Through Mirrors Dark and Blessed with Cracks) is a clip of Scott and I, during our 1995 interview, talking about, first, Bergman, fleetingly, then Jacques Brel.
As a lifelong Tony Bennett fan, who owns every album he recorded and loves so many of them, and who met and interviewed the man no less than four times - once we even had dinner together - I was deeply saddened this week to learn that he has Alzheimer's Disease and has had secretly for four years. I mean no disrespect by titling this podcast, Tony Bennett Remembers. I mean the opposite, it is posted out of total respect for a man and artist I admire deeply. I also now am more aware than I ever was to be blessed to be able to sit in Tony Bennett's company and hear him pass on to me his personal history and to get it on tape. Hell, the guy even introduced me to the music of Louis Armstrong. I dedicate the podcast to fellow Bennett fans but above all to Tony himself and his loved ones and family. Let the music play on.
This is a clip from a radio interview I did with Brush, in my own kitchen. A brush in a kitchen makes sense, right? I loved his recollections about the earliest gigs Phil Lynott played with Brush's band, Skid Row. I saw Phil a year or so earlier, in The Black Eagles. I also love Brush's song, New Faces, Old Places, which will resonate for anyone, who has ever lived in a home but who finally were told they had to get out. Subscribe to this podcast on Podbean, or the visual version on YouTube
Tolu Makay's 2021 staggeringly reimagined version of this song proves how timeless songs by The Sawdoctors were. This is a clip from my podcast The Sawdoctors: The Music That Made Me, but here, all they talk about in a "single" roughly three minutes long- is the roots of their now legendary song NB17.
In 2016, I made a one-hour radio documentary based on my interviews with Gabriel Byrne. They also form the basis of my eBook, Gabriel Byrne: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus, which is available from all eBook outlets. The interviews with Gabriel were some of the earliest I did and were remarkable in terms of his honesty. He said after the first one, "that was the first totally honest, soul-searching interview I ever gave." And, looking back from 2021, I have to ask what other male sex symbol at the time - or even now - would have guts enough to agree with a feminist analysis of his films that might conclude that he, as, say, the quintessentially romantic hero, Byron, in Gothic, was "used to reduce females to the role of passive fantasists"? Many wouldn't even grasp the concept. Enjoy.
In 1988, when this Gabriel Byrne interview - it's published in full, plus another one, in the eBook Gabriel Byrne: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus - was published in an Irish magazine I was told by two fellow journalists that some of my questions were "too intimate." Now, even in the Irish media, such questions are commonplace. Or maybe not, here, Gabriel Byrne and I, sitting in a mansion in Bel Air, talk about the female movie stars he fantasised about as a teenager, and this leads naturally enough to me asking if he could handle doing sex scenes with a woman he did fancy, such as Ann Margret, and if he got aroused "getting head while making Gothic. Seems like a nondescript question to me. and i bet you want to know the answer, right?
Less than a week ago I made my first Sawdoctors podcast before I knew that N17 had become a hit again. I couldn't be happier for the guys. I have championed their work for nearly thirty years - jeez, are we all going that long!!!- as is evident from this interview which was recorded backstage after one of their gigs in Salthill, in 1992 for The Joe Jackson weekly interview slot in The Irish Times. In my intro, I explain why I was determined to give my weekly slot to music acts from outside bloody Dublin, which the media still regards as the centre of Ireland, if not God's gift to the planet! Of course, I am kidding. Maybe. The sound at the start isn't great. We are backstage but as the interview progresses the sound improves. Because the lads are so loved I have decided to upload the entire tape we recorded that day, two more Saddoctors podcasts to follow.
This podcast - based on my eBook Elvis, Sam Phillips and Sun Records Revisited - picks up where my last Sam Phillips podcast ended. There are a few lines that overlap. I had phoned Sam to talk about a new rumour that Elvis peddled speed at Sun Records, and after he addressed that question Sam himself admitted there was another subject that made him take the call and want to set the record straight. It was not an issue I intended to raise, although it had hit newspapers in America and in Europe, where I am based. But Sam did, and this podcast has his response.
This is a clip from a 1992 phone interview I did with Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records, and one of the founding fathers of rock 'n' roll. The interview, plus two more, and comments from the likes of Bono, Jack Clement and Dory Previn, are in my new eBook Elvis, Sam Phillips and Sun Records Revisited. But here we address a new rumour that had begun to circulate, courtesy of British journalist Roy Carr, who suggested that Elvis was not 'discovered' making a demo record at Sun. He had been peddling "for free" his mother amphetamines to black musicians, he was so eager to be discovered. At the time I thought the rumour was "bull" and I say so in this podcast. But the man who was there at the time was Sam!
This is the master tape of an interview I did with the Sawdoctors before a gig in 2000, or so. I always supported the band, even when it was "uncool" - what an idiotic phrase, and concept! - to do so, in The Irish Times. I went as far as saying that their songs such as N17 have great sociological and cultural importance, as opposed to a lot of the narcissistic, navel-gazing rock being made. at the time bu too many Irish bands.
I am not surprised that N17 is a hit again in 2021
Agree, or disagree, I don't mind. We had great craic during this interview and I am happy to make it public, uncut for the first time.
During my 1996 in-depth and, some say, definitive interview with Eamon Dunphy, whom U2 choose to write their 1987 biography, The Unforgettable Fire: The Story of U2, we talked about the book and the battle he had with what he calls "the U2 machine." I asked if he believes that history may show that we journalists and U2 biographers like himself, John Waters and BP Fallon, never told the true story because -as John Lennon said in 1970 about the Beatles story - no one wanted to burst the bubble or be kicked off the bandwagon. When the article was published in an Irish magazine this entire discussion was inexplicably left out, a fact I didn't notice at the time. It's now in my new eBook, Conversations with a Loudmouth: The Eamon Dunphy Tapes. Btw, apologies in advance for the bad quality sounding tape, but this is rock history and a tale that should be on the record
In 1996 my now-legendary interview with Eamon Dunphy - also the subject of the earlier podcast Eamon Dunphy Unleashed - created a media stir, particularly in the tabloids, as a result of "Eamo" putting in what The Star called 'Dunphy's Firing line' the likes of Gay Byrne, Gerry Ryan, Pat Kenny, Brenda Donohue, Cynthia Ni Murchu and so on. However, listening back to this part of the eleven-hour interview, it is obvious that Dunphy also was levelling some valid criticisms of the ideology behind broadcasting in RTE at the time. Doe his criticisms still stand? You decided. The print version of the interviews - not uncensored as happened when they were published in an Irish magazine - are now available in my new eBook Conversations with a Loudmouth: The Eamon Dunphy Tapes. It is available from Amazon and soon will be elsewhere. This was ED at his peak.
This is part of my Joe Jackson Interviews podcast "singles" series, lasting less than five minutes. During an interview we did for The Irish Times in the 1990s, I brought up three memories that might have left Mick feeling conflicted when he remembered his first time in Ireland in 1960s, being fired from The Bluesbreakers, a block of hash at a party hosted by the Guinness family - himself and Brian Jones chipping off lumps to put in their pockets! - and the accident that killed Tara Browne in December 1966, which inspired John Lennon to write, A Day in the Life.
This show will be nostalgia heaven for anyone who loves rocks music of the early 1970s. Joe remembers the first time he saw Marc Bolan on Top of the Pops, begin clattered in a schoolyard by Slade fans because he liked "poofs" - no offence meant, his word, not mine, and Joe says that's the word used in the schoolyard back in those unenlightened days! - such as Bowie, and the great influences Thin Lizzy had on the sound of Def Leppard.
This show is a blend of two kinds of podcasts I do, 'Soul Searching and Uncensored' and 'The Music That Made Me.' Simply because, unlike many shows, Christy has done about the music that influenced him and the music he made, this chat at the time of the release of his 2004 book, This Is Christy Dignam, also went deep into subjects such as his heroin addiction, touched on his sexual abuse, and focused on the "hole in" his soul. If you want a pretty chat, look elsehwere. That said, this interview was followed, immediately afterwards by a second interview for a newspaper, and in it, Christy was even more explicit. So much so that I have a huge moral dilemma - whether to make a podcast of that or not. I tried to but gave up, it got so dark. Everything I create as a writer, broadcaster and podcaster is in the hope of raising peoples' spirits - particularly during this dam pandemic. Watch this space.
In my podcast, Paul Weller: The Music That Made me - recorded in his home studio in 2000 - I played Paul singing part of his song, Sweet Pea, about his daughter. Weller fans have asked if I have the full song from that session. I do, so here, for Paul Weller fans who seem to have loved my other two Weller podcasts, is an unplugged version of the track from Helicentric, in a bonus edition of my podcasts. This is part of The Joe Jackson Interviews Podcast series I call 'Singles' and it last less than five minutes. Seems fitting in this case.
Four years after I did in 1988 with Gabriel what he described as "the first totally honest and soul searching interview" he ever did, we hooked up again for the second of the interviews I include in full in my eBooks Gabriel Byrne: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus. Here Gabriel soul-searching as ever talks about his claim that it took the birth of a child to make him aware of the worth of womanhood, children, his views on abortion, potential for violence, a tendency towards alcoholism, and the potential ability to annihilate himself. And, to think, he was happier at the time than at any point in his life with Ellen Barkin.
In Paul Weller: The Music That Made Me, the first podcast of this two-podcast series, Weller and I looked back over the music that made him who he is. In this tape from a print interview done for The Irish Times the same day, he is more contemplative as we look back on his days with The Jam and Style Council, joke about "the nadir" of his life being miming with U2 on Top of the Pops, fatalism, drinking, his daughter, love spiritual voids and art and allowing one's self, as a man, to be vulnerable. Arguably Paul Weller as you never heard him before and probably won't again- unless we do another interview!!!
