Joan Armatrading, Tom Robinson and the great music meltdown of Summer ‘76
About this episode
The episode discusses the cultural and musical landscape of Summer 1976 in Britain, featuring insights from John L Williams and reflections on various artists and events of the time.
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  …
Topics covered
- music history
- 1976 cultural shifts
- live music violence
- identity marketing
- pop culture
- prog rock
- punk rock
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