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...

    To mark the 42nd  anniversary of John Lennon's death, extracts from two earlier posts, both written in 2010. Links to the full versi...

  It has now been confirmed that Jerry Lee Lewis has died.  There can't be any doubt that he was the last of the true greats from the g...

  A few years ago I wrote a series of pieces about the radio broadcasters who had contributed the most to my musical education over the year...

    "Amos is a character."  That was my entree .

  The Jake Thackray biography having arrived, I couldn't resist devouring it immediately, even though it's the kind of work which ou...

Today marks 25 years since a play of mine about a pizza delivery man and his determinedly awkward customer was first performed. It was part ...

  A biography of Jake Thackray, written with the cooperation of friends and family, is due to be published by Leeds-based company Scratchi...

  I had despaired of ever seeing it but 14 Karat Soul's first ever TV appearance, on Saturday Night Live on January 24th, 1981, can now ...

For anyone who doesn't know, Matt the Cat's shows about the Flamingos in his Juke in the Back series are currently being repeate...

  When a young soap actor who originates a role is replaced does he or she have any legal recourse? That's the question posed in a new b...

  I've already paid tribute to Hubert Gregg but this footnote has become necessary because I've just discovered the details about a ...

  If you have read Robert Webb's memoir How Not to Be a Boy you may remember that the youthful Webb mentions an unlikely source of comed...

 [Barney Farmer] I don't suppose it will be news to many of its former customers that the London bakery chain Percy Ingle's closed a...

    My one and only foray into karaoke (literally "empty glutton", unless I'm thinking of something else) occurred a few Chris...

Three months on from the previous posting I hereby declare my "wee phrase" of buying up old cassettes from a well-known auction we...

  It may be a passing fancy, and in time may go, but I wish to announce that I have re-embraced the humble cassette, that much-loved compani...

   Now who, in their right minds, would buy a CD like this? In my case the answer is simple: this was one of the discs which always seemed t...

  Whenever I start to recreate a visit to Cheapo Cheapo Records in my head I always find myself striding purposefully towards the very back ...