Afleveringen
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Mystic. Painter. Feminist. Fantasist. Forgotten pioneer. Who exactly was Hilma af Klint?
In this very special live episode of The Last Bohemians, as part of Tate Lates, host Kate Hutchinson talks to actor, model and activist Lily Cole and Amrita Dhallu, Assistant Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, to discuss the life (1862-1944) and work of the once forgotten Swedish pioneer of abstract art.
Cole stars as one of De Fem ('The Five'), af Klint's Stockholm-based spiritual group who communed with spirits during séances in the late-1800s, in Lasse Hallström's brand new biopic of the artist. Dhallu is part of the team who put together Tate Modern's latest exhibition, boldly pairing Klint's extraordinary paintings with those of Piet Mondrian and asking us to consider the role that the natural world played in their work. Together, they consider how great women artists throughout history have been criminally overlooked, the legacy of af Klint's work today and why the af Klint renaissance is in full-swing.
Hilma is streaming now on Viaplay; Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life runs at Tate Modern, London, until 3 September
This episode was produced by Sarah Myles and hosted by Kate Hutchinson. The Last Bohemians theme music is by Emmy The Great. -
We've only gone and done a bonus episode!
An audio addendum to our LA season this year, The Last Bohemians hopped over to Santa Fé to meet the one and only Julia Cameron.
Our series is dedicated to creative women who've lived their lives outside the norm. Julia Cameron has spent hers guiding others, with her world-beating creativity manual The Artist's Way.
Very sadly, Julia had just lost her beloved dog when we arrived one afternoon in 2022. But she soldiered on regardless. It's a whistlestop tour through her early days, breaking into the boys club of 1970s journalism alongside Hunter S Thompson, through her wild thirties in Hollywood married to Martin Scorsese, and eventually how she turned her life around by relocating to Georgia O'Keefe country, with its endlessly inspiring dramatic desert landscapes.
In this special episode, we enter Julia's writing room to talk about addiction and recovery, harnessing the creativity spirit, sexism and psychic powers, how she helped to write Taxi Driver, inspiration and motivation, her friendship with Eve Babitz and much more. For more, Julia Cameron's memoir Floor Sample was rereleased in the UK in summer 2022.
CREDITS
Presenter and Exec Producer: Kate Hutchinson
Editor: Georgie Rogers
Photography and recording: Anna Kooris
With thanks to Anna-Maria Fitzgerald, Nick and Didi at Meow Wolf.
The Last Bohemians theme music by Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, and starring Angelyne, Betye Saar, Gloria Hendry and more.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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For the final episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, we meet French fashion disruptor and true original, Michéle Lamy. She’s been married to the designer Rick Owens, her former pattern cutter, since 2006 and is often referred to as his 'muse'. But Michéle is a chameleonic creative in her own right, forever staging art happenings, musical collaborations and style projects around the world, as well as co-designing the furniture for the Rick Owens line.
She’s so in-demand that she’s tricky to track down: we did this interview partly in London, at Claridges in Mayfair, and partly at the Chateau Marmont in LA, the city Michéle lived in for 26 years until the early 2000s. In those days, she was better known as the owner and host of cult Hollywood nightspot Les Deux Cafe, where anyone who’s anyone would dine as Michéle performed smoky jazz numbers in her thick drawl.
Now Michéle is more nomadic, splitting her time between Los Angeles and Paris, and attracting beautiful freaks wherever she goes. A gothic style icon (she’s been called a vampire, ageless, the ultimate eccentric…), her signature look is ink-dipped fingers, a line of kohl on her forehead, a voluminous outfit and a cigarette always in her hand. Listen out for her many bangles too, which clank as she speaks!
In this hypnotic episode, Michéle talks to us about the influence of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, her style awakening in the Moroccan desert, how she decides who to collaborate with, her unlikely kinship with Kim Kardashian, why she loves boxing, how she got gold teeth, following her instincts and the importance of “finding your tribe”.
