The Joe Jackson Interviews

”So, tell me Micheal D Higgins, did you do drugs during the heady 1960‘s, man?” A Joe Jackson Singles Podcast

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!

Joe Jackson 1999 celebrates the music of The Carpenters, particularly Karen Carpenter‘s other-worldly voice.

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. 

Mary Black Under the Influence of...Joni Mitchell. ”Big Yellow Taxi was a song that changed my life!” A Joe Jackson Singles Podcast

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

”So, Bob Geldof, why did you mock your late wife, Paula Yates, on your album Sex, Age and Death?” A clip from ‘Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus.‘

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.'

Mike Love, of the Beach Boys, on Good Vibrations, Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson, and the inability of the Irish to grasp intangibles! A Joe Jackson Singles Podcast

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! 

Dave Fanning and Joe Jackson discuss dealing with the deaths of mothers and fathers

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. 

Tommy Tiernan on dealing with his teenage depression. "At 16 I was Ghandi/Mike Scott but I became a dour, bearded, penitent Russian monk!"

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. 

Nanci Griffith 1993 Part One. Nanci talks about Ireland, her new album, Other Voices, Other Rooms, its track Tecumseh Valley, and being a "folkie" who is rich.

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

Nanci Griffith in Conversation about Music. A personal tribute by Joe Jackson, co-author, with Nanci, of the book 'Nanci Griffith's Other Voices'

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

"Sinatra thought Elvis was a hick." Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires tells the true Presley/Sinatra story. From 'In Search of Elvis', a Joe Jackson Podcast series

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.