Podcasts

In 1969, Bill Rotari was Regional Managing Director with Capitol Records in Quebec when he received word that John and Yoko were coming.

In June and again in July, the director of the upcoming The Beatles: Get Back series gave interviews – in Vanity Fair and in GQ – holding forth on what to expect from his re-tooling of the Beatles Let It Be project. Though there was a certain amount of rehashing what had already been said, there were also things that provided much to discuss and analyze as we approach the countdown to broadcast. I therefore reconvened Dr Duncan Driver and Dan Rivkin (They May Be Parted blog) for a discussion on the latest and how what Peter Jackson had to say – and didn’t say – suggests where the project is going and what to expect.

In late summer 2020, my guest Kyle Driscoll penned this wonderful analysis of the three 1970 releases by three artists whose

You may recall my returning guest from his first appearance in late 2020: Mike Pachelli is an accomplished jazz guitarist and recording/performing artist, as well as a major Beatles fan.

Back in 2018, I had a conversation with Dr. Robert Hieronimus  and Laura Cortner, authors of Inside the Yellow Submarine: The Making of the Beatles’ Animated Classic – the definitive history of the 1968 film.

There’s been loads of speculation as to the exact nature of the friendship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney; during and after The Beatles

In this discussion, Dr. Duncan Driver (SATB 205, Fab4ConJam, One Sweet Dream podcast) springboard off of the title Paul McCartney quote, in which he asserted that each Beatle was as important as another to the group’s success. We explore the shifting power dynamics within the group and the question of leadership; we also discuss Duncan’s thesis of the four distinctive elements of the Beatles collective identity: live performers – singles makers – album makers – songwriters.

In this episode, we examine the process of a song becoming a record, as heard through the ears of those in the producer’s chair. Luther Russell,

My guest Tim English (Sounds Like Teen Spirit, Popology) discuss his newest book, examining the artists that John was listening to in the last few years of his life and how certain artists and records influenced the recordings he (and Yoko) made during the summer of 1980. Some of the acts we’ve known about for awhile (B-52s, Lene Lovich, etc) but many others were less obvious (The Selecter, Christopher Cross, The Doobie Brothers). John Lennon: 1980 Playlist is out now.