Scott Walker not only told Joe Jackson during the triple-set of in-depth interviews they did in 1995 - one for radio, one for a rock music magazine and the other for The Irish Times newspaper - that he remembered and really liked a review Jackson did of Walker's album Climate of Hunter in 1984. He said it helped him redefine for himself how his music could best be described at that point. Then, in 2003, Jackson was informed that Scott Walker wanted to use as the booklet notes in the forthcoming box-set Scott Walker in 5 Easy Pieces, a critique of Walker's life and work Jackson had written in 1990. That critique formed the basis of Scott Walker The Fugitive Kind, Jackson's previous book on Walker which also contained its backstory and a personal appreciation of Walker's music from the author's perspective as a lifelong fan. This book, Scott Walker The Joe Jackson Interviews is a companion piece to the first and it also includes a backstory, focusing on aspects of the late Scott Walker's life that have never been discussed in public. One of these interviews when first published instantly became legendary among fans of The Walker Brothers and Scott Walker, particularly those who read Walkerpeople, the newsletter of The Walker Brothers Appreciation Society, in which Jackson gave permission for it to be included for fans. In its preface, Lynne Goodall wrote, ‘From all the press interviews given by Scott this time around THE definitive, in-depth interview surely has to be that which appeared in over two consecutive issues in a music paper. Well-deserved congratulations to interviewer Joe Jackson (and his ever-inquiring mind) for this “epic” volume.’ Jan de Rooij, from Holland, wrote, 'the 2-part Joe Jackson interview with Scott is the best I ever read.' Patrick Rogers, from Surrey, wrote, 'The Joe Jackson interview was remarkable-the sort of open-minded, appreciative approach to Scott's music and thinking that has been lacking for so long.' Pauline Armstrong, from Chester, wrote, 'what a masterful interview. Throw away the thumbscrews and send for Joe Jackson! What a shame that Mr Jackson didn't write Scott's biography - that would have been a real eye-opener.' The latter comment, as Jackson says in this book, "had a sting in its tail." In 1990 he suggested to his literary agent that he would love to write a biography of Scott. She said, "I don't think there would be much interest right now in a biography of Scott Walker." However, thirty years later, Joe Jackson now suggests that "both these books, particularly Scott Walker The Joe Jackson Interviews, which I sub-title Looking Back 'Through Mirrors Dark and Blessed With Cracks' - a quote from his seminal song, Boychild - could legitimately be described as the autobiography that Scott Walker never wrote."
On March 1st 1985, when a meeting with Leonard Cohen made me feel transcendent and decide to track down more of my music heroes to interview, Scott Walker was first on the list. During that interview a decade later Scott told me he not only remembered and really liked a review of his album Climate of Hunter I wrote in 1984 but that it helped him "redefine" in his own mind how his music could best be described at that point. Then in 2003, he said he wanted to use in his box set 5 Easy Pieces, a critique of his life and work which I wrote in 1990. Now, thirty years later, that critique and its backstory - it was never used in the box-set - is published in full in a digital magazine I called Scott Walker: The Fugitive kind, available in Amazon etc. And to think it all began when I was a boy and heard songs like The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore. Here, apart from an evocation of the time, I discovered Scott's music you hear Walker and I discuss the sound of the early Walker Brothers records. A fan meets one of his heroes
My podcast based on a radio show I did with Joe Dolan - there's no show like a show with two Joe's! - was hugely popular especially in my homeland of Ireland. So, here, as a kind of Christmas gift to all Joe's many fans, and for his family, is the first part of a podcast series in which people can hear the original tapes uncensored. You may as well be in the snig of the bar in Dublin's Clarence Hotel eavesdropping on me and Joe. To which I could say, or would if I had seen you do so, "feck off." But hey it's Christmas and all are welcome to join in the craic! Happy Christmas
This is part two of three podcasts based on an interview I did with Shane at the time of the release of his album The Snake. It's great fun, with Shane "correcting," mocking "breadheads" in charge of the music industry, saying most music is crap, dissing Dylan but praising Smokey Robinson, Nick Cave and Therapy. As for his dig at music journalists, if you are one, and sensitive, take a chill pill and listen, he's right in ways!
In 1997 I got not only to review Pieces of You for The Irish Times, but I also got to interview her for the same newspaper. That interview will be another podcast. Then I was asked to go on an Irish radio show to talk about the interview we did and her success story. It is a relatively short exchange but I hope the discussion reminds people how wrong music moguls can be! Jewel still rules for her fans OK!
Charley Pride died today from Covid-19 complications. When I interviewed him for Irish radio, his fans and country music lovers all over Ireland, loved our little chat. So, here in memory of the man, and for this fans and family, is the master tape of the interview, uncut and minus music. It's just a good conversation with a true gentleman who, let it not be forgotten, broke racial barriers in country music. R.I.P Charely Pride
I made this show to be broadcast at Christmas 2018 as a kind of public service by RTE Radio 1, in my series the Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. The interview was originally done in 1999, at the time of Mary Kenny's book, Death by heroin; Recovery by Hope. And as I say in the intro to the radio show I wanted to remind people prior to their Christmas excesses, about the dangers of drugs such as heroin. Sadly, RTE "pulled" the show. But happily, for me, and hopefully for listeners, it may pass on that warning and much more good info, as we head into Christmas celebration in 2020.
Back in 1994, Shane released his first album with his new band, The Popes, which was called The Snake. We did this interview at that point but first, we talked about a newspaper report - in the Sunday Independent - that had suggested he was drinking himself to death and could die at any point, maybe even on stage, which might delight "ghoulish" fans as Shane calls them. He also talks about his final days with The Pogues and how he hated touring, in the end, had nightmares about it that left him waking up screaming, and how he hated the music they ended up making. But be warned, the interview took place in a hotel, Shane was at first finishing a meal, and this sometimes makes it hard to hear what he is saying.
I am an Elvis fan and rock 'n' roll fan who was blessed to be able to interview my life-long heroes such as songwriters. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and my delight shows in this "Singles" edition of my podcast. It is less than five minutes long but has a world exclusive! Leiber and Stoller not only telling me how that great blues for Elvis, Santa Claus is Back in Town, came about, but also singing a "blue" blues tune called Bow-Legged Woman. If this doesn't make you smile, or laugh, we must be on different frequencies, I am afraid! Enjoy
Singer-songwriter Dory Previn said to me once, "I'd love you to do a psychosexual study of my work like the one you did about Sinatra." I laughed and said "a psychosexual study? Is that what I bloody well wrote!" But listening again after nearly a quarter-century to this radio show chat I had with Mike Murphy to mark Bowie's 50th birthday, Dory's comment more seriously comes to mind. This is a psychosexual study of Bowie, to a great degree, and with which Mike at times clearly did not agree! You may side with him or me or think it is all crap! Either way, this is my belated podcast tribute to Bowie who gave way to that black star - taking his title from an Elvis song of the same name - far too soon
From the 'Backstory of Riverdance: Clash of the Dancers,' section of my new eBook comes the best description of this podcast. 'In 1996 when I interviewed Michael Flatley, how could I have known that our little chat would leave Jean Butler incensed? Or know that, a year later, she would deliver via another interview, with me, what me editor correctly described as a "blistering broadside" against Flatley? Or that the latter would end up scolding me as if I was a wayward child?' But I also say in the intro to this podcast,' I tell a tale about the origins of Riverdance which has not been told elsewhere to this day. Certainly, the behind-the-scenes story has bever been told in this way and it probably won’t be because of confidentiality clauses that were written into Riverdance contracts after an interview I did with its composer Bill Whelen. But this eBook focuses on Butler and Flatley.'
Yes, in the eBook and the podcast I gave more space to Jean Butler becuase I have always believed that she has too often been written out of the story.
This podcast single - running roughly five minutes - could be part of my The Song that Changed My Life series but it's actually part of a one-hour interview with the great Roseanne Cash, in which she and I talk about the "great energy" in the Sun Records studio in Memphis, her father Johnny Cash, the 'Million Dollar Quartet,' and most of all her love for the recording she choose to kick off the radio show, You Don't Know Me, by Ray Charles. I shall do a podcast about Roseanne and her dad, but this one is in memory of Ray and the role he played in redefining country music.
The title of this podcast is playfully provocative, although more seriously it is based on my new Amazon eBook, Louis Walsh. My Story. Also, the sound is not great because the clip comes from an interview Louis and I did in 2000 in a noisy Dublin restaurant. But I am making the clip available as a podcast, partly becuase it gives us an insight into the young Louis Walsh, listening to Motown records, dancing the Hucklebuck, and the slightly older Louis who managed rock bands such as Time Machine. It was then, as he says during this podcast, that Walsh tried dope and cocaine, though he now claims not to have told me the latter. Much as I love the guy, it is a silly claim given that the quote was used in both a national Irish newspaper and national Irish magazine in 2000. So, here, for the record, is that exchange, which is only an incidental detail in. Louis Walsh. My Story.
In 2020 this discussion may seem quaint to many, as I say in the intro. But some people inexplicably may still find it difficult to take on board the fact that songs such as Strangers in the Night, not to mention Ob La Di Ob La Da, or U2's One, are seen as gay rock songs. Listen and decide for yourself. It's certainly a fun chat!
In 1992, while interviewing Tori Amos for the first time - the interview is in my eBook Tori Amos Soul Searching and Uncensored - I introduced her to the music of one of my life-long music heroes, and later in my life, a friend and mentor of mine, Dory Previn. Six years later, on Irish radio, I discussed with Mike Murphy the similarities between both artists and the magnificence of their arts. I hope this podcast leads to people discovering the absurdly underrated work of the late Dory Previn.
I am the Elvis fan who took to heart at the age of 12, the song Follow that Dream. It was part of the impulse behind the fact that in 1992 I ended up interviewing in a hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee, Ben Weisman who wrote the music for the song, and for 56 other songs - more than those written by anyone else - which Elvis recorded. Meeting your heroes is one thing, but getting to thank them and inspire them is a dream of an entirely different nature and one well worth following!
Since uploading my Podcast single Kirsty MacColl talks about Fairytale of New York, yesterday, I watched an immensely moving documentary on YouTube called Who killed Kirsty MacColl. I had forgotten that we are coming up to the twentieth anniversary of her tragic death. So, it seems that posting just a few minutes of Kirsty talking about Shane and that song, is a travesty of the memory of the woman, her life, and art. At least that's how I feel this morning. So, by way of celebrating Kirsty MacColl, who died this time twenty years ago as a result of a boating accident, I am uploading for the first time the full conversation we had in 1993 at the time of the release of her latest album Titanic Days. How could I have known - or she - what was being predicted when I asked her the following question about the song Titanic Days, "why does it end like that - it sounds like she is sinking.' Eerie.
I love rewriting the history of rock 'n' roll, I say not entirely seriously during this podcast, which is part of my Singles series lasting less than five minutes. Then again, I am not entirely joking either. This clip comes from a chat I had with Mike Murphy - Ireland's best-ever Arts show presenter - about Elvis's 1970s recordings. I tell him that while I was attending a Chieftains recording session, singer Tom Jones explained to me that the Chieftains reckoned that Heartbreak Hotel was based on an Irish dance tuned, slowed down. Decide for yourself!
