The Joe Jackson Interviews

Father Brian D'Arcy 1996. A Definitive Soul Searching interview with a Catholic priest who was one of the inspirations for the TV series Father Ted, but far from only that.

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. 

Pops Staples of The Staples Singers 1992 on being ripped off by The Rolling Stones, Race Riots and Rodney King

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. 

Buffy Sainte Marie 1992 on Wounded Knee, Soldier Blue, and giving an eye-opening insight into Native American culture and history.

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. 

The Chieftains 2002 play a medley Live for Joe Jackson. Three times, before the agree they got it right! Musical perfectionism for all to hear.

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. 

Gabriel Byrne 1988. "That was the first totally honest, soul searching interview I ever did."

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

Tori Amos 1992 talks to Joe Jackson about Little Earthquakes, sexual and religious oppression and self-integration. "The best rock music interview, ever" said Warner Brothers record executive

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. 

Christine McVie talks about Fleetwood Mac, early and latter-day, her own songwriting, the album Rumours and its themes, or core theme, namely pain!

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. 

Brendan O Carroll Soul Searching and Uncensored. Part One. Brendan talks about groupies, gays, drink, drugs and his definitively Irish sense of humour

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! 

The Five Blind Boys of Alabama sing a gospel song live for Joe Jackson. A Podcast single to raise your spirits during troubled times

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 

Lorna Luft talks about her mother's - Judy Garland - drug use, her own use of cocaine, and how to break a coke habit

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.