Joan Armatrading, Tom Robinson and the great music meltdown of Summer ‘76

Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 02:39 - Memories of summer '76 05:34 - What was a gig like in 1976? 07:21 - Violence 11:10 - The Radio One Roadshow 13:21 - Rock Follies 15:30 - The charts 18:36 - Joan Armatrading 21:53 - Tom Robinson 23:28 - Surprises 29:01 - Television 34:36 - 1976's greatest record ---- Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation in Rock & Roll going:   / wordinyourear   ---- The blistering heat of 1976 burnt various things onto the memory – standpipes, strikes, Entebbe, ‘Confessions’ movies, Jeremy Thorpe – but most of all the records that became its soundtrack, some of them revolutionary, others begging for extinction. John L Williams captures the moment in ‘Heatwave: the Summer of 1976, Britain at Boiling Point’ and a paints of picture of a country on the brink of a vast pop-cultural shift. We talk to him here about … … violence at gigs and football and on Derek & Clive albums … dumb people pretending to be clever (prog rock) and clever people pretending to be dumb (Ramones) … the rise of Joan Armatrading in the days before ‘identity’ marketing … how ‘funny’ t-shirts were the memes of their day … when Tom Robinson saw the future in Scarborough … “mainstream culture gave you things to both love and hate” ... how Rock Follies featured an imaginary Blitz Club where people danced in military uniforms … Andy Summers (with Kevin Ayers) and Stewart Copeland (Curved Air) on the same bill a year before the Police … why anyone with a Sensational Alex Harvey Band scarf got a wide berth … Time Out’s headline: "It's the Buzz, Cock!" … Tom Waits, aged 25, unconvincing hobo-hipster … and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Emmanuelle and the lowest point of the Radio One Roadshow. Order copies of ‘Heatwave’ here: https://tinyurl.com/2kudc6xr