Elkie Brooks was on a package tour aged 15, supported the Beatles and the Animals, made a single when she was 19, joined the jazz-rock Dada, then Vinegar Joe (with Robert Palmer) and has since made 20 albums. She’s now out on her ‘Long Farewell Tour’ and looks back with us here from her home in Devon at …

… supporting the Beatles in ’64 and an audience already screaming for the headliners.

… memories of Dusty, Cilla and Maggie Bell and how few girl singers there were in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

… singing Cliff Richard’s ‘Pointed Toe Shoes’, aged 15, at the Don Arden talent show that won her a tour with Conway Twitty and Wee Willie Harris.

… supporting the Animals at the Paramount, New York.

… the male-weighted music world and how long it took to win any respect.

… seeing Ella Fitzgerald when she was 12 and being fired up by the range and phrasing of Billie Holiday.

… what she learnt from Humphrey Lyttelton and Eric Delaney.

… life on the scampi-in-the-basket cabaret circuit as a teenager.

… trying to keep Vinegar Joe together after Robert Palmer left.

Book tickets to the Long Farewell Tour here: https://www.elkiebrooks.com/

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Facing down the leg spinners of rock and roll news while trying to wallop the odd shot across the pavilion roof. On the scoreboard this week …

… has there ever been a rock feud as bitter as Trump v Musk?

… what Ray Charles, Taylor Swift and Dave Clark have in common.

… the 30-year golden age music video.

… things Van Morrison can’t forget.

… how some songs about lying in hammocks necking cocktails ended up worth $275m.

… Beyoncé, Stetsons, pink Cadillacs and how all visiting American acts bring with them the aura of America.

… the greatest and most influential video ever made.

… the song Carly Simon wrote about Cat Stevens.

… “Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)”

… Nick Mason’s menagerie: things your teenage self never imagined would happen.

… Kraft Cheese slices, Kylie videos, the cut above David Beckham’s eye and other things labelled ‘iconic’.

… and Birthday guest Paul Thompson’s night at the Music Video Preservation Society!

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

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Stuart Maconie – broadcaster, prolific author – has a brilliant and original new perspective on the Beatles. His latest book With A Little Help From Their Friends identifies the 100 people who had the greatest impact on their story, from the inner circle to bit-part players – schoolfriends, girlfriends, managers, muses, support acts, advisors and exploiters. It’s immensely entertaining – and revealing, even for obsessives like us. Look out for these in particular …

… memories of his Mum taking him to see the Beatles in Wigan when he was three.

… the Shakespearian supporting cast – “we know the Othellos and King Lears but there are a lot of Rosencrantz and Guildensterns” such as Marsha Albert, Melanie Coe, Pablo Fanque, Mr Mustard and the night with the poet Royston Ellis that inspired Polythene Pam.

… villains of the piece who might have been misunderstood like the Maharishi and Allen Klein.

… what Derek Taylor shouted at Peter Blake at the Q Awards.

… the full extent of the Beatles’ American merchandise catastrophe.

… the “moving and spooky” sensation of standing on the spot in Woolton where John and Paul first met - and its repercussions.

… the Sliding Doors moments and why no other band merits this kind of depth and detail.

… the hoary redundant old saw about John v Paul – “guerilla genius v slick vaudevillian” and how Peter Jackson’s Get Back made us all fall in love with them even harder and deeper than before.

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… the regrettable question he asked McCartney about Gerry & the Pacemakers.

… the tragedy of Jimmie Nicol – “being a member of the Beatles, even briefly, was the nearest equivalent to going to the Moon”.

… the impact of Paul’s life with the Ashers on the band’s intersections with art, theatre and poetry.

… how the ‘Oldies But Goldies’ album broke the band beyond the Iron Curtain.

.. why Penny Lane is like a Play for Today.

… and the greatest song the Beatles recorded.

Order With A Little Help From Our Friends here: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/with-a-little-help-from-their-friends-the-beatles-changed-the-world-but-who-changed-theirs-stuart-maconie?variant=54870051815803

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

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