In 1990 Neil Sedaka was due to appear in Ireland, so we did this fifteen-minute phone interview for The Irish Times. As a child I loved some of Sedaka's earliest hits, then, as a teenager, I bought his comeback albums such as Emergence and I noted on a johnny Mathis album my dad owned that Sedaka composed a great song called The Wolrd I Threw Away. And all of this was before his comeback with classic sings such as Solitaire, which was recorded by, among a million other singers, Elvis, in a version Sedka says here he didn't like. We also talk about his music overall and what had been recent gay rumours surrounding the death of his long-time co-writer Howard Greenfield. I am posting this podcast about Sedaka because I see that he is one of the few performers giving free gigs from home during the pandemic. No doubt he is being discovered by many people.
This is a Joe Jackson Interviews Podcast single lasting roughly five minutes. It's a clip of Kirsty MacColl and me in 1993, talking about folk purist responses to the music of The Pogues, celebrating the magnificence of the song Fairytale of New York - which "young people" prefer, I suggested at the time, rather than stereotypical Christmas songs and they did, despite the "offensive" words! - and both worried about Shane McGowan's wellbeing
In 2018 Ireland's Daily Mail on Sunday picked this radio programme- which was an hour-long and I have split into two podcasts - as a highlight of the day and said about it the following. 'During his 1996 Joe Jackson interview father Bryant Darcy revealed for the first time that he was sexually abused. He was highly critical of the laws of celibacy in the Catholic Church, claims that his spiritual training was ‘life-denying’ and that he needed to ‘relearn’ a ‘version of goodness.’ Jackson says: “I'd forgotten how truly soul searching Darcy was, more so than I had space to allow him to be in the original magazine interview.’ All of that I stand over in 2020. It is a definitive soul-searching interview with a priest.
This podcast is a slice of musical, cultural and political history. Large claims for a small podcast, but what the hell. I did this phone interview with Pops Staples, on the morning after Race Riots started in LA after cops were acquitted in relation to beating up Rodney King. And even though we did talk about Pops new album World in Motion, the conversation covered systematic racism in America, his despair becuase of that, memories of racism in the South, white people ripping off black music and making millions while black musicians such as himself had to battle more than thirty years to even get the royalties due to him after The Rolling Stones "borrowed," their word, his song The Last Time. A change better come.
I loved Buffy Sainte Marie's 1992 album Coincidence and Other Stories, and as an Irish person fully aware of political oppression in my homeland - The Troubles in Northern Ireland were flaming at the time - I was delighted to be able to talk with Buffy Sainte Marie, for The Irish Times newspaper, about the album and about the oppression of Native Americans in her homeland. I use the phrase 'eye-opening' in the title of this podcast because, even though it may not be thus for Americans, many readers of the subsequent article - available from joejacksoninterviewer.com - saw what Buffy explained to me as truly revealing. It's a phone char, the sound ain't great, but endure, because the woman has so much to say.
I have been a champion of the music of the Chieftains since 1990 when I did my first interview with Paddy Moloney. I explain why, at the start of this podcast. It has something to do with U2. Championing the Chieftains led to my sitting in on a recording session they did in Frank Zappa's home - check my Zappa podcast - with Tom Jones singing the vocal on Tennessee Waltz. Later again I write the sleeve notes fro their album The Chieftains: The Wide World over: A 40 Year Celebration. We did a radio show around the same time and here you have the group playing live for me a track from that album. I include the three takes we did - two have never been heard- to highlight the perfectionism of the Chieftains.
This interview with Gabriel Byrne, which took place in Bel Air, Hollywood, was one of my earliest major interviews. I had never met Gabriel, but we connected in an instant, partly becuase we both are Dublin working class, and each had been tradesmen. But also, as is obvious from the exchange, we both were prone to soul searching. Also, the more I learned about Gabriel's decidedly shadowed and fascinating psyche, the more I wanted to know. That's why I was so pleased when afterwards he described our more than two-hour chat as 'the first totally honest, soul searching interview" he ever did. It still stands up as true more than thirty years later. It is Byrne in a way 'in treatment' with me. He never again gave an interview like this, even the second time we sat down to talk. That will be the second in this two-part podcast based on my eBook Gabriel Byrne: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus
This is part one of my upcoming series of Tori Amos podcasts, which are based on my 2013 eBook Tori Amos: Soul Searching and Uncensored. (Check my website joejacksoninterviewer.com). It was the first of three remarkable interviews we did and even though it took some time for us to connect, during the interview, and despite the fact that Tori at first was sitting on a window ledge, twenty feet away from me - she later sat beside me - and the sound isn't great at times, Peter Kenny, Head of Warner Brothers Records Ireland said of the subsequent article - it's in the eBook - "that was the best rock music interview I ever read." I myself would say the second interview I did with Tori, was one of my best and she remains one of my favourite among the 1,4000 celebrities I interviewed. Hell, The Irish Times even censored an entire interview we did. But that is another story.
I happen to be a bigger fan of early Fleetwood Mac, than latter-day Fleetwood Mac. They were one of the first groups I saw in concert as a kid. But common to both, at some stage, was the voice of Christine McVie. I even loved and bought her Chicken Shack single, I'd Rather Go Blind! So it was a delight to have this half-hour phone chat with Christine in which we discuss Fleetwood Mac old and new, and, yes, Rumours one of the best-selling albums of all time.
This is the first part - I will be making two podcasts of this interview - of my eBook Brendan O' Carroll Soul Searching and Uncensored, which contains the print versions of my 1995 and 2001 interview with Brendan. But be warned, the podcast is, as the title says, uncensored, and some of the language and subjects covered and words used may be offensive to some people. In fact, if you don't get his peculiarly Irish sense of humour - evident in his tV character Mrs Brown - it might be best not to join this party. If you do, it is great craic!
I am someone who, maybe like you, loves and at times lives for music. It carried me through countless troubled times. So now, during a global pandemic, and the second lockdown in my homeland of Ireland, I am going to make a series of podcasts singles in a series I call 'Music Puts Wings on the Human Spirt, " to quote Sinatra. One of the great joys of being a music interviewer is that now and then music acts sing or play a song for you, be it privately on tape or during a radio broadcast, and sometimes, as in the case of Leonard Cohen, they recite a song lyric for you, or sing part of a song. Either way what good are treasures if they are not shared? So here is a clip of the Five Blind Boys of Alabama blessing with an a live rendition of the old Golden Gate Quarter recording, Walk in Jerusalem Just Like John. Amen to that. I hope it raises your spirits
I grew up listening to my father play the music of Judy Garland, and I had read books such as Weep No More My Lady, back in the 70s, so I was truly thrilled to get to talk with her daughter, Lorna Luft, about, in particular, her mom's addiction to pills, her own use of coke - a drug that was widely used in Ireland at the time of this interview in 2004 - Studio 54, and how she finally broke away from using drugs. My dad died addicted to the same pills Judy had used. This is a clip from my new eBook From Darkness to Light - available on Amazon, soon to be available elsewhere - which includes the full Lorna Luft interview, and is a collection of inspirational interviews for troubled times. Lorna's story sure is inspirational.
A word of warning - my podcast is called The Joe Jackson Interviews Podcast. But this episode is not an interview. It was supposed to be, and at the end, Leonard did say, "thanks a lot, man, that was a great, great interview. It was deep," but here I must tell the truth. I didn't come to fool you, to quote Hallelujah. On the day this dialogue with Leonard took place, March st 1985, I was not an interviewer. I was a life-long Cohen fan who had implored a magazine editor to allow me to interview Leonard because something told me I had to talk with the man. Hence, it is more of a conversation and I sound suitably humbled in the man's presence. Either way, afterwards Leonard said he got a sense it was "important to" me. He was right. It left me feeling so transcendent that fifteen minutes after it ended I decided to become an interviewer. Here is a clip from my new eBook, available on Amazon, Hallelujah: A Conversation with Leonard Cohen.
I did this interview as a world exclusive offered to me by Bono - which was for reasons I disclose in this podcast was a shock to me - and during which the talked me through the upcoming U2 album, Zooropa. This clip has Bono singing the praises of Johnny Cash, telling the surreal tale of the time Cash was almost killed by an Emu and finally playing for me the staggering brilliant U2/Johnny Cash collaboration The Wanderer - a title I tell him I think the song should be called, and it was. This is a slice of U2 and rock 'n' roll history.
How is this for a crazy quote to start a podcast version of a radio series I recorded a decade ago? "As far as can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." Who said that? Carl Jung. But ever since I was fourteen or so, and raised my mother's spirits one sad day, by playing her an Elvis spiritual, something that then led to me writing in my diary, 'I realised today that a few simple words, spoken by me or pass on through a song by the king, can help raise someone else's spirits.' The path to all my work ever since was paved! And that memory led directly to me making in 2009 and 2010 twenty-four one-hour programmes meant to raise the spirits of listeners during a global recession, and its aftermath. Now the world is shadowed by COVID-19, so I am making those shows - highly edited as is necessary re music on podcasts - here!
I have loved love kd Lang's music since 1987, we did this interview once face-to-face and my tape didn't record! But kd kindly went to a studio in LA, while I sat in my studio in Dublin and we did the interview down the wire. It is a positively uplifting half-hour - minus music - discussion about Bobby Sherman, classical music, kd coming out at 17 to her mother, Percy Faith, Joni Mitchell, performance art, subverting stereotypes in Nashville, "I was a Buddhist, vegetarian and lesbian!" - Roy Orbison, and her own astounding songs such as Season of Hollow Soul. She is a joy to listen to - singing or talking.
This podcast in my Singles series - roughly five minutes long - is part of an interview I did with John Waters two days after the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007. His song, as performed by Dervish, had come last, but at the start of the tape, we both were talking about our response to Karolina, the Macedonian entrant that year. I turned on the tape recorder when John was talking about lustful feelings for Karolina. This then led to me saying that Tori Amos was told by a Native American spirit guide that all the men who wanted to sleep with her" wanted to tap into her God force.' Hence that quote I used in the title which came from John. Nonsense or otherwise it is a provocative clip, I believe.
