Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Music promoter and impresario best known for organizing Live Aid and Live 8.
On the island
Eight records
Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham
Starting off with uh Led Zeppelin and um a track that is very emotive and kind of I think says it all about this fantastic rock band.
Sing, Sing, SingFavourite
My second track is Benny Goodman, playing a track called Sing, Sing, Sing from a very famous uh series of concerts did at Carnegie Hall in New York.
I suppose my favorite rock band, the most excited rock band of all time, still at the top. I love them to death. If you just never knew what was going on, and that was the the magic and excitement of that band.
A most extraordinary musician again changed the face of music, could create emotions inside you that nobody else can, as far as I'm concerned.
So the track I've I've chosen is For Man Onesco, and it was the the song that he dedicated to Princess Dinah.
Jeff Beck, a wonderful human being, probably the best guitarist in the world. I'd known and worked with him for thirty odd years sporadically.
I've always had a balance of comedy in my life, and one of the most exciting times I had was working with Monty Python. I loved them all dearly, and We toured them not enough, unfortunately, but all over the world, and the last sketch was always the parrot sketch.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:16What actually happened at the moment when Keith Moon sacrificed his first television?
I think it was the Leicester post house that we were at. There was a swimming pool directly below we were on he was on about the sixth or seventh floor or something like that. A little bit of an argument started. He obviously was very angry and he literally picked the television up, opened the window and just dumped it and when it landed in the pool he just shouted out bullseye.
Presenter asks
5:19What sort of little boy were you? Were you very adventurous?
Yeah, reasonably so. Um I think I was always... Naughty, yes. Oh yeah. Quite naughty, yes. Our house was always full of people and... One of the big events of the week was Sunday afternoons where it was like games afternoon... So it was a very sociable atmosphere that we grew up in.
Presenter asks
6:06What were your parents like? What kind of people were they?
They were tough, they didn't take any nonsense, but equally they gave us our own opportunity to develop in our own way. We were brought up in a Jewish household and all of the festivals and the knowledge and so on and had to go to classes two days a week and which I hated.
The keepsakes
The book
Reader's Digest Complete Do-it-Yourself Manual
I think out of it I ought to be able to learn to do something.
Presenter asks
10:03Why were you in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in 1967?
I went to America on an exchange course and um. I bought a Greyhound bus ticket, ninety nine dollars for ninety nine days. I went from one side of America to the other by Greyhound bus... And I saw this mass of people in the park at Golden Gate Park and I thought this looks interesting. Rushed down there and was listening to this music, which happened to be the Grateful Dead. And as one does, I wormed my way backstage and said I'm a promoter from England and whatever. And the Grateful Dead talked to me and I became very friendly with them, and that lasted all the way through. They then spiked my drink and... I d I uh lost about two days of my life because they put acid in the Coca-Cola I was drinking.
Presenter asks
21:25How was Live Aid originally conceived?
I was in the middle of a really busy period. I was taking wham to China, which was the first time of a Western pop band. Had gone to China and here was Bob banging on my door saying, We're going to do this concert and I want you to do it. And I said, I just cannot deal with it. Call me when I get back... I got back from China and literally walked in the office the next day and Bob was standing outside and he said to me, You've got to do these concerts. And we talked about it... We went down to the BBC and we discussed with them the notion of literally doing all day of music. It'd never been done before. And then from then it started to grow.
Presenter asks
30:24Have you managed to devote as much time to family life as you think you should have?
There's no doubt that I didn't really devote enough time to our son when he was growing up, and it was just the way it was. I regret that a lot. But we now We have a pretty good relationship
“There are two things that I learnt in life very early when I started promoting. One is you have to keep the crew happy, because a happy crew is a happy band. And secondly of all, if the band wants something, there's normally a reason for it.”
“I see there is a line at the end of the stage, which is the dividing line. A performer has to jump over that the edge of that stage and react with an audience and the audience at the same time give it back. That's what makes a great event.”
“I'm prepared to take responsibility, so therefore I have to be in control to be able to take responsibility. If I'm in control and I have the responsibility, I have to deliver, and that's what keeps me going.”