PROFESSOR OF ROCK BIO

I've been living in the US, in Washington DC, for 18 years - I'm originally from England and I have lived and worked in five countries. I saw Buddy Holly on TV in England in 1958, and my life was changed! Since I've been in the States I've achieved most of my ambitions - I've met Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Sam Phillips, and Scotty Moore, I've been to New Orleans, Memphis, and Nashville, and I met Buddy Holly's family in Lubbock. I used to work on a radio station on the Virginia/Maryland/West Virginia border, playing a lot of Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette, and I now have a show on WEBR in Fairfax, Virginia, which is carried on WYOU in Norfolk, Virginia. I also write about music, and contribute regularly to “Now Dig This”, easily the best magazine for anyone interested in rock’n’roll.

I hate the standard “Oldies” format, that simply plays one track after another (“Rock Around the Clock” followed by “Get a Job”), with no information about the singer, the songwriter or the musicians, and no attempt at putting the recordings into their musical (and social) context. I think it’s fascinating, for example, that James Burton played guitar not only with Elvis, Ricky Nelson and Jerry Lee Lewis, but also with Bob Luman and Dale Hawkins. And I think it’s also interesting that the records produced out of the Sun studios in Memphis in the mid 50s were all made by the sons of sharecroppers, who had recently moved into the cities.

On my two-hour weekly show I play lesser-known songs by well-known singers like Buddy Holly and Carl Perkins, and also some great tracks by not-so-well-known singers such as Bobby Charles and Roscoe Gordon. And I talk about some of the musicians I’ve met including Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry and Billy Lee Riley. I’ll tell you who played on each track, who wrote the song, where it was recorded, and what the singer did later in his/her career. It’s fun, you hear the best music, and you get to appreciate one of the 20th century’s great art-forms – the 2-minute record.