I did this interview in 2002, at a time when all my weekly interviews for The Sunday Independent, an Irish newspaper, were designed primarily to lift readers spirits, even illuminate their lives by telling the story of a famous or not famous person who had travelled through dark times and made it back out into the - maybe even having had an epiphany. When I interview Larry - a fellow broadcaster in RTE, although he was on 3FM and I was on Radio 1 - it was not long after his beloved wife and soulmate Florrie died. He also had recently returned to broadcasting. I wanted to tell his life story, celebrate the man, and find out how he survived such a central loss. His Golden Hour was joyful, we ned it during a pandemic, here is my version of a Gogan show - minus music but with the man himself. RIP
In 1994 when Robbie Robertson released his album Music for the Native Americans, the subject of the latter, in terms their music, culture, lifestyle and the genocide perpetrated on them as part of America's history, was something that fascinated me. I had talked with the likes of Buffy Saint Marie and Bill miller about the subject, Robbie Robertson, who has Native American roots, seemed more than happy to talk with me along those lines. It sure struck me as more interesting than yet another interview about The Band, though them come into the area of exploration too.
The article is available at joejacksoninterviewer.com
Scott Walker is one of my all-time favourite singers and songwriters. He once asked me to provide the booklet notes for his 5 CD box set, Five Easy Pieces. Scott also loved my 1985 review of Climate of Hunter and said it helped him crystalise his understanding of how it could best be described, "Schubert meets Schoenberg in a rock context." So in 1995, when he was selecting journalists - very few - to talk with, he gave me two interviews. This is a fragment about Johana, I Still See You and the question of how much of the tension in Walker's work was rooted in his own sexual tensions. I will be putting together an Ebook and digital magazine featuring the entire interview, and the essay we ended up not using oin that box set. Check joejacksoninterviewer.com
I was born, at the age of ten, or rather, reborn, the day I discovered rock 'n' roll via an old Elvis single called I Need Your Love Tonight. I died a little when Elvis died in 1977. It fragmented my life in ways, as I say in the intro to this podcast. But it also sent me off on a life-long quest to talk with, among all my hundreds of celebrity interviewees, anyone who knew or worked with Elvis. I also regard Leiber and Stoller as the best songwriters in the early years of rock 'n' roll and beyond. And during a ninety-minute interview, we did in their office in LA in 2005, I finally got to ask them, just for fun, and for the history books, if Jailhouse Rock is a gay love song. We certainly had so much fun that day and there will be more Leiber and Stoller podcasts from me, and a digital magazine based on the interview
in late 2017, Michael Colgan was all over the Irish media, for reasons to which I alluded to start of the programme I made to be broadcast at Christmas 2017 as part of my series The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. it was pulled at the last moment by RTE. They had “sound problems” I was told, a phrase that can be read in many ways. I protested. I argued that an interview I did in 2003 in which I set out to probe the psyche of Michael Colgan “would be of public interest and even perform a public service!” To no avail. it was never broadcast. I now am delighted, during this age of podcasts, to finally be able to get to the public programme that should have been heard in 2017- despite its "sound problems." Enjoy.
I started this chat with Sinead O Connor in 2000 talking about our shared belief in the fact that songs can make the spirit fly - music/art as therapy. But she broadened and deepend the conversation when she talked about the source of inspiration and illumination and hope she had found, from the age of eleven onwards, in the songs, singing and soul power, as she calls it, of John Lennon and Bob Dylan. Sadly I can play only part of Mind Games and have to fade Dylan's Precious Angel from his criminally underrated album Slow Train Coming. Hop on board - especially if like Sinead and I, you believe in the redemptive power of music.
Everyone loves the song Where Do You Go To My Lovely? If they don't they should. It is one of the all-time classic pop songs. And so when I interviewed Peter Sarstedt, its singer and composer, I couldn't wait to hear the tale of the genesis of the song - especially the 'firm and inviting' body verse that was censored from the single and why that was! The full interview is available at joejacksoninterviewer.com. Or it soon will be!
This is a 'Joe Jackson Podcast Single' a teaser about four minutes long from twenty hours of tapes I recorded with Richard Harris mostly for the biography he appointed me to write - but which we never did. it was said that while in Hollywood making Camelot he became 'Hollywood's new Error Flynn' shagging basically everything that moved - was the suggestion made at the time in. a magazine called Uncensored. I asked him about all that, and the Catholic guilt he once wrote about in a poem.
Tom Murphy, as I say in the new intro for this podcast, which itself was pulled from broadcasting at the last moment by one particular power-that-be in RTE, is my favourite Irish playwright and one of my favourite interviewees. And this is one of my favourite interviews, which will appeal in particular to artists in any field. It is an astounding exploration of creativity. I made the show a few days after the man died, in 2018, it was meant to be my personal tribute but it was never broadcast and is now, happily a podcast Enjoy
As I say in the intro to what I call this podcast single - it lasts only five minutes - this is a clip from a phone interview I did with Nancy Sinatra, who, in case anyone doesn't know had a relatively famous father called Frank! I grew up listening to Frank, whose music my dad loved ( and I later did too) but to me, Elvis was the King. And I bought all of Nancy's 45's. So during this phone call, I had to ask if her dad really hated not just Elvis but also rock 'n' roll and if she had a "fling," let's say, with the King while they were making the movie Speedway. Don't forget to check out the article at joejacksoninterviewer.com
Sean Hughes, tragically, died at the age of only 51 in October 2017. I made this radio show within days for my series The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, on RTE Radio 1. It was meant to be broadcast around the time of the year it had originally been recorded, in 1993, at Christmas. I thought that would be fitting. Unfortunately, RTE asked me not to broadcast the show - despite the fact that it was heavily promoted and many people were looking forward to it - because they had, I was told "another tribute ready to be broadcast in the new year.". If it was broadcast, I missed it. So, three years later close enough to Christmas, I am delighted to finally make the show available as part of The Joe Jackson Interviews series
From Joe Jackson’s introduction to his 2017, RTE Radio 1 programme, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited: JP Donleavy, which, was “pulled” from broadcast by RTE and has never been heard until now. Copyright Joe Jackson.
‘If like me you came of age during the 1970s and dreamed of one day becoming a writer you must have read, loved, and being influenced by, at least one of JP Donleavy's books. Be it The Ginger Man, Fairy Tale of New York - yeah one of the inspirations behind Shane McGowan's song of the same name – or, The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B. But back in 1990, despite my delight in meeting one of my old literary heroes, and my fondness for many of his old books at a time when one of his more recent was JP Donleavy's Ireland, I did bring a more critical - deconstructionist, in fact - sensibility to bear on the man's work. Specifically, when it came to his representation of women, sexual politics, race, class, and more so what to me and two others seemed to be Donleavy's deification of the Anglo Irish ascendancy.’
This is a three minutes podcast culled from my one-hour radio show Leonard Cohen: The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. But, a word of warning for listeners, the clip includes a phone chat I had with Leonard in 1995, the connection from Dublin to LA, was bad, and he is hard to hear and in this non-representative section of the interview I, frankly, talk too much! I hate interviewers who think what they have to say is more important than anything said by an interviewee. But, at least this clip upends the idea that Cohen was merely a merchant of gloom and had no sense of humour. And undoing that reductive public image is what I set out to do, from the first time I first interviewed the man a decade earlier. And another word of warning. If you feel precious about Bono, and do actually lack a sense of humour - unlike 'Bobo' himself as his wife once called him in my presence- this may not be for you!
This is a clip from my Elvis radio documentary/podcast Conversations about the King. But since I uploaded that podcast two months ago, or so, I rediscovered, as I say in the intro to this podcast, a taped interview I did in 1987 with singer PJ Proby - I have since uploaded that podcast, too, PJ Proby: Monster of Rock?' and there you can get the full context for his quote - and it had inspired me to another layer to the story of That's All Right Mame - the clarion call of rock 'n' roll. If you love the song, you will love this five-minute clip, I believe.
My familiarity with Sinead and her music in terms of this opening section from a one-hour show we did together, stems in part from the fact that we had already recorded the show in her apartment, but the noise of traffic meant that couldn't be broadcast so we did it again. Here she sings, so sweetly, along with the king's hit, Wooden Heart, which as it transpires started it all for me as a music critic. Sinead also talks about Jailhouse Rock and Elvis's sex-appeal, but more so his sensitivity and 'angelic' side
This was maybe the best fun I had doing a phone interview. Goldie, as you will hear, was barely awake at first, but when we clicked the questions and answers were ferocious as he let rip in terms of class, race, music, Prodigy, Enya, and his persistent, ever-aspirational drive to make music that would equal that of his heroes such as Miles Davis. It's probably best that I don't mention he also refers to his hard-on. But it was cool to be described as "clued in" by Goldie!
My title for this podcast is purposefully provocative. However, it is also rooted in the fact that every time I tried to include this show in my RET Rdio 1 series, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, I was asked "Who remembers Donal these days" and had to substitute another show. That went n for three years. So now, in part as an act of defiance, I am making the whole dam one-hour show a podcast. Besides who the late Donal McCann was, is one of Ireland's greatest actors, and maybe is remembered most as a result of playing the lead role in John Huston's last film, the adaptation of James Joyce's short story The Dead. Donal and I also discuss existential questions that are even more relevant amid COVID 19, believe me. Listen, you won't be disappointed.
From intro...'The interview was for The Sunday Independent and their manager Louis Walsh had said he hoped it would be their “first serious interview” which is how Louis described the first interview I did with Boyzone. But it’s all relative and as I said in that article, Edward took to the relatively serious nature of this interview more seriously! Incidentally, I also said, in the opening line of that article that ‘nothing I say’ – maybe I should have written ‘nothing I ask them’ – fazes John and Edward Grimes. And that was true, as you shall hear, whether we talk about both becoming, or being, interdependent as twins, living charmed lives in what they call a bubble, drink and drugs and rumours that they are gay. Also, it they barely take a breath and probably couldn’t speak faster unless they were on speed. As such, it’s verbal roller coaster ride that I split into two podcasts. This is part one. If you want to read the article I wrote based on this chat or gain access to the full tape, unedited, check out my website joejacksoninterviewer.com
This is a clip from my Ebook, Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus. I'll paste it the link later. However, whereas my first Bob Geldof Podcast, 'The Joe Jackson Interviews: A Searingly Honest and Incendiary interview with Bob Geldof' is one of my so-called cradle-to-the-grave interviews, this is just Bob and me - allowing for our peripheral personal history - discussing the subjects of Phil Lynott, and Bob's own drug use. It is basically a clip for fans of the late, and still-much missed "Philo."
