Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Singer and songwriter best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Led Zeppelin.
On the island
Eight records
April 1960, I was twelve, nearly twelve, and already something was knocking on the door, and that April, Eddie Cochrane was killed in a car wreck in Chippenham. And he recorded loads and loads of really provocative, very well-produced songs. And this one now, it's called Pink Peg's Flax. And I really wanted to know what the whole deal was around the corner. And can I have some?
As you mentioned, Birmingham Town Hall had several years of these remarkable visitations from musicians like Muddy Waters, Howland Wolf, Little Walter. So I've chosen this record because Howland Wolf to me is like the century of all of it all. He's magnificent, strong, powerful. And the lyrics, I think, a lot came from Willie Dixon. Make his songs absolutely otherworldly. So this is a Howland Wolf song called I Ain't Superstitious.
I'd go to work and I'd I'd put bitchmen on West Bromwich High Street, drive the dumper and stuff and and then at the end of it all I'd end up in the Casa Bamboo. In West Bromwich with a bunch of West Indians, a lot of Jamaicans, just listening to the most deep scar. And this was one of my evertime favourites, Teenage Scar by Baba Brooks.
It's a guy called Muhammad Rafi. It's just insane. Listen to this orchestration and stuff. It's just magnificent. And the food was great.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:56Tell me a bit about your mum.
She was suitably and joyously combustible. She was pretty. She was like a big fizzy bottle of pop. What would set her off? What kind of, she had a lot of energy then? Yeah, I think she just sometimes, a bit like me, she didn't really know how to harness it quite. But she loved song and she had a great voice and she used to dance around the house, twirling and swirling and singing these remarkable songs, whether it would be Kathleen Ferrier or some skyboat song. And she was hysterical. She was very funny, good black country stock. I remember one Christmas we were all sitting around with my grandfather as well and my sister and we were opening presents at mom and dad's and I recorded the whole adventure of the rustling of the paper and the shock and the surprise and I played it back. And my mum said, Who's that? I said, well, it's it's your mum. She said, That can't be right. I had elocution lessons. So it was really good fun. She was great.
Presenter asks
6:14What kind of man was your dad?
He was a real, real gentleman. He was always concerned that I shouldn't go too close to whatever this thing is that I'm immersed in. He was of the generation that you would meet people and they would say, Yeah, hmm, well, it's an interesting conversation with you, young man. What do you do? And I'd say, well, you know, I sing. And they'd say, yeah, but I mean, what do you do? You know, so my dad was slightly concerned that I would throw away an education.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
The Penguin Book of Earliest English Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Verse
Various
I'd like to take the Penguin Book of Earliest English Anglo-Saxon poetry and verse, these magnificent riddles that you would have to try and fathom out. And I've had this book since I was 21, and I won't look at the answers in the back.
The luxury
A basket with pictures of Black Country homing pigeons
A beautiful wicker basket with three pairs of black country homing pigeons... Well, I'll just have a basket with some pictures of Black Country homing pigeons with the hope that some birdie will go, he's over there.
How did it feel being up there looking out at the audience?
I was very nervous and didn't look at the audience at all, not until about 1968.
Presenter asks
16:32How do you look back on those exploits and on that mythology around you now?
Well, The whole deal with sometimes uh very tough to be a part of and um what do you mean by that i think the intensity and the momentum of What we were experiencing and the sort of lack of structure was very difficult. We were all maturity was on its move, on gamboling along, and it was we were flexing one way or the other. And I was I found a lot of it difficult to some of the intensity and stuff, I found it quite tough.
Presenter asks
18:17How were you able to balance being a husband and father with the life of a rock star?
Well, pretty good, I think. And it sounds a bit glib, but I always longed for those those hills. My parents had always taken me to a beautiful little cottage in the middle of nowhere near Machanpret and I took my family there. There was so much of the old ways still pulsing in those hills and it's uh I was drawn to it.
Presenter asks
24:42Do you still miss him? Do you still feel him with you?
Yeah, I do. I I mean because we were really were kids. And we grew up not having a clue about anything at all, just the two of us. sort of loud, confident and mostly wrong. And it was really good. We we covered most of the squares on the board as time went by, so I do miss him.
“She was suitably and joyously combustible. She was pretty. She was like a big fizzy bottle of pop.”
“He was a real, real gentleman. He was always concerned that I shouldn't go too close to whatever this thing is that I'm immersed in.”
“I was very nervous and didn't look at the audience at all, not until about 1968.”
“It was like all the doors and the windows in the house of cards were open and now we just blew right through the the walls of the cellar and right through the world.”
“I drove down with him on the day of the rehearsal and I drove back without him. And he was an incredible character and so encouraging for me, despite the fact he was always sending me up and taking the Mickey out of me and all that. And I loved him desperately.”