Sunday 7 December 2008 Chat

The screenplay for Warhead, a James Bond film that was never made, has fetched almost £47,000 at auction.
The script, written by Sir Sean Connery, Len Deighton and Kevin McClory in 1976 had been expected to fetch some £3,000 when it was sold this week as part of Christie's Entertainment Memorabilia sale in London.
In the story James Bond battles robot sharks attempting to plant a nuclear bomb in the sewers beneath New York.
Ironically, the story has appeared just as the big fish above those sewers are creating global meltdown for real.
You know, you're cleverer than you look, Mr Bond.

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Graham Norton is taking over from Sir Terry Wogan as the BBC presenter and commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Wogan, 70, has made no secret of his disappointment over bloc voting, saying the competition was "no longer a music contest".
Norton will take over for the 2009 contest, to be held in Moscow.
Stepping down, Wogan said he'll be sad to leave it all behind;
"From my first...it's been nothing but laughter and fun...the silly songs, the spectacle, the grandiose foolishness of it all."
"The real highlight was Abba and Waterloo, that was 1974 in Brighton. And Riverdance, which made the small hairs stand up on the back of everyone's neck. But that was an interval act and it's the interval acts I remember. Particularly those acts that didn't work on radio, like the clowns."
Norton said, "Sir Terry is a legend and an impossible act to follow, but somebody must and I just couldn't say no".
"I can't wait to get to Moscow. With a combination of cheap vodka and a language barrier what could possibly go wrong?"
But Wogan had the last word; when asked if there was any rumour that he'd left because he himself wanted to perform in 2009, he replied,
"There is no truth in the rumour that I've been dismissed as commentator because myself and Aled Jones are going to sing Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth at the Eurovision Song Contest. Musical standards are not that high, but come on, how far down do we have to go?"

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A good number of British acts are included in the shortlist for this year's Grammy Awards.
Better still, as far as I'm concerned, the list includes several albums, songs and acts that have been featured on my radio show over past months.
It's particularly good to know Raising Sand, the excellent album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and produced by T Bone Burnett, is up for several awards.
These include album of the year, together with Coldplay (Viva la vida), Lil Wayne (Tha Carter III), Ne-Yo (Year of the Gentleman) and Radiohead (In rainbows).
Raising Sand is also a contender for record of the year with Please read the letter, against Adele (Chasing pavements), Coldplay (Viva la vida), Leona Lewis (Bleeding love) and M.I.A. (Paper planes).
Altogether The Recording Academy will be presenting 110 Awards at the Grammy ceremony in February next year.

Sunday 16 November 2008 Chat

Singer, songwriter and pianist Aretha Franklin has topped Rolling Stone magazine's list of Greatest Singers of All Time.
179 musicians, producers and other music industry insiders submitted their top 20 choices for the poll, including James Blunt, Ginger Baker, Liam Gallagher, Iggy Pop, Etta James, Booker T Jones, Carole King, Brian Wilson and Keith Richards.
The soul legend's top 5 playlist was (You make me feel like) A natural woman, Respect, I never loved a man (The way I love you), Think, and Chain of fools.
Second in the poll came (my hero) Ray Charles with, What'd I say, Pts 1 & 2, and Elvis Presley was third with Mystery Train.
Sam Cooke was 4th, John Lennon 5th and Marvin Gaye came 6th.
Aretha, who has influenced Mary J Blige, Annie Lennox and Alicia Keys, among others, is the definitive soul singer of the 60s and one of the most influential voices in popular music.
Known as The Queen of Soul, she has made more than a dozen million selling singles and 20 Number One R&B hits in the US alone.
That success, despite a turbulent private life, enabled her to become the first black woman to appear on the cover of Time magazine.
Aretha was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame and in 2005 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has won 21 Grammy Awards to date.
Now 66, she thankfully shows no sign of giving up her remarkable gift, has launched her own record label and studies piano at the Juilliard School, New York.

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Mamma Mia!, the musical, has become the highest-grossing British film at the UK box office.
The film, starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, features the songs of 70s pop group, Abba, and has taken £67.2m in the UK since its July release.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was the previous holder of the British record with sales of £66.1m.
If just a few more go to see the feel-good sing-along, Mamma Mia! could beat the highest ever grossing film, Titanic, which has made £69m in the UK.

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From this week it'll be possible to purchase XO laptops in Europe.
The XO is a small, powerful laptop designed for school children, primarily in the third world.
Supposed to cost less than $100 per unit and sell by the million, the final version ended up costing $188 and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation has apparently sold only 600,000 units.
Yet the distinctive and robust green and white machines are becoming a design classic and under the Give one, get one scheme 190,000 units were purchased & given by Americans over a 2-month period in 2007.
Through Amazon this scheme is now being opened up to 27 European countries where the XO is expected to cost the equivalent of c. £260.
If you're thinking of buying a new laptop, do consider the XO through Give one, get one; you'll be purchasing a hardy and functional machine with excellent design credentials AND be giving a worthwhile gift to a school child in a one of the world's poor countries.
On the basis that a country's future lies in its young people, the XO could be a more valuable gift than a goat this Christmas.