This is a clip I didn't use in my first Savile podcast, The Joe Jackson Tapes: 'Jimmy Savile. Attempting to Unmask a Monster. 2001.' It includes arguably the single most revealing comment Savile ever made about himself. Namely, "I could be diabolical, with a straight face." Stupidly, I didn't use that quote in the original print interview I wrote out of this 2001 interview. I did, however, include it in my 2017 radio show The Joe Jackson Tapers Revisited: Jimmy Savile, which RTE refused to broadcast. Now it ids a podcast
This 2002 interview - later used as the opening chapter of my book, David Norris: Trial By Media - now out of print but available as an ebook from joejacksoninterviewer.com - came back into the news during David Norris's bid in 2011 to become the next President of Ireland. Simply because it was the first in which he had directly addressed allegations that were made against him by Irish journalist Mary Lucy Burke. In his more recent biography, Kicking Against The Pricks, David kindly says he will "always be grateful to" me for doing the 2002 interview. But this is the first time it will be heard publicly and I have split it into two parts - the first part focusing solely on his highly-emotional response to those allegations. This is a slice of Irish political and cultural history.
This podcast is part of my 'Singles' series, as in singles, as opposed to albums! But It was only after I made it that I decided to apply to it the title 'Memories of a celebrity Interviewer.' Why? Because it is mostly me telling a story about the night I finally got to meet and interview one of my life-long music heroes, Jerry Lee Lewis. The clip of him actually talking is short, noisy, because it was recorded backstage at one of his Dublin gigs, and insultingly to the point! So, did it make me decide that having become an interviewer mostly to meet my music heroes had been one of my great mistakes in life? Listen and you will find out. This podcast is dedicated to all my fellow lovers of 50s rock 'n' roll - and country music. And to fellow Jerry Lee Lewis fans.
I have one abiding regret about this radio interview I did with Nils Lofgren in the home studio in 2009. At one point he picked up the toy Elvis guitar I got as a kid, strummed it and said, "Bruce would love to see this!" I wish I had taken a picture of Nils then! But, we clearly were joyfully in tune about the music of The Beatles, Dean Martin, Buffallo Springfield, and so on and it shows. I hope the listener feels the same delight we shared in talking this way about the music that made nils Lofgren want to make music and the music he mad1
Actually that title is not something Joan Baez said to me during, or before this 1993 interview we did for my 'The Joe Jackson Interview' slot in The Irish Times. But I wish she had said something like that in advance because the only time this wonderfully free-flowing phone chat hit a wall, named Bobby Zimmerman, in fact, was when I referred to the latter. Thankfully at the very end of the interview, I explain that this I did only to highlight the fact that I sided more with her than with Dylan, when it came to her old claim that the difference between them both, politically was that he said basically "Let's all go home and get stoned, there is nothing we can do," or words to that effect, whereas she argued 'There is and I am going out to do that something!" Joan and I also talked about the argument that drugs immobilized the 60s generation. And of course, we talk about her music. Indeed 99% of the interview is about Joan Baez, her music, politics and ideology overall. She says at the start "lucky man" to me. I was, to get even a 23-minute phone call with Joan Baez.
This is, arguably, the most outrageous, and offensive - particularly in terms of Proby's language, and attitudes towards blacks, gays, and women - rock 'n' roll interview I have ever done. So, why turn it into a podcast? Because whether you agree with the headline 'Monster of Rock' placed on the original magazine article by my editor, or agree with me that much of it may be Proby myth-making and living up to his fictional image in the novel, I Am Still The Greatest, Says Johnny Angelo, by Kik Coh, this is some might say rock 'n' roll in essence, in terms of what that editor also claimed are its worst characteristics. Either way, nowhere else will you hear the history of rock 'n' roll told this way, including tales about Elvis Tommy Sands, Eddie Cochran, Dion, The Walker Brothers and above all Proby himself. Not for sensitive souls. But a fascinating psychosexual study.
Lest anyone think otherwise, this podcast in no way glamourizes drug use. How could it? My father's death at the age of only fifty, was drink-and-drug related, as was the death of my childhood hero, Elvis. I elaborate on all of this in the introduction and then go on to talk with Leonard Cohen - just two quotes from the man - about heroin, Dory Previn about pills and ECT, PJ Proby about drink and the Beatles use of dope and LSD, and Boy George's heroin horrors. Dark subjects but I have never been known to make a radio show or podcast that brings people down and I hope the same is true of this podcast. On the contrary, I hope it helps people.
"You should have asked him more about sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll." That's what an editor told me when I delivered to a magazine my first interview, with, as it transpired, Leonard Cohen the music hero of mine who then inspired me to become an interviewer because of that interview. And, frankly, I thought the comment made by that editor was tacky. That said, over the following thirty years when I did interviews with more than 1,4000 celebrities, the subjects of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll arose so often that I now have decided to make a series of podcasts, each one on each of those subjects separately. In this, the first, I discuss sex with Dory Previn, Leslie Dowdall, lead singer of the band In Tua Nua, and with Boy George. All interviews are from the start of my career.
In 1995 I wrote the official Boyzone book, Boyzone: Our Story. However, it wasn't until 2020 when I began doing Podcasts and revisited cassette tapes of interviews I did for that book and for articles in Irish newspapers and magazines, that I discovered there were many things Keith Duffy told me about the battles behind the scenes the band had with their manager Louis Walsh at the time. In fact, this tape/podcast was recorded at Elstree Studio in London while Boyzone were recording their first appearance on the TV show Top of the Pops and during a break from rehearsals, Keith and I sat on a stairway outside the building and as he told me about the pressures he was under Duffy began to cry. The tale is told, about conflict over contracts, and so on, relates to not only any boyband but also any musician in the music industry. Hopefully some will learn lessons from this Podcast.
The article I wrote based on this interview is included in my Ebook, At The End Of A Storm Is A Golden Sky. It fits perfectly into that anthology of inspirational interviews, simply because Davina's story, as told to me in the bar of a Dublin Hotel, is utterly inspiring. In fact when the article was published in The Sunday Independent, the headline read 'Davina's Road to Damascus'.' Its sub-headline read, "If I took one drug now I'd go back to the miserable, lowlife idiot I was," says Davina McCall. For the 'Big Brother' presenter, marriage to a model, motherhood and a successful, glamorous career have been hard-won.' Joe Jackson heard how McCall's sobriety brought great gifts.' When it was published in Hello magazine the headline was 'Davina McCall reveals how she conquered her demons and found lasting happiness.' I hope listeners find the podcast equally inspiring.
This 2002 interview with Billy Joel was recorded backstage at Madison Square Garden after I managed to get, following a round table Press Conference, twenty minutes alone with the man. As such it wasn't the kind of one-hour in-depth interview I usually did but we managed to cover core issues in relation to Joel's psychology, such as his self-consciousness about his looks - "I said to Bono, we look like two bricklayers!" - about his voice, suicidal feelings when he was twenty-one, the break up of his marriage to Christy Turlington, pain, in particular at losing touch with his daughter, after that breakup, alcoholism and finally finding happiness in a new marriage and gratification as an artist, writing classical music, and performing live. This tale of a struggle from darkness back to light later led to me including in my anthology of inspirational interviews, At The End Of A Storm is A Golden Sky - available from Amazon and joejacksoninterviewer.com - the print interview that came out of this chat. Whether you read the book or just listen to this podcast, I hope it helps you - particularly during this dark period of a global pandemic.
Thanks to my friendship at the time, with Louis Walsh, I gained more access to Westlife than any other journalist and they were told by Louis not to give me "crap" during interviews. Prior to this radio interview, which we did at Christmas in 2001- copyright laws dictate that I can't play on this podcast the music - I had interviewed each member of Westlife separately and in-depth for an Irish magazine, hence I had a handle on the musical influences of each member of the group. Even so, during this show which focuses specifically on those influences the three members came up with many surprises - in one case a hatred of a particular Take That recording - and we all had a blast that suited the Christmas season.
Sadly when this interview was published in an Irish magazine it hit the headlines in every newspaper in the UK simply because of one single, albeit staggeringly revealing, comment Cliff made about his love life - that will be Part 2 of this Podcast - but he also was equally forthcoming when it came to subjects he rarely discussed in public, such as his anger at doctors after the death of his father, his need, after that for "father figures," the bisexual appeal of his music, feminism, working mothers, Margaret Thatcher and the claim that "evil is" the "essence" of who he says he is. The fact that one day after doing this interview in Dublin Cliff told friends in London, "It was the best I ever did" proves that, whatever you may think about his music, Cliff Richard had no problem being pushed to the utmost on even the most challenging questions. Part 2 will follow in a few weeks.
If my full interviews are like albums then look upon this as a single! For nearly a decade at the start of the 21st century, I interviewed many of the most famous musicians in the world, for a radio series called Under The Influence. Taking my cue from the fact that hearing two particular Elvis songs when I was a child - I tell that tale in the intro to the podcast - changed my life, changed it utterly, I always kicked off each show by asking a musician if she or he had a similar memory that maybe led to an epiphany and to them wanting to make music. So, now, alongside my uploading already four of the full shows - Christy Moore, Elvis Costello, Micky Dolenz, and the other Joe Jackson- I have decided to "release" these "singles" which focus on the song that became a clarion call of sorts to the musician in question. Here Tony Joe White talks about Lightnin' Hopkins' Baby Please Don't Go, and, to kick off tells us what Polk Salad really is and that it should not be smoked!
I made the original radio show programme version of this show for my series The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. It was meant to be broadcast by RTE Radio 1, in Ireland, at Christmas 2018. However, they pulled the show. Now it is a podcast in my series, The Joe Jackson Interviews. Mike was my mentor in broadcasting, we worked together for ten years, I regard him to be a friend and so I felt free to ask the man the kind of questions that other interviewers might shy away from. And Mike had no problem with that. Here he discusses, in a frank and fearless fashion, subjects such as Eamon Dunphy, RTE, The Irish Times, and more personal matters such as his childhood, and marriage break-up. It really is Mike as you never heard him before and you won't until I upload the second interview we did, as a companion piece to this, thirteen years later in 2013.
