The Joe Jackson Interviews

Leonard Cohen talks about Love and Hate. A clip from the Joe Jackson eBook, 'Hallelujah: A Conversation with Leonard Cohen.'

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. 

Bono 1993 plays the U2/Johnny Cash song The Wanderer for Joe Jackson. A clip from the eBook 'Bono: The Joe Jackson Zooropa Interview Uncut'

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. 

Joe Jackson's Jukebox 2009: A music show designed to raise your spirits during troubled times. Abridged

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! 

kd Lang 2004 The Music That Made Me. kd talks about her performance art and music, Joni Mitchell, Roy Orbison, and Leonard Cohen

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. 

John Waters "Sex is the desire for the infinity." A memorable quote from a Joe Jackson interviewee. A Single.

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. 

Larry Gogan From Darkness to Light: A golden half-hour of joyful conversation with the legendary Irish DJ

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

"So, Robbie Robertson, is the music of Native Americans missing from roots album such as The Band?" Robbie Robertson 1994 talks about his album Music for the Native Americans

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, on drunken record sessions, rewriting 'Johanna,' and sexual tensions in his work.

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

Joe Jackson asks Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, "So guys, is Jailhouse Rock a gay love song?" And they they talk about Elvis and Hound Dog.

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

Gate Theatre Director Michael Colgan 2003. The 2017 Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited radio show RTE would not broadcast.

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.