A rain-splashed, dub-filled, cash-scattering foray into this week’s news and events which happily lands upon …

… meeting Maddy Prior – a Prior engagement? – and the time Steeleye Span showered their audience with £8,000.

… hearing Nick Drake’s demos on a narrowboat in the pitch dark a few hundred feet below London.

… Steve Miller’s cancelled tour, absurdly blamed on the weather.

… who’s older, Lulu or the King? Kim Wilde or William Hague? Neil Tennant or Andy Fraser of Free?

… Bob Marley at the Lyceum in 1975 – the confidence of their pace, the heft of their sound, what the audience wore. And David’s backing vocal on No Woman No Cry.

… the ugliest group in history – “they make Crabby Appleton look like the Walker Brothers”.

… an imagined duet by Rick Astley and David Cameron.

… is Bob Dylan the Tommy Cooper of rock and roll?

… David Ackles and the curse of “the greatest album ever made”.

… the Coldplay ‘Kiss-cam’ clip – “either they’re having an affair or just very shy”.

… the crackle of crime at ‘70s gigs.

… how someone could have seen the opening night of Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush and – 50 years later - Bob Marley at the Lyceum.

… why aren’t there still fanzines with names like Ptolemaic Terrascope?

… and birthday guest Gianluca Tramontagna claims Bob Dylan is neither sage, seer or prophet but an immensely comic “song and dance man”.

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Picked up in the great singer-songwriter sweep of the late 60s and signed to Elektra Records, David Ackles made four albums which went over the heads of the record-buying public, attracted over-the-top reviews and earned the undying devotion of fans like Elvis Costello and Elton John. Now Mark Brend’s book brings together an appreciation of his work with an account of his career before and after the three period when he was going to be the next big thing, taking in…

….the night he found himself supporting his biggest fan Elton John at the Troubadour in Los Angeles

….his year in Berkshire planning and recording “American Gothic”, an album about his distant homeland

…how two different record companies took him to their hearts but had no earthly clue how to promote him

…why it is that rock fans who boast of their eclectic tastes can’t deal with anything which sounds like musical theatre

…will he ever join the pantheon in which we have installed Nick Drake, Judee Sill and the other late musicians we are pleased to call a “lost genius”?

Buy Down River: In Search of David Ackles: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Down-River-Search-David-Ackles/dp/1916829228

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Our patent fact-from-fiction separator goes into overdrive this week though sometimes, as Robert Wyatt observed, Ruth is stranger than Richard. High in the mix …

… FOMO (Fear Of Missing Oasis), Gen Z’s love of queuing and has there ever been a greater outpouring of joy at a band reunion?

…what’s the greatest musical city?

… Kevin Rowland – cheat, burglar, arsonist, menswear salesman – and his capacity for self-sabotage.

… the harder to get tickets, the more people feel compelled to go.

… Kylie Minogue is a year older than Jacob Rees-Mogg!

… the best album to come out of New Orleans.

… memoirs you can read as either comedy or tragedy.

… Ed Sheeran turns Ipswich pink.

… the Salt Path saga and the pursuit of profit over truth.

… Mirrors In The Smoke, Dust On The Wind, Echoes Through the Pines: spot the AI-generated song title!

… the Beatles’ Tree in Chiswick: let’s keep local landmarks a secret!

… John Otway’s 5,300 gigs: the hardest working man in showbiz.

… and birthday guest Patrick Butler and cities with the greatest legacy – Liverpool, Birmingham, Nashville, New York, Chicago, New Orleans?

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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