Phoebe Bridgers has brought Clapton back into the news this week by claiming that his music is "extremely mediocre" and by describing him as "a famous racist." Her comments - which I address in the intro to this podcast - made me go back to a round table interview I attended with the man, in Milan, in 1991, at the time of the release of his album, Eric Clapton: 24 Nights. I rarely did such round table press conferences, because they didn't lend themselves to the type of in-depth discussion I prefer. And I was not popular with many of my fellow journalists at the table because I did persist with questions I wanted to ask, about the death of Conor, the songs the tragedy was inspiring, Clapton's music in general, drugs and racism etc. Hence, I want to point out that this is a less than half-hour long edit of a one-hour press conference and it focuses mostly on my exchanges with Eric Clapton.
It was quite something special to be in Mark Knopfler’s studio and talk with him about wonderfully evocative memories such as plugging his first electric guitar into a radio and blowing its amp! Plus, childhood memories of songs such as The Big Top Candy Mountain, the electrifying joy of seeing at the age of fifteen, Chuck Berry, “playing his guitar and doing the duck walk,” his “pilgrimage” to the USA to see the places Blind Willie McTell had lived and played, his love for The Shadows, specifically the lead playing of Hank Marvin, and how all this, and so much more fed into his own art. He also talks about the roots of songs such as Money for Nothing, and the phenomenally popular album Sultans of Swing. To end, Mark Knopfler talks about his latest album at the time, Sailing to Philadelphia. Heaven for musos! He even talks about working with the enigmatic Scott Walker!
It was a joy to talk with Lionel Richie, partly because I share his love for all the three heroes whose songs he chooses as core influences on his art: The Temptations, My Girl; Sam Cooke, A Change is Gonna Come and Marvin Gaye, What's Goin' On. Hearing all three in succession leads us directly into his own smooth soul classics such as Easy Like Sunday Morning. Lionel also talks to me about feeling out of place as a teenager, and the shyness that kept him from even kissing girls in the audience during concerts by The Commodores. It is a lazy chat with Lionel and - would sound particularly good on an easy Sunday Morning!
I did this interview with June Juanico in Dublin in 1997, when she was promoting her wonderfully evocative memoir, Elvis: In The Twilight of Memory. But be warned, apart from telling the tale of a youthful love story cut short by Colonel Parker, and by the romantic/sexual excesses of Elvis himself, it is sexually explicit at times and even addresses a rumour that was circulating at the time, courtesy of the crappy National Enquirer, and Dee Presley, Elvis's stepmother, about Elvis and his mother Gladys. That said, June Juanico, gave me wonderful insights into Elvis recordings I had loved all my life, such as Is It So Strange, and I, much to my embarrassment made her cry by telling her a story about the song Unchained melody which has since turned out to be questionable. Either way, she was once Elvis's lover and I was a lifelong fan, who truly cared about the man, hence this became one of the most intimate and revealing conversations I ever had about Elvis. Indeed, I didn't rediscover the tape until August 2020, and I regret deeply the fact that June wasn't the much-needed female voice in my 2017 documentary, Conversations About The King. But hey, now she has gotten her own 'show' and June Juanico more than deserves it.
I already uploaded the precursor and companion piece to this radio documentary. It is called, Memories Of An Elvis Fan, which was deemed to be "too personal" by RTE Radio 1 in Ireland, to be broadcast. And so I substituted, Conversations About The King, which then was nominated for a 'Best Music Documentary' award in 2018. The first show tells the tale of how I became an Elvis fan and how he became to me a kind of spirit guide and source of ceaseless inspiration, and strength, particularly during periods of 'dark sadness' surrounding my family, to quote a poem I wrote in 1973 in response to his recording of You'll Never Walk Alone. This show, on the other hand, is based on countless interviews I probably was destined to do as part of a personal quest after Elvis died in 1977. Eight years later, I became an interviewer and this gave me access to not only many of the world's top musicians, such as Bono, but more importantly, to me, to the likes of Sam Phillips, Founder of Sun Records and a founding father of Rock 'n' Roll. When I was ten years old I told my mother, "One day I am going to Memphis, Tennessee, to thank Mr. Phillips for discovering Elvis." A quarter-century, or so, later, I did. This podcast also includes interviews with the likes of DJ Fontana, Elvis's original drummer; Gordon Stoker from The Jordanaires; songwriter Ben Weisman, and fellow Elvis fans such as Sinead O' Connor and Cliff Richard. This one is for Elvis Aaron and I am launching it near enough to the forty-third anniversary of his death to ensure that maybe a few people will be listening to it on August 16th 2020.
when i was ten, that i intended to "go to Memphis one day to thank him for discovering Elvis."
From the intro to the Podcast.
'At 11:40 PM on August 16th, 1977 my phone rang. I had been listening to Elvis sing a beautiful ballad called, Suppose. And I was smiling. Why? I realised that as he sang my favourite part, those lines, ‘it's impossible to imagine the world without a star but imagining know you is more impossible by far’ I did something I had been doing since I first heard the song nearly ten years earlier. When he reached that final word, ‘far’ and seemed to be reaching for the heavens, if not heaven, I closed my eyes and held my breath, as if in prayer, and almost said aloud “You can do it, Elvis.” It was a glorious moment of union, though to what I haven't a clue. Then I answered the phone. it was my girlfriend. She said “Joseph I have terrible news. it's Elvis. He's dead.” I said, “No, he can't be.” She said, “He is. Your mother saw it on the news, rang and asked me to tell you. She said, “I can't bear to give Joseph this news, I know it will break his heart. Elvis was his life.” And so in an instant, my life changed.'
This podcast is Part 1 of a radio show that RTE Radio 1 in Ireland, told me was "too personal" to broadcast. So I substituted another show 'Conversations about the King' - which I will also turn into a podcast - and it included interviews I did with the likes of Bono and Sam Phillips and Sinead O Connor. In 2018 was nominated by IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organisation, for an award in their 'Best Music Documentary' category. I'd like to believe that this show, 'Memories of An Elvis Fan.' it's precursor, might have been as successful.
If my full interviews are like albums then look upon this as a single! For nearly a decade at the start of the 21st century, I interviewed many of the most famous musicians in the world, for a radio series called Under The Influence. Taking my cue from the fact that hearing two particular Elvis songs when I was a child - I tell that tale in the intro to the podcast - changed my life, changed it utterly, I always kicked off each show by asking a musician if she or he had a similar memory that maybe led to an epiphany and to them wanting to make music. So, now, alongside my uploading already four of the full shows - Christy Moore, Elvis Costello, Micky Dolenz, and the other Joe Jackson- I have decided to "release" these "singles" which focus on the song that became a clarion call of sorts to the musician in question.
Below is the description I used for Part One of this Two-part interview. It applies equally to the second part, although the subject matter moves from RTE to Charles Haughey and Terry Keane, Chris De Burgh's sex life, Irish politics, Dermot's roots, and his core drive, as a comedian and his hopes if finally being financially secure at fifty. Oh yeah, he also talks, not entirely seriously, or maybe totally seriously about the first time he masturbated and how priests and bishops do the same thing. That was Dermot Morgan, OK. R.I.P.
'This interview with the man-who-would-soon-be-Father-Ted, Dermot Morgan, took place in 1994 only weeks before he went to the UK to start the latter TV series. 75% of this, at times explosively controversial material, has never been in the public domain, the reasons for which will be apparent as you listen. In the podcast, perhaps for the first time Dermot, understandably enraged at points, tells his version of how and why his successful radio shows, such as Scrap Saturday, were "sidelined" by RTE, perhaps as a result of political pressure, and why he was forced to go to the UK to make Father Ted. It is a no-holds-barred interview, exactly as it happened, with colorful language and merely minor fades at four points, which I made purely for legal reasons, and some of which Dermot suggested in 1994. The full typescript of the print interview is available at joejacksoninterviewer.com'
As I say in the new introduction for this interview - recorded in 2004 for the Sunday Independent - Tommy Tiernan is now doing psychologically probing and, arguably, spiritually driven interviews in Irish TV. Without meaning to sound self-aggrandizing, I have to say, because it has been said about my interviews, and even my recently launched series of podcasts, in The Joe Jackson Interviews series, that is the kind of interviews I have done since the start of my career in 1985. It's no big deal, just my way of doing things. So, I decided to present in this podcast, part one of two, the original tape unedited and minus the kind of revisionist narration I used in my radio series, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. This show was meant to be a part of that series but now never will be. Enjoy this version, as part of my series of podcasts.
Part Two continues the story as described in part one. 'This may be one of the most revealing interviews ever given by Neil Diamond, who rarely talks about his private life. He certainly, until that day, in 2002, in a recording studio New York where we did this interview - the third I had done with Diamond - had never discussed in such detail his conflict with the Mafia during the early years of his career. In fact, I was told that when I raised the subject while sitting alone with Neil in that studio, a member of his management team in the control room said aloud, "Did he just ask Neil about the Mafia! My God!" Either way, as you will hear, Neil himself had no problem addressing that or any issue with me. Then again, the guy knew I loved his music and the fact is that we had always gotten on great. This is part one of two podcasts that I guess I could have called 'The Neil Diamond Story - as you never heard it before.' Btw, these tapes are copyright Joe Jackson and must not be broadcast or quoted in print without my permission.'
Please note that this is Part 2, of a three-part podcast. Part 1 is available on this website, Part 3 will follow in a few weeks. The following is the description from Part 1, it applies to all three parts.
'This episode on The Joe Jackson Interviews series differs from most of my other podcats. For one thing, it is based on my eBook, Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus. The ‘Plus’ in the title refers to the fact that the eBook contains the uncensored versions of the two major interviews we did, first in 1989, then in 2001, and a fragment of memoir. Growing up in Dun Laoghaire I knew Geldof, albeit from a distance that was largely defined by the fact that he came from the so-called right side of the tracks and I came from the other side. Even so, our paths crossed on countless occasions in local teenage meeting places such as Murray's Record Centre, Bamboo Café, at parties. We also had a mutual friend called Peter Finnegan. And later again Bob and I met in the dole office. I have fond memories of us talking about bands like The Animals and Bob saying he wanted to be a Rockstar. I wanted to be a writer. By 1977 he had become a Rockstar I was a photographer for Irish rock magazine Hot Press. I photograph Geldof on stage in Dalymount park and at the launch of the first album by The Boomtown Rats. All of this is probably why towards the end the second part of this 2001 interview – it will follow in another podcast - Bob says he is uncomfortable being interviewed by me because I know too much about him, although that comment may have more to do with the instinctual insights into his psyche which I gleaned during this interview. Afterwards, he phoned my editor and said that I had been a “bit too hard on” him, to which the editor, replied, “Joe was only being as hard on you as you were on interviewees when you worked for this magazine!” But it would appear that Geldof doesn’t agree with my contention that by pushing him as hard as I did it led to, arguably, the most mercilessly honest interview he had given and or has given since. Nor has Bob spoken to me since this interview, professionally or, on a personal level. Did I push him too hard? You decide. The interview coincided with the release of his album, Sex, Age and Death. The typescript of the original article – never published in full in any magazine – can be seen at joejacksoninterviewer.com. The eBook is available wherever you buy your eBooks.
