E233: Brian Cullman on Sandy Denny + John Martyn + Big Joe Turner

In this episode, we invite the marvellous Brian Cullman to join us onscreen from a French farmhouse in the Dordogne.

The author of How to Prepare for the Past talks us through his fascinating "travels in music and time" from New York City to North Africa via his writing for Crawdaddy, Musician and The Paris Review.

Beginning with his boyhood in midtown Manhattan, Brian recalls his ecstatic discovery of pop radio and WBAI's Bob Fass; his befriending of the late Lillian Roxon; and his teenage immersion in the Max's Kansas City scene.

The core of our conversation concerns the period our guest spent in early '70s London, where he fell in with rising folk-rock luminaries Sandy Denny and John & Beverley Martyn and hung out with an all-but-unknown Nick Drake. We hear clips from a 1982 audio interview with Martyn by Brian's Musician colleague John Hutchinson.

We jump to the end of the decade as our guest recalls his friendship with R&B legend Big Joe Turner and discusses his dual experience of being a music writer and a performing singer-songwriter.

After William quotes from newly-added library pieces by Derek Taylor (1968) and about Amy Winehouse (2004), Barney harks back to a Village Voice report on "Papa John" Phillips on Broadway (1975) and a Madonna profile by recent RBP recruit Barry Walters (2017).
How to Prepare For The Past: Travels In Music and Time is published by ZE Books and available now.

Pieces discussed: Derek & the Dominos: Marquee Club, London, The Amazing James Booker, Emerald Sapphire and Gold, John Martyn audio, Top Tunes: Martha and the Vandellas, Martha Reeves Goes Solo, Martha Reeves: Martha's Happier Than Ever Before, L.A.: Where It's At, Amy Winehouse: Hip Hop's Jane Austen?, John Phillips on the Great White Way and Madonna's Erotica, Sex: Why Musical Masterpiece, Defiant Book Still Matter.