Today, as is readily apparent on social media sites, marks 100 years since Eric Morecambe was born. I don't recall Ernie Wise's cen...

  Just realised that an edition of Serendipity with Sykora can be found online which takes its theme as the month of June, positively demand...

  Today is the first of May, which reminds me of the much-missed Russell Davies Song Show. I once tried to analyse a episode broadcast aroun...

    I have just finished reading Spencer Leigh's autobiography 80@80: A Liverpool Life in 80 Chapters, which was published in February l...

  I was sorry to hear of Andy Kershaw's death.  As he presented programmes on BBC Radios 1, 3 and 4 there will almost certainly be a tr...

On Saturday I went to see Rock & Roll Man, an agreeable musical about Alan Freed, at the Cambridge Arts Theatre; this week it's play...

  Not to be confused with a later television adaptation, Stan, Neil Brand's 2004 radio play about Stan Laurel, has just been broadcast ...

  Crying My Heart Out For You is one of my favourite Neil Sedaka songs. It's not wildly original, and was not a hit in the US or UK when...

  If you've read the earlier post about alternative Beatles histories , here are more thoughts about Snodgrass, the short story by Ian R...

Listening the other day to Ray Connolly being interviewed by Tim Haigh on BooksPodcast about his novella "Sorry, Boys, You Failed The A...

In 2019 I wrote a piece about a 78 rpm record which I'd picked up at a jumble sale or record fair in Glasgow in 1975 or 1976. The disc w...

  D.J. Taylor, who celebrated the songs of Allan Smethurst, AKA the Singing Postman, in a 2010 radio documentary, announced today on socia...

  When the late Eric Midwinter submitted a review of the Jake Thackray biography Beware of the Bull on spec to The Call Boy, the magazine of...

  Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without this blog's annual cursory nod to the season, so here are some Christmassy doo wop si...

    It may be a name which springs less readily to mind these days, but in the 1960s Harry Worth was a major TV comic with a genial, bumbli...

 For those not already aware of the sad news, Terry Johnson, the last surviving member of the Flamingos, died yesterday in Las Vegas at the ...

  When I wrote about this play's imminent revival at the Finborough Theatre a few weeks ago I hoped for the best but wasn't sure wha...

  If you are able to get to London's Royal Festival Hall there will be two performances of a new musical about R&B/rock'n'ro...

  As with A.A. Milne's first novel (of sorts), Lovers in London, the mere fact of this play, Sarah Simple, being available again is we...

   If, like me, you've been tantalised by the many clips on youtube of a TV show entitled Rock & Roll Graffiti, the good news is tha...

   Today marks the centenary of the pioneering doo wop/R&B singer Sonny Til, lead singer of the Orioles. They are perhaps best known for...

  The poet who features in A.A. Milne's play The Truth About Blayds, soon to be revived at the Finborough Theatre in London, may have be...

  A.A. Milne's 1921 play The Truth About Blayds is about to be revived at the Finborough Theatre in London. This is good news as Milne...

  Today marks 61 years since comedian Freddie Davies's debut on TV talent show Opportunity Knocks - and eleven since the publication of ...

    I have just learnt from Paul Thompson, cowriter of the excellent Jake Thackray biography Beware of the Bull, that a collection of Thackr...

When I think of the Hoagy Carmichael-Johnny Mercer song Skylark it's an unlikely recording which first springs to mind. Memory had insis...

  For those who don't own a copy of the original edition - and even for those who do - the first volume of Chris O'Leary's excel...

I freely admit that I haven't researched this meticulously but it seems to me that, more and more, any new TV documentaries which revisi...

  Hearing of Brian Wilson's death yesterday my immediate thought was of the duophonic cassette of Pet Sounds which had been my regular c...

  I have just watched AKA Doc Pomus, a documentary about the songwriter best known for his partnership with Mort Shuman in the late 50...

I have just learnt that the 1966 episode of The Blackpool Show featuring Freddie "Parrotface" Davies at the height of his fame can...

This almost defies belief, and I'm still not sure whether it's just an elaborate wind-up, but according to the information I have be...

  For those who might be interested in a book about doo wop which is more than just a history of the changing personnel of a group or groups...

  Scott Walker died five years ago today, the 22nd of March. I first heard about it on Radio 4's Today Programme on the morning of the 2...

  For those who might be interested, Richard Moore, who has already put together two comprehensive collections of Peter Skellern's recor...

  Kliph Nesteroff is the author of the book The Comedians,  a gossipy, scandalous, irresistibly written history of the underside of the dev...

  I must have been eight years old when I first heard Waterloo Sunset, in the year of its release, and - like just about everyone else i...

My recommendation comes rather late, but if you are based in London and interested in the relationship between Thomas Hardy and his wives I ...

      There is, or so I've been given to understand, One who has numbered all my days. Despite the occasional pointer in the form of var...

   Someone mentioned on social media recently that Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven has not been broadcast or made available via st...

Before I review another book about the experience of being a backing musician for a doo wop group I thought I'd repost this assessment ...

  If you're reading this blog then you will probably know that Jerry Butler was a member of the Impressions, a doo wop/soul group which ...

In 2018 I wrote a piece for this blog entitled "Cheapo Cheapo Records - The Complete Story". It was a reworking of several ear...

Every so often over the years, more in hope than expectation, I've trawled the internet in search of a copy of One Year's Time, a ra...

  For readers who might be visiting the Edinburgh Fringe this year, Jeffrey Holland is currently appearing again in Gail Louw's play...

  Jimmy Merchant of the Teenagers has just published the first part of a two-volume autobiography. As  the first memoir written by a member ...

  I've just learnt that Tom Bouchart, owner of the Stockton record shop Sound It Out, has died, so I'm reposting this 2012 review ...

    Incredible though it sounds, it is now the fiftieth anniversary of the film That'll Be The Day. I have never owned a copy of the ...

    Like many other people, the recent news of Burt Bacharach's death sent me to youtube to remind myself of his achievements. And the t...

                      I have just finished watching Nolly, the new three-part ITV drama about Noele Gordon's sacking from the longrunnin...