After interviewing Leonard Cohen I became an interviewer purely to talk with more of my heroes. Ray Charles was a hero of mine from the time when I was nine-years-old, visiting my grandfather in a nursing home, in Dublin, told to "sit over there and listen to the radio" and was truly electrified when I put on headphones and heard him sing Take These Chains From My Heart. Roughly a decade later, I climbed up onto a tree to watch Ray sing and play in Central Park - I couldn't afford to go to the gig - and then bought no less than twenty-six of his albums before I cam back to Ireland. A black family, in Brooklyn, who had befriended me, bought me a Ray Charles album I had been forced to leave behind. In other words, his music was always central to my life. That might explain why, before this interview proper begins and I tell Ray about my experience of his song, No Use Crying, I get so emotional. I loved the man. I love his music. And even though I got less than twenty minutes to talk with him, it was a godsend and I hope part of that comes across in this podcast. But I do wish Ray hadn't kept calling me "Sir." Brownie McGee, a black man, when I met him, got it more right when he called me, a white guy with a black name, Joe Jackson, "Boy"!
In 1994 Sounds of Blackness got their global breakthrough when they sang with Daryl Hall, the World Cup Theme song, Gloryland, in Giants Stadium in New Jersey. The Irish football team was playing that night and won. This gave me my cue to do for The Irish Times an interview with Gary Hines, leader of Sounds of Blackness. I loved their latest album, Africa to America: The Journey of the Drum, and the uplifting nature of their music, so the chance to talk with Gary, even over the phone was, well, heaven, to me! But the real blessing came at the end of the interview on a personal level when we had the following exchange. Hines said it could be "on-the-record or off-the-record" but I choose never to use it, until now. What Gary Hyne said to me was one of the finest compliments I had ever received as an interviewer.
Joe Jackson: I really enjoy talking with you.
Gary Hines: The feeling is mutual. I have done literally thousands of interviews over the past three years with the three albums and this is the most astute – You get it, I guess, is the point. That can be off-the-record on-the-record. I'm just telling you that, man-to-man. I can't tell you how impressed I am with your insight, into – Well, your insight, period.
J: Thank you very much. I owe it to a black family in New York who saved me about eighteen years ago when I was down and out.
G: I hear you, man.
J: They became my buddies and I'll play (pay) it back forever, OK?
G: It’s all about just people, isn’t it
J: Isn’t it just?
Amen to that.
As I tell Margo and Micheal Timmins at the start of this unedited master tape, it was a total joy for me to meet both members of The Cowboy Junkies because I had loved their music since near enough the start of their careers as makes no difference. I must have played their album The Caution Hores a thousand times and never tired of a single note! Here, they discuss their love of Elvis, particularly his Sun recording Blue Moon which they not only covered but that helped shaped the sound of the band's music. And they discuss their other early influences such as Neil Young and Leonard Cohen - the show is a celebration fo Canada and I am uploading it for my listeners there, in particular - and their own music up as far as 2004. We had a blast and I hope that joy comes across to anyone listening to this podcast. The tape was recorded in a hotel room in Dublin.
Alan Parker died today, July 31st, 2020. I wanted to mark his passing and celebrate his art. That said, I hadn't heard since 1991, this taped interview we did. I was very pleased to hear him say that ours was "the most intelligent interview" he did in Ireland, though it is all relative, of course. Either way, he said that in response to my saying "there is a wonderful undercurrent of aggression here," or words to that effect. And there was. Because as much as I loved and love, Parker's films and side with his politics, I had some critical questions to ask about Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning, and above all The Commitments, which was newly-released at the time. But in terms of the latter Parker knew I was coming at this from the perspective of someone who comes from the Dublin working-class depicted in that film. What Parker did not know, however, was that I was known to be highly critical of Roddy Doyle, as I say in the podcast intro which I recorded today. I could have uploaded just Parker and myself discussing The Commitments. That would have broad popular appeal in Ireland. But to do so would have been a travesty of the entire spectrum of the man's art, and of his memory. So, instead, this is the original tape unedited. Alan Parker R.I.P
This is the master tape of a radio interview I did with Costello in 2002 to mark the release of his album When I Was Cruel. During the show, you can hear that I was fazed somewhat by addressing the man as "Elvis!" But, we did talk about why he took Presley's name. Not only that, for the only time I am aware of Costello gave his opinion of the artistry of Elvis Presley. He also discusses his early love of Motown, The Mamas and Papas, Small Faces and finally, of course, his latest album. This is a must, as they say, for all fans of Costello.
This is, in effect, a private concert by Christy Moore, complete with Christy singing along with Paul Anka, Elvis, and Mountain. In 2000, when we recorded this show Christy had not performed in public in any sense, let alone for a full hour on radio, since a recent nervous breakdown. This programme proves, if proof be needed, that music can shake the shadows from his soul. I know the show had a similar effect on me and on many listeners. I hope it does the same thing for you.
That title is deceptive. Years before I did this interview with all members of The Corrs, I had interviewed Andrea Corr, twice, once over the phone for 'The Joe Jackson Interview' slot in The Irish Times - their "first serious interview" Andrea later claimed - and once for Hot Press magazine. Each was my more customary in-depth interview. However, this was more of a chat, meant primarily to "introduce The Corrs to newspaper readers in the UK," which is what the commissioning editor of the Daily Mail said to me. The interview was designed purely to serve that purpose and much of what we said was not published. However, I did use some sections when The Buzz magazine also commissioned me to "do a piece about The Corrs." Incidentally, during this interview I allude to both of my interviews with Andrea and I will be revisiting them for future podcasts. Click 'subscribe' if you want to be notified
This is a podcast for those people who love my interviews and those who hate them. That's why I call it Joe Jackson's Greatest Hits and Misses. I take my cue in this from the fact that I have been called as an interviewer - I elaborate on this at the start of the podcast - "the best" in print in Ireland and alternatively a "pretentious" and "boring b****x." It's all the same to me, frankly. Either way, I began to tell this backstory as a secondary thematic thread in my RTE Radio 1, series. The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, but there was only so far I could go in that series and on that radio station. So now, it is time for me to go full tilt on the telling of the tale of my thirty-plus years in the Irish media, working for RTE, The Sunday Independent, The Irish Times, and Hot Press. And it is time to tell the highly-detailed diary-based stories I never told about many among the 1,4000 celebrities I interviewed.
Episode 1, kicks off with what many people see as some of my screw-ups, with interviewees such as Andre Previn, Ken Russell, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Then I flashback to the first interview I did, which inspired me to become an interviewer - my 1985 interview with Leonard Cohen, which to one editor was a flop but to me was a transcendent experience. Enjoy.
I am a journalist. At another point in my career I might have written for, say, The Irish Times - I did this interview for that newspaper in 1993 - an article about the death of Peter Green who, as this clip shows, was someone whose singing and playing and songs I adored since I was in my mid-teens. So instead, because the full cassette tape of this interview is not processed for digitisation, and needs a lot of work, I want to mark Peter's passing, by sharing with fellow early Fleetwood Mac fans, the part of the chat with Mick Fleetwood where he and I discussed the early music of the band and then move on to discuss specifically Peter Green. I hadn't heard the tape until this morning July 26th 2020. I think it is a fitting tribute.
Yes, it was fun to finally meet Joe Jackson, even if he didn't seem to get my joke about him "stealing" my name! No matter, we got on great and here he talks about his early love of classical music, Beethoven, in particular, and 60s rock, and how they all directly influenced his music. Jackson also talks about his sense of isolation growing up and hits such as, Is She Really Going out With Hi, and It's Different for Girls. I should have said in the radio show, but didn't, so I shall say it now - Look Sharp!
This is a moral tale with a warning for all musicians, in terms of the music industry and whether you do or don't like the music of Christie Hennessy. When I did this interview for weekly 'The Joe Jackson Interview' slot in The Irish Times in 1993, I was bound by legal restrictions from telling the full story of the sometimes spirit-crushing things that happened to the nevertheless irrepressible Christie Hennessy. I still am, but not to the same degree. Either way, if you need your eyes opened and, in the end, your spirit raised, check this out.
This may be the single most controversial interview in the illustrious career of the much-loved current President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins. In it, he proves, conclusively, that he is not a man to be crossed. At the time, seemingly systematically, he was under attack from various columnists in the Irish newspaper, The Sunday Independent. For-the-record, here I must say that I myself worked for the same newspaper years later. However, circa 1993, Michael D had been attacked in print, savagely - in The Sunday Independent and elsewhere, as he explains during the interview - by the likes of Eilish O Hanlon, Eamon Dunphy, and Gerry Adams. Speaking to me ( for a two-part interview which I edited down to a one-hour programme in my radio series, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, in 2016) he finally retaliated in kind. It is unlikely that we will hear again Michael D unleashed to the same degree. This is an unedited and uncensored podcast of the 2016 radio programme
This interview with the man-who-would-soon-be-Father-Ted, Dermot Morgan, took place in 1994 only weeks before he went to the UK to start the latter TV series. 75% of this, at times explosively controversial material, has never been in the public domain, the reasons for which will be apparent as you listen. In the podcast, perhaps for the first time Dermot, understandably enraged at points, tells his version of how and why his successful radio shows, such as Scrap Saturday, were "sidelined" by RTE, perhaps as a result of political pressure, and why he was forced to go to the UK to make Father Ted. It is a no-holds-barred interview, exactly as it happened, with colorful language and merely minor fades at four points, which I made purely for legal reasons, and some of which Dermot suggested in 1994. The full typescript of the print interview is available at joejacksoninterviewer.com
I hope to do part two -if some of the people Dermot and I talk about, don't send out a hit squad to silence me! Enjoy the show
I did this interview in The Clarence Hotel, in Dublin in 2001, and to me, as a kid who as with millions of my generation, loved Mr. Tambourine Man, by The Byrds, even if I hadn't a clue what the hell Dylan's lyric was all about, it was fascinating to sit with Roger McGuinn and hear his reading of what it meant. He also talks in an equally fascinating fashion about his early days working with the much-underrated Bobby Darin, discovering The Beatles, how that influenced the sound of The Byrds and so much more. This surely is a history of rock.
