The Joe Jackson Interviews

Did Elvis peddle speed pills at Sun Records? Sam Phillips addresses the Roy Carr rumour. From the eBook, Elvis, Sam Phillips, and Sun Records Revisited.

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!

The Sawdoctors 2000: The Music That Made Me. The Sawdoctors talk about T Rex, The Ramones, and their own classic songs such as N17.

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. 

 

 

History may show that the U2 story has never been told truthfully. Eamon Dunphy, U2 biographer addresses that question and more.

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

Eamon Dunphy 1996 lashes into RTE, Gay Byrne, Pat Kenny, Gerry Ryan, Brenda Donohue and so on A hugely controversial interview

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. 

Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac remembers a block of hash at a Guinness party, and the death of Tara Browne, which inspired John Lennon to write A Day in the Life

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. 

Joe Elliot of Def Leppard The Music That Made Me. Joe talks about early influences such as Marc Bolan, David Bowie and Thin Lizzy

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. 

Christy Dignam Soul Searching and Uncensored with Joe Jackson 2004. The Music That Made Me

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.

Paul Weller Unplugged.In a bonus edition of the Joe Jackson Interviews podcast Weller plays live at home, his song Sweet Pea from the album Heliocentric 2000

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. 

Gabriel Byrne The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus. Sections from an eBook. Gabriel talks about the worth of womanhood, abortion, alcoholism, violence, Ellen Barkin etc

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.  

Paul Weller Soul Searching and Uncensored 2000. Weller on fatalism, drinking, love, spiritual voids and allowing one's self, as a man, to reveal vulnerability.

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!!!