Tim Worstall

Jagger, drunk, once telephoned Charlie Watts’s hotel room at 5am and demanded to speak to “my drummer”. Watts rose from bed, meticulously showered and shaved, dressed himself in a three-piece suit, then took the lift downstairs and decked Jagger for impertinence.

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I’ve been taking a lot of music lessons just recently. Becoming quite the multi-instrumentalist. I’ve quite nailed the vocal line from Jessica, have the drum part to Eruption down pat and even the lead guitar part in Birdland sorted. I think I’ll move on to the Hammond organ part in Freebird next unless anyone has [...]

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Simon Cowell, of course. But if they keep doing this to the music press then they’re going to go a long, long, way. Two days later I receive an email: Thanks so much for the DVD – incredibly thoughtful of you. We all watched it last night and it was really interesting. We didn’t realise [...]

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The 69-year-old singer and William “Willie” Wilkerson hope to marry later this year in Miami, with the wedding expected to take place on a beach with a private party afterwards on board a yacht. The pair became engaged over the Christmas holidays, according to news agency AP. “We’re looking at June or July for our [...]

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PRS for Music accepted that payments to many Welsh language musicians had declined. Mark Lawrence, the director of membership, said: “Rates paid for radio station play and also for use in businesses around the country are reviewed constantly, based on audience, reach and sampling work our teams do.” The basic rate for a song on [...]

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When Bruce Springsteen first met Paul McCartney, he couldn’t keep himself from saying, “Mr. McCartney, I have to tell you that you and your career have always been an inspiration to me in my music. I’m embarrassed to tell you that, though, because it sounds so corny.” McCartney replied, “Don’t worry about it. I once [...]

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Bit difficult not to support it really: military family, Devon born, brother is out there running the logistics for them, cousin is pumping the oil over the mountains to them, sister is a choirmistress pulling together very similar groups (although not on TV). And what is this X-Factor of which people speak?

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One of the readers here is the father of one of these here: Compare and contrast with this version of the old standard (well, standard….everyone changes the lyrics)

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“Unfortunately, we at www.elviscostello.com find ourselves unable to recommend this lovely item to you as the price appears to be either a misprint or a satire.” “If you should really want to buy something special for your loved one at this time of seasonal giving, we can whole-heartedly recommend Ambassadors of Jazz [by] Louis Armstrong,” [...]

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Hmm, thought I, hmm: David Bowie says yes to futuristic musical based on his hits Bowie’s space-age fantasies will be used for the first time in showcase London performance next year So, in a business sense, like Mamma Mia or We Will Rock You. Get those old songs up on a West End stage, take [...]

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Difficult not to agree with this. ….is not handsome. His voice is not of a particularly pleasant timbre. He refuses to project a phony aura of likeablility, and is likely incapable of projecting a real one. He’s strange and prickly and inscrutable. It’s likely that all of the members of the band he’s playing with [...]

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Record-breaking star Adele is to undergo surgery in a bid to cure the throat problems which have threatened to wreck her voice forever. So I don’t listen to much pop music bit it’s been impossible not to listen to some of this. And my immediate reaction (OK, well, after the “my, that’s a bit catchy, [...]

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What is the backing track to this? Every time I hear it I think that I really ought to know what it is but I don’t: and I’d rather like to find it without the chatting over the top of it. Ah, never mind, found it. It’s Count Basie version of Hang on Sloopy

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An abomination that should be taken out and shot. Along with those that passed it. The ruling, dubbed “Cliff’s Law” after the veteran pop star waged a long-running campaign to have the copyright period extended, will prevent his material from the 1960s from falling out of copyright. Some earlier recordings that have fallen out of [...]

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America’s going to default, Greece is in the shitter, Guido’s campaigning for the death penalty and the Murph is about to inflict a book upon us. Perhaps we shouldn’t forget that us roughly 1 billion rich world people are living higher on the hog than any group of human beings ever has done, that the [...]

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Can music lovers enjoy Wagner’s art in spite of his anti-Semitism? No. Nothing to do with the anti-semitism mind, it’s the “music”. Appalling, dreary stuff. No one who loved music could ernjoy it: Wagner is something to be endured.

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“I actually don’t like music that much,” Phil Collins admits at the Glenfiddich Mojo Awards. “I don’t really listen to music.

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At Glastonbury: One of the campaign group members said: “That was totally over the top. He threatened to hit me.” It’s what bouncers do with unruly members of the crowd mate.

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Talking to Pat Gilbert in Mojo a couple of months back – an early warning shot in a publicity blitzkrieg of mounting and ultimately horrific intensity – the star of Jeeves & Wooster and House imagined Britain’s critical elite dipping their quills in venom in anticipation of his forthcoming celebration of the unique capacity of [...]

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In an obituary for one of Pan’s People, we find this: And they came to be as synonymous with the much-loved chart show as cigar-chomping Jimmy Savile and the pounding Led Zeppelin theme tune. Ah, no, the theme tune wasn’t Led Zep. It was a reworking of a reworking. CCS had reworked it, then it [...]

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