Sunday 2 November 2008 Chat

The 22nd movie in the James Bond cannon, Quantum of Solace (the title of which doesn't sound nearly so bad now we're all used to it) has broken box office records on its UK opening day.
The movie took £4.9m on Friday, beating the previous record for a Friday opening, £4.025m, held by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. That's going some.
The success of the new Daniel Craig epic can be judged when compared with his earlier outing, Casino Royale, which took £2.9m on the first day of release just two years ago.
Casino Royale and Daniel Craig went on to win acclaim among both fans and critics and the film became the most popular of 2006, taking more than £50m that the British box office alone.
As James Christopher, writing in The Times said, "Really, nobody does it better than the new 007."

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Ex studio band for Stax-Volt Records in the 1960s, Booker T and the MGs have been inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee.
The band played on many hits including, Sitting on the dock of the bay, Hold on (I'm comin'), Try a little tenderness and Soul man before establishing a reputation in their own right with the instrumental, Green onions, in 1962.
Named after their young keyboard player and an MG car belonging to record producer Chips Moman, the band backed Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, The Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett and many others.
While Booker T was away studying music at Indiana University, Isaac Hayes would sit in, although never an official member of the group.
In 1967 they had another hit with Hip hug-her, followed by Doin' our thing and Soul limbo, famously used for BBC Test Match Special.
In 1969 they had their second biggest hit with Time is tight.
Called the most influential stylists in modern American music, Booker T and the MGs were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine ranked the group 93rd in their list of 100 greatest artists of all time, and in 2007 they were presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
My personal favourite? - their version of Winter wonderland.

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Alas and alack, it has been announced that David Tennant is to stand down as Doctor Who.
This is a bitter blow for fans of one of the most popular Time Lords ever, even if his recent outings with the Royal Shakespeare Company did perhaps suggest the tardis may have lost something of its sparkle.
Tennant took control of the BBC police box and sonic screwdriver in 2005.
The 10th actor to play the Doctor, Tennant replaced Christopher Ecclestone, who reinvented the role after a broadcast gap of almost 20 years.
This week that role won Tennant the outstanding drama performance prize at the National Television Awards for the third time.
He'll appear in a Christmas special, The Next Doctor, before filming four more specials in January.
"They'll be the last four stories that I do," he said.
The question now has to be who will replace Tennant at the helm of the tardis, and whether, with executive producer Russell T Davies also leaving the show, another change of Doctor may be a regeneration too far.
This is the Doctor and time alone will tell.

Sunday 21 September 2008 Chat

Deep in the Californian desert strange grooves have been cut in the road. Even stranger, when driven over at an optimum speed the grooves play the Lone Ranger theme tune.
Residents of nearby Lancaster say the sounds are more of a screech and as a result the grooves are soon to be eradicated.
The musical road was the idea of Honda, which engineered the road surface to play Rossini's William Tell overture, from which the Lone Ranger theme is taken, at perfect pitch for motorists driving a Honda Civic at 55mph.
What started out as a fun promotion could also have been good for the local economy, as similar projects have proved in Japan and South Korea.
Unfortunately the music, which was intended to be heard only by those travelling in the vehicles, carried too widely and the road is consequently to be resurfaced. Proving the accuracy of the old saying, "Hi-yo Silver, away".

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The songwriter and producer responsible for some of Motown's (and my own) best loved songs has died.
Norman Whitfield, whose credits include I heard it through the grapevine, Ain't too proud to beg, Cloud nine and War, was 68 and died from complications of diabetes.
Born in Harlem, New York, Whitfield's family moved to Detroit when the boy was in his teens. Famously they hadn't intended to settle in the city but his father's car broke down and the rest, as they say, is history.
Whitfield worked at Motown in the 60s and 70s, beginning as a junior member of the label's quality control team but he was soon writing his own songs, many with good friend Barratt Strong.
His first hit, in 1962, was Pride & joy, co-written for Marvyn Gaye.
Pretty soon he was also producing songs for the Marvelettes, the Velvelettes, the Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Edwin Starr and Smokey Robinson.
The Temptations' Cloud nine earned Motown the first of many Grammy Awards, then came, I can't get next to you, Ball of confusion, Just my imagination (running away with me), and Papa was a rolling stone, for which Whitfield and Strong won a songwriting Grammy.
His run of hits continued with, I heard it through the grapevine, Too busy thinking about my baby and the anti-Vietnam, War.
A demanding figure said to be able to reduce his artists to tears, Norman Whitfield was a perfectionist with clear ideas about how he wanted his artists to sound.
When Motown moved to Los Angeles he started his own label and had more Grammy success with Rose Royce and the soundtrack to the movie, Car Wash, in 1977.

Whitfield was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Barratt Strong in 2002.
More recently, I heard it through the grapevine, which topped the charts in the UK and US in 1969, was voted 65 in Billboard's 100 most successful tracks of the last 50 years.
Smokey Robinson said of him, "He will live forever through his great music." Amen to that.

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It's possible to have too much of a good thing, and announcing there's soon to be an Asian version of the Eurovision Song Contest could be one step too far.
The competition, to be called Asiavision, will involve 15 countries including China and India, with a final expected to attract an audience of up to 500 million viewers.
No surprise then that the company purchasing the format for Asia reckons it's 'highly suited' to the region - the advertising revenues alone must make the event a potential goldmine.
And after the Eurovision experience, I'd say bloc voting in this region was a certainty.
Who, what, me? Sceptical? Get away with you!