Music

Acting, acting, welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, James Holland,

and today with David Hepworth, who, you know, what are things we like to do on this podcast?

Is not necessarily talk to the most obvious people, you know, we've had plenty of brilliant

historians who've talked about, you know, the books they've worked and the research they've done

academics and what have you, but David Hepworth is a legendary music journalist and writer,

wrote the brilliant 1971 Never a Doll moment and overpaid over sex and over there,

how a few skinny brits with bad teeth rocked America, a personal favourite of mine,

and also this new book which I've been reading, this is why I've persuaded David to come on,

Abbey Road the inside story of the world's most famous recording studio,

and it is absolutely fabulous, it's brilliantly written, brilliantly told, and just for anyone who

loves music, of course Abbey Road is a kind of center point of our musical education for all the

recordings that were made there, not of course just Sergeant Pepper and Beatles tracks, but a whole

host of amazing other people from Jacqueline DePray to, well, people who were recording stuff in

the Second World War, so David, thank you for coming on, it's lovely to be talking to you.

A pleasure, pleasure. The great thing about your book Abbey Road and this is what got me thinking

about kind of music in the wartime is of course that you go back to his origins, how it's his

lovely house and the sort of suburbs of London, sub-abbs are sort of very after and part of London,

and although EMI the company has its big factory out at Hayes and Middle-sex, well he realises all

the arty types are in the centre of town and so you don't want to make them travel too much,

so let's have a recording studio right in the heart of London. Yes, they got this property at number

three Abbey Road in St John's Wood, which in those days had a reputation, I think you'd describe

...