I did this interview in two-parts in Paul Weller's recording studio in Surrey. For we did an interview for The Irish Times and then this interview for a radio series called Under The Influence, which now used a podcast series called The Music That Made Me. In this podcast, he talks about his love for The Kinks, The Beatles, The Who, The Small Faces, Smokey Robinson and explains how they directly influenced his own songwriter - and style, even in terms of his look. Weller's latest album at the time was Heliocentric.
From the introduction to this podcast. Joe Jackson July 18th, 2020.
For one thing, it is based on my eBook, Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus. The ‘Plus’ in the title refers to the fact that the eBook contains the uncensored versions of the two major interviews we did, first in 1989, then in 2001, and a fragment of memoir. Growing up in Dun Laoghaire I knew Geldof, albeit from a distance that was largely defined by the fact that he came from the so-called right side of the tracks and I came from the other side. Even so, our paths crossed on countless occasions in local teenage meeting places such as Murray's Record Centre, Bamboo Café, at parties. We also had a mutual friend called Peter Finnegan. And later again Bob and I met in the dole office. I have fond memories of us talking about bands like The Animals and Bob saying he wanted to be a Rockstar. I wanted to be a writer. By 1977 he had become a Rockstar I was a photographer for Irish rock magazine Hot Press. I photograph Geldof on stage in Dalymount park and at the launch of the first album by The Boomtown Rats. All of this is probably why towards the end the second part of this 2001 interview – it will follow in another podcast - Bob says he is uncomfortable being interviewed by me because I know too much about him, although that comment may have more to do with the instinctual insights into his psyche which I gleaned during this interview. Afterwards, he phoned my editor and said that I had been a “bit too hard on” him, to which the editor, replied, “Joe was only being as hard on you as you were on interviewees when you worked for this magazine!” But it would appear that Geldof doesn’t agree with my contention that by pushing him as hard as I did it led to, arguably, the most mercilessly honest interview he had given and or has given since. Nor has Bob spoken to me since this interview, professionally or, on a personal level. Did I push him too hard? You decide. The interview coincided with the release of his album, Sex, Age and Death. The typescript of the original article – never published in full in any magazine – can be seen at joejacksoninterviewer.com. The eBook is available wherever you buy your eBooks.
This may be one of the most revealing interviews ever given by Neil Diamond, who rarely talks about his private life. He certainly, until that day, in 2002, in a recording studio New York where we did this interview - the third I had done with Diamond - had never discussed in such detail his conflict with the Mafia during the early years of his career. In fact, I was told that when I raised the subject while sitting alone with Neil in that studio, a member of his management team in the control room said aloud, "Did he just ask Neil about the Mafia! My God!" Either way, as you will hear, Neil himself had no problem addressing that or any issue with me. Then again, the guy knew I loved his music and the fact is that we had always gotten on great. This is part one of two podcasts that I guess I could have called 'The Neil Diamond Story - as you never heard it before.' Btw, these tapes are copyright Joe Jackson and must not be broadcast or quoted in print without my permission.
As someone who was a fan of the Monkees as a teenager, and who bought all their albums and even went to see their hugely unpopular movie, Head, interviewing Micky Dolenz was a pure delight for me. We had previously talked on the phone but this recording was made during the band's rehearsal for a gig in Dublin's Vicar Street in 2000. Incidentally, while Dolenz and I were standing in a hotel lobby where we met before going to the venue, Billy Bob Thorntonwalked over, said 'Sorry for interrupting you guys" and then he addressed me, directly. He said, "I flew in just to see the gig. Aren't the Monkees, so cool." I said, "Yes they are!" And after he left I joked to Dolenz, "Did you pay him to do and say that!" He laughed. And boy we had fun that day. I hope it all comes across in this podcast.
As I say in the new introduction for this interview - recorded in 2004 for the Sunday Independent - Tommy Tiernan is now doing psychologically probing and, arguably, spiritually driven interviews in Irish TV. Without meaning to sound self-aggrandizing, I have to say, because it has been said about my interviews, and even my recently launched series of podcasts, in The Joe Jackson Interviews series, that is the kind of interviews I have done since the start of my career in 1985. It's no big deal, just my way of doing things. So, I decided to present in this podcast, part one of two, the original tape unedited and minus the kind of revisionist narration I used in my radio series, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. This show was meant to be a part of that series but now never will be. Enjoy this version, as part of my series of podcasts. Part Two will follow in an upcoming podcast.
Part of my goal as an interviewer always was to make readers of my articles and/or listeners to my interviews on the radio feel that they are sitting nearby during an interview, eavesdropping, and pretending, for example, that they were in a bar having a drink with their favorite star. This certainly was my aim specifically when I edited together for an edition of my radio series The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, two interviews I did with Joe Dolan, the first in 2000 for a radio show, and the second, for my slot in the Sunday Independent newspaper. The latter actually took place in the bar of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin, at Joe's request and when I arrived he was having a pint. So, grab a seat, and maybe a drink, sit down and join us!
"Which would you rather have? Mediocre innovation or a direct descent from Celtic culture?" Frank Zappa, commenting on what he saw as the difference between U2 and The Chieftains in 1992. This is less of an interview than a world exclusive chat I had with Zappa in his home in the Hollywood Hills in 1992. I was attending the Chieftains recording session with Tom Jones, in Zappa's studio, and covering the Chieftains' time in LA, which included a visit, the night before, to the Grammy Awards show, at which they won a Grammy for the album, Another Country. During the session someone mentioned that U2 were more highly rated in Ireland than the Chieftains and this chat - recorded on a cheap cassette because I wasn't meant to be working as a journalist at the session - arose when Paddy Moloney, of the Chieftains, asked Frank to give me a quote elaborating on Zappa's claim that "there is no comparison" between U2 and the Chieftains. We also discussed Zappa's music, and in the end, his health. He died a year or so later.
From the intro to the podcast: "
As I say at the end of the show, I said to my girlfriend at the time, within minutes of walking away from Savile, “I feel spiritually polluted having been in his presence, though I don’t know why.” I now know why. In fact, listening nineteen years later to my nervous laughter throughout the interview, I suspect that a part of me sensed instinctively something of all we have since come to learn about that abomination called Jimmy Savile.
I also say in the original show that I felt morally torn when it came to the question of giving Savile airtime again – in any sense. The same applies to my now deciding to make the show available as a Podcast. But I made the original decision to turn the original tapes into a broadcast for my radio series The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited because I did at least try, to explore the psychology of an interviewee, as has always been my tendency. Did I succeed in doing so? You decide. The most I will claim for this 2001 interview is that it can be seen as a snapshot of the psycho-pathology of a sociopathic monster called Jimmy Savile."
Given that this is the tale of a celebrity moving from darkness to light, even in the sense of feeling suicidal at one point, to then reasserting life, it is an interview I include in my Ebook, At The End of A Storm Is A Golden Sky. It is available from Amazon and from my website joejacksoninterviewer.com
The Daily Mail picked this programme as a Radio Highlight of the Week August 2018.
‘Joe Jackson interview Joan in 2004 ahead of her first Irish gig. He told her that the Irish were bound to love her sense of humor, given that the put-downs come as easy to us as raising a pint. She then went on to tell Jackson her life story, which involved in a near suicide attempt, a tail she told the punchline rooted in the kind of black humor we Irish also love. She also discussed the influence of Lenny Bruce, her early career in Greenwich Village getting alongside the likes of Dylan and Richard Pryor, how her family rejected her choice of career the suicide of our husband Edgar and ageism in the media.’
Please note that the sound of the original cassette tapes improves eight or so minutes into the interview.
Like millions of people of my generation, I loved the music of James Tayor from the time I heard singles such as Fire and Rain, and albums like, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. However, as I say at the start of this radio program - pulled from broadcast by RTE Radio 1 because of, let's say artistic differences! - I never thought that he would turn out to be such a difficult, at first, interviewee, then, in the end, so utterly fascinating. In fact, this may be the single most provocative interview you have ever heard, or ever will hear, with James Taylor. It remains one of my personal favourites.
I became an interviewer to meet my pop heroes, starting with Leonard Cohen. So, sitting with Glen Campbell and listening to him recall working with Elvis, Sinatra, The Beach Boys, plus his solo work with the likes of Jim Webb and talked about his cocaine abuse, hear him say the “devil” he had by the tail, was Tanya Tucker, and tell me how he found God was well... rock and roll heaven!!!
As I say at the start of this radio programme - pulled from broadcasting by RTE - "Eamon Dunphy never did an interview like the one he did with me in 1996. Neither did I.' For one thing, it is rated as one of the best interviews I ever did and it was done over a two-day period, and we put on tape eleven hours of conversations. It was hugely controversial at the time and later used against Eamon during a court case. This is the first time I have made available the uncensored tapes - though they do form the backbone of my Ebook, Eamon Dunphy Unleashed, which is available from Amazon, etc. I will be released the audio material in a series of podcasts.
Sunday Times Radio Pick of the Day 2018. 'The focus of this edition is Jackson's 1993 interview with the late Cranberries singer Dolores O Riordan. The 22-year-old was "so full of life, with obnly hints of the shadows...that would engulf her," says the presenter at the start of the programme.The two go on to talk about songwriting, her anger at men when she was a teenager and the alienating effects of fame.' Mel Clarke
The Irish Times said: 'Kitt was one of Jackson's first interviewees, so he looks back fondly at their 1987 chat. It's an extraordinary hour, involving Kitt opening up about her childhood, during which she was abused for being of mixed race. She also discusses the suspected murder of her mother.'
Leonard Cohen is a lifelong hero of mine. This conversation with the man came about purely because I wanted to meet and talk with Cohen. After doing so, for roughly an hour, I felt so transcendent, that I decided I must go out in search of more of my heroes to talk with. That's how I became an interviewer. This is an edited version of a radio program I did called The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited. The print interviews are available at joejacksoninterviewer.com
In 1993 I was offered a "world exclusive" interview with Bono, who apparently had said he wanted to be interviewed by me, about what would turn out to be the new U2 album Zooropa. This Podcast is a 45-minute edit of the two-and-a-half hours we put on tape. The full tapes are available at joejacksoninterviewer.com