That’s it for the LA series but listen out for some bonus episodes very soon.
CREDITS
Presenter and Exec Producer: Kate Hutchinson
Editors: Holly Fisher and Mariana Sousa Aguiar
Additional production: Sefa Nyki
Photography: Matilda Hill-Jenkins
With thanks to Janet Fischgrund and everyone at Owenscorp
All music by Mara Carlyle with the exception of 'Laman' by Imdukal'N' El Hussain Safir and The Last Bohemians theme music by Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones.
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, in summer.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
Penny Slinger was a mover and shaker in Swinging London's art scene – though you might not have heard of her. She went to Chelsea Art School at the height of the Pop Art boom and, inspired by Max Ernst, went on to mix up self-portrait, collage, film and sculpture to create surreal and feminist images that still provoke today.
Among these were her “full frontal collages”, including ones where Penny appears inside a wedding cake, the slice between her legs removed. Her 1977 collage masterpiece, An Exorcism, meanwhile, evoked the darkness of the English psyche, stitching together ghoulish images of the countryside, genitals, nuns and manor houses.
In the UK, Penny counted the photographer Lee Miller among her friends and, at one point, lived in a turret in Soho, where her boyfriend – the counterculture film-maker Peter Whitehead – kept falcons. How’s that for bohemian!
Penny appeared in experimental films and wrote a number of books on themes of sex, mysticism, eroticism and inner goddesses, including groundbreaking books of her collages and poetry, such as 50% The Invisible Woman. But after a solo show in New York in 1982, she abandoned the art world, tired of its sexism and narrow-mindedness. She moved first to the Caribbean, then to Northern California and finally settled in LA.
It isn’t until recently that Penny’s work has been rediscovered. In 2009, she was included in the Angels of Anarchy show of female surrealists in Manchester and she was the subject of a 2017 documentary by Richard Kovitch.
In this episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, Penny covers a range of topics, including her sexual and sensual liberation, finding her voice in a male-dominated art scene, starring in the only feature film directed by a woman in the 1970s, how she hopes to see a retrospective in her lifetime and how desire doesn’t diminish with age...
CREDITS
Presenter: Kate Hutchinson
Producer: Holly Fisher
Photography: Lisa Jelliffe.
With thanks to Zoe Flowers.
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, in summer.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
Speak to anyone from the 1980s punk scene in Los Angeles and they’ll tell you: Johanna Went is an underground legend. While the bands like Black Flag, Fear and X were thrashing out their three chords and the truth, Went would take to the stage at clubs like The Masque, Club Lingerie and Hong Kong Cafe and perform between the live shows. The crowd hadn’t seen anything like it before.
She wasn’t a punk musician per se but the “hyena of performance art”, whose transgressive spectacles of New Wave theatre, experimental noise, elaborate and crude costumes, chaotic rituals, and gory props like pig heads and fake blood – lots of blood – built a cult following and predated Lady Gaga’s meat dress and Peaches' raucous stage antics and costumes by decades.
Johanna’s shows were wild, depraved and often grotesque, boldly taking on themes like female pleasure and menstruation. Take her 1988 performance Passion Container, in which she pulled giant bloodied tampons out of a silk vagina and chucked them into the crowd – this was pre-riot grrrl and before L7’s legendary tampon-flinging performance at Reading Festival in 1992.
Many aren’t sure where Johanna Went went but The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, found her living a quieter life, in the beach town of Ventura, California. Across her garden table, she looks back at her transgressive work and talks about the magic of the 1980s punk scene, growing up an outsider, the beauty of performance art and why embracing ageing is the punkest move of all.
CREDITS
Presenter and Exec-Producer: Kate Hutchinson
Editor: Georgie Rogers
Additional production: Holly Fisher
Mixing and mastering: Mariana Sousa Aguiar
Photography: Kate Hutchinson
With thanks to Sarah Cooper at the Getty, Alice Bag, Mara Carlyle and all at Erased Tapes.
