Now I see the 'point' of Paul McCartney! In May 1980, towards the end of my "journalist" days, I got an invite to the EMI press reception for Paul McCartney's solo album, "McCartney II", at Abbey Road studios. I was one of about 80 scribes from all parts of the... Continue reading

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/colbath.html Colosseum's performance at the Festival was an important step in their rapidly growing reputation as one of the best jazz/rock bands around, when roughly 200,00 fans gave the a standing ovation. A very short audience tape exists of one portion of their set in the form of short snippets... Continue reading

Some 55 years ago, in a South East London jazz club called the "Jazzhouse", a bunch of young, mostly semi-pro, musicians got together and formed a rehearsal band. The original idea was the brainchild of Clive Burrows, the baritone sax -playing co-leader of the club's house band, together with tenorist... Continue reading

An historic occasion..19th & 20 March 1969. The filming of "Supershow", in a disused linoleum factory somewhere in West London, took two days. Its all-star cast of musicians from the UK and the USA was assembled by Tom Parkinson and it read like a "who's who" of the rock, blues... Continue reading

This was the year when times definitely were 'a-changing' in Britain. The year when the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and a few other aspiring groups, were setting the UK music scene alight; while in America, pop idol Elvis was about to be launched as a Hollywood film star in a... Continue reading

The CD version of “A Night in the Sun”, Jon's first solo album, which he recorded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, back in 1981 is now available on Amazon. It can be found by entering: Jon Hiseman - "A night in the sun"...or the EAN barcode number, which is: 013711504224.... Continue reading

Full Sail University, Orlando, Fla. When I started this blog, a few years back, I had no preconceptions as to where it would go. I hoped then, as I still do, that a few people out there might enjoy reading about some of my experiences while working in the British... Continue reading

...could be worth a small fortune, assuming you took good care of them. At 'Books for Amnesty' Bristol (where, since 2003, I've been dealing with the music related stuff) we recently received a large donation of '60s albums and singles. Now, during those 13 years, we've had the occasional exciting... Continue reading

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Barbara and Jon will be going to the Houses of Parliament this afternoon, to attend another reception promoting the BBC documentary "Playing against Time". A host of MPs and media celebrities, including Melvyn Bragg, will be there to view a 30 minute excerpt of the highly... Continue reading

The first time I saw Jimi Hendrix play was sometime in October 1966, at the Cromwellian Club, a late-night drinking venue west of Knightsbridge. It catered for a motley crowd of music biz types... including musicians, agency/management people, TV/radio presenters, music press journalists and the like...together with a variety of... Continue reading

FURTHER ..AND FINAL UPDATE: 27th FEBRUARY 2015 Tomorrow night, for one of the first and greatest British jazz/rock bands, the end of the road will finally have been reached. What Jon refers to as 'the last hurrah', will take place at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, when Colosseum will walk on... Continue reading

I worked for Tony Stratton-Smith (known generally as 'Strat') at Charisma Records for four years - from 1972 to 1976, most of that time as International Manager. This meant that I travelled a lot, mainly around Europe, liaising with the various label licensees and their press/promotion departments. I also made... Continue reading

I It's fair to say that Harry was probably my favourite of the many musicians I interviewed in my brief 'journalistic' career. He was certainly the most entertaining. Back in 1978 I was a 'newbie' journalist working for a German musicians' magazine, similar to International Musician (but with much smaller... Continue reading

In 1975, while I was working for Charisma Records. I happened to be in Cologne for reasons I can't recall, and heard about the Keith Jarrett concert from Vera Brandes, the very youthful (only 18 yrs old!) promoter, who pulled off a major coup in getting Jarrett in the first... Continue reading

R.I.P. Duffy Power. Heard from Peter Muir that Duffy passed away on Wednesday (19th February). No further details at this time. It's particularly sad to lose him now, just when he had re-started his career, recently releasing his first CD for 40 years. Following the comment from Peter Muir of... Continue reading

Another in the series of 'memories that have stayed with me'. This one was prompted by a recently renewed contact with founder-member Rod Clements, bass-player and all-round nice guy. In fact, of all the bands I worked with, I found Lindisfarne to be one of the easiest to get along... Continue reading

A bit like my 'meeting' with Dick Gregory (see earlier post), I had but a fleeting acquaintance with Otis Redding, but the occasion stayed with me for over four decades. It was when he appeared at the London Finsbury Park Astoria on the 22nd March 1967, headlining the Stax/Volt Review... Continue reading

"Live Python found at Belgrade Theatre, Coventry!" And now for something completely different... The 1971 Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University) Arts Festival bill included many well-known artistes on the 10 day programme of events, including Elton John, Ralph McTell, Caravan, blues legend Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup, Leon Russell aa well... Continue reading

Terry Ellis (foreground) & Chris Wright c 1970s Before Chrysalis was born, there was the Ellis-wright Agency...set up by Terry and Chris in 1967. Trading on their experience of booking bands into their respective universities and utilising the list of contacts built up while doing it, the Agency nevertheless took... Continue reading

I met Dick Gregory in 1968, when he was in London to appear at the Royal Albert Hall, opening for Nina Simone (I was involved with the promotion). His rep at that time was as a stand-up comedian, so it came as something of a surprise when he pressed into... Continue reading

Originally posted October 2010 How satisfying it is when something you have been working on for over two years - correcting, honing, more correcting and then finessing...finally becomes reality and you hold the finished book in your hands. "Playing the Band" ended up being bigger than originally planned...452 pages instead... Continue reading