Grateful For My 60th Anniversary As A Scribe
A Great Podcast By Rocks BackPages
It all started with being a Beatles fan and reading the back of one of their LPs in 1963 which mentioned Black American groups like The Shirelles and The Miracles whose US hits the Fab Four covered.
Then, it was the UK singer Cilla Black, covering “Anyone Who Had A Heart” by US vocalist Dionne Warwick; then Dionne’s follow-up “Walk On By” in 1964 , still my all-time favourite recording; and in 1965, starting the Nina Simone Appreciation Society in London and meeting Nina in June of that year…
I am very grateful to the guys at Rocks BackPages for the podcast we did last week which is the first full-on interview I’ve done this year. Here’s the description:
“We invite David Nathan to look back on his illustrious 60 years as "the British Ambassador of Soul".
Our guest commences by recalling his gateway into Black American music: the covers of Shirelles and Miracles classics included on the first two Beatles albums. He furthermore describes the thrill of seeing Motown star Mary Wells supporting the Fab Four at Kilburn's State Cinema in October 1964, followed by his founding of the Nina Simone Appreciation Society.
We hear about the Soul City record store David ran with the legendary Dave Godin – and about John Abbey's trailblazing Blues & Soul magazine, for which our guest began writing in 1968. Barney quotes from David's 1968 B&S profile of Aretha Franklin, with whom he later enjoyed a long friendship. The release of Make It Easy on Yourself – a box set David compiled of Dionne Warwick's immortal Scepter recordings – is the cue for us to hear clips from his 2012 audio interview with the Bacharach & David muse... and to talk about another "soulful diva" who became his close friend.
We bring our guest's story more up-to-date with his reflections on yet another diva/pal, the one and only Chaka Khan. Mention of the former Rufus frontwoman's favourite producer, Arif Mardin, leads to discussion of Main Course, the Mardin-helmed album on which the Bee Gees "went disco" 50 long summers ago. David then reminisces about his own disco dalliances in '70s New York and his mid-'80s coastal switch to L.A.”
The podcast is now available on digital platforms including Spotify and at the RBP site.
Check it out and feel free to share the link!
It’s been quite a journey and it continues to be so.
Thankful.