MUSIC
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
Piano Scapes 3
Written and performed by Qasim Naqvi
Courtesy of Erased Tapes
Angelus Novus
Written by Saki Sugimoto
Performed by Hatis Noit
Courtesy of Erased Tapes
Away With These Self-Loving Lads (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle
Pearl (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle
Bowlface en Provence (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle
Bonding (Instrumental) - Mara Carlyle
Nerveskade - Sickhead
Apache Tomcat - Alright Rock N Roll
FURTHER READING/LISTENING
X-Trax
Hyperallergic
ArtForum
Bandcamp
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It featured 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. The series won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Season two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre, and launched an LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, in summer.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
In the north of Los Angeles, in a neighbourhood called Glendale, an unassuming bungalow is home to one of the first women in Hollywood to cut men’s hair. Today she goes by the glitziest of names, Madelynn von Ritz, but back in the 60s she was called Lynn Castle and hung out with key people of the era, lopping off Jim Morrison, the Byrds, Sonny Bono and Neil Young's locks.
She was also a secret musician. But despite her childhood friends being musical svengalis like Phil Spector – who she once dated – as well as Jack Nietzcshe and Lee Hazlewood, it took her a while to reveal her talent. Eventually, however, she cut a number of intimate, melancholy demos in the hazy 60s with Hazlewood, who later famously teamed up with Nancy Sinatra and helped define the decade’s psychedelic sound.
Lynn is now 83 (going on 53!) and still writes music to this day, with a home studio tucked in the corner of her living room. Those old demos, meanwhile, were found by the label Light in the Attic and reissued as Rose Coloured Corner in 2017 – an album 50 years in the making – including her signature song, pop gem The Lady Barber.
In this episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, Lynn discusses her 'friendship' with Elvis, her series of almost-famous moments with Bob Dylan and the Stones, her positive outlook and life, and unexpectedly digs out letters from an old flame...
CREDITS
Presenter/Exec-Producer: Kate Hutchinson
Producer: Holly Fisher
Photography: Lisa Jelliffe
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
With thanks to Light in the Attic Records.
MUSIC
Lynn Castle - Caroline
Gary War - Bounce Four
Gary War - Clouds That Went Away
Philippa Dowding and Allister Thompson - Sequinned Mountain Ladies
Ketsa - Another Day
Dez Moran - August Events
Psuche - Dance Dance
Don Syke - Desert Blues
Peter Crosby - Had To Move On
Mara Carlyle - Nuzzle
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
Our LA series, supported by Audio-Technica, returns this week with a Last Bohemians first: in a very special episode, we speak to three generations of an American artistic dynasty up in the leafy hills of Laurel Canyon: the incredible Betye Saar, her daughter Alison Saar and and granddaughter Maddy Leeser.
Betye Saar, 96 (she was 95 at the time of making this podcast), is a revered assemblage, collage and installation artist, known for her use of found objects, and was part of both the Black Arts and feminist art movements in 1960s and 70s California. Her best known works include 1969’s Black Girl's Window, which incorporates elements of mysticism and brings to mind the current #BlackGirlMagic movement, and 1972’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, a piece of art that confronted racist and cultural stereotypes. The latter was so revolutionary, said the Guardian, “that the activist and scholar Angela Davis credited it with launching the Black women’s movement.”
Betye is currently experiencing something of a renaissance, underlined by recent, pre-pandemic solo shows at MOMA in New York and its LA equivalent, LACMA. She still makes art every day. But, as Harper’s Bazaar recently said, her proudest legacy is her family.
We sit around the table and share tea and biscuits not only with Betye but with Alison Saar, 66, one of her three daughters, who started out by working with her father, Richard Saar, in his ceramics studio. A breathtaking sculptor whose work spans four decades, Alison’s pieces often take the form of female figures. They explore different takes on African-African experiences, and the idea of history repeating, often made in response to events and themes like Hurricane Katrina and the AIDS crisis, the menopause and mythology. And we are also joined by Alison’s daughter Maddy Inez Leeