Sometimes it's hard to be a woman

I'm a little bit country. I'm a little bit rock 'n roll

Take your partners for a rootin' tootin' tear-up as we go 'Kinda Country' on tonight's live action Radio Podrophenia - where everything from Abba covers to Zydeco stompers get pitched in the pot.

The Elvis back catalogue has been on and off the subs bench all week, as I've been doing some king-size juggling between outtakes and obscurities from the undubbed masters album One Hundred Years From Now and the blue-aired booty Cut Me and I Bleed, which in essence, is Effing and Jeffing with Elvis.
Similarly I still can't decide which way to swing on the offbeat. Either Marlene Webber's Stand By Your Man or the banjo 'n' blue beat bounce of Beverly Hillbilly Ska

And Fi Jacobs from The Railway Hotel drops in for a round up of what's on at Southend's most rock 'n' roll local during October. So buckle up from 9 for a ride around Podrophenia country

Marlene Webber - Stand By Your Man



 Granville Williams Orchestra - Beverly Hillbilly Ska



Natter-wise I'd like to try and nail look-a-likes for this 'orrible lot.  I'm claiming Mr Top Left as David Beckham - but what about the other salty ol' sea dogs..?

This masterclass in nifty-fingered frettery from Albert Lee will be appearing at some point tonight..



If you're not iTuned up - you can load up last week's Radio Podrophenia via this MP3 DL

And don't forget you can grab - Dolly does disco and northern soul here

Dear Diary:1980 - January

I'd forgotten, until seeing this Calendar, how much I hated the idea of shedding the 70s. And felt, as the 80s loomed into view like a sky-high iceberg - that in one crash and midnight-click of the clock the amazing technicolour, Cinderella 70s would be gone forever..

Sure enough, for years they were unfairly reported and revisited as a dated and desperately unfashionable era 'The decade that taste forgot' and similar baggy mantras - like any other decade didn't bring it's own stylistic horrors and howlers?

Anyhow, so onto the 80s. Jumble sales (26th ) became a rummage-hunt for skinhead and mod mates rooting about for Fred Perrys, Ben Sherman or Brutus shirts and red tab Levis. Although at this one if I remember, a giant-sized, monster spider leapt out from some old scrap or other, scuttling around and about like severed hand - sending DM booted skins, mods and punks reeling backwards, nimble footed and fleeing smartly doorwards...

Singles wise it's only The Specials to report, but as I'm sure you know what that sounds like and LPs begin to appear in the diary, I'll  pitch in links to the album charts - this week includes: Cozy Powell, The Fawlty Towers Original Television Soundtrack, Peace in the Valley, The Ramones and Nolans !?! - and perhaps drop in occasional album tracks like these two sex and violence songs..

No LOTR news for Jan - but this Specials skit could have been written especially for her.

The Specials - Stupid Marriage



Another tune that chimed with the times of inter-tribal punch ups and kickings that happened to several mates, but luckily I managed to avoid..

The Specials - Concrete Jungle



The charts for this week are well worth a squint. A mis-matched batch of unlikely bedfellows sharing the same slots and spaces almost high rise style: Fiddler's Dram, Rupert Holmes and Mike Oldfield's Blue Peter Theme bunched up like resentful tenants alongside The Clash, The Specials and at number 41 Prince !!! Well I never..

Funky Friday - Island In The Sun

I don't know how Mrs M does it. I am a bugger-to-buy for. Birthdays, Christmas etc. Yet, every year she manages to fill some crack in the collection with a trump card. This year it's Keep On Running - The Islands Records Story. What a corker and a cracker of a read. Full page artwork, album cover galleries, but, more mind fryingly it threads together the back stories and tales of some of my most played or favourite styles and artists. Artists, I hadn't quite connected were on the same label together. It's suddenly like finding distant groups of friends gathered in the same school photo.

Blue beat, ska, reggae and the Trojan association, Guy Stevens and Sue Records (we'll save that for another post), Spencer Davies, Traffic, Wynder K Frog, Head Hands And Feet, Fairport Convention, John Martyn, Nick Drake, Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Roxy Music, Eno - and into the eighties and beyond. But for now, let's go from the beginning.

Written and performed by Jackie Edwards from 1958 ~ one of the Island's earliest releases, We're Gonna Love is a sonic eclipse of rock, roll 'n' reggae and blue beat meets big band. Jackie late wrote Keep On Running and Somebody Help Me

Jackie Edwards - We're Gonna Love



From Islands 'pink' period Quintessence look exactly as you'd imagine ~ a fuzzy-faced commune of flute-tooters and freak-beaters. Celebrating Notting Hill when it was sleazy stoner central (best rendered here)rather than the Boho village it's become.

Quintessence - Notting Hill Gate



And how must have this lot bristled on the grizzled roots, rock and reggae artists when they signed to Island..Richard Williams ( head of A and R from 73 to 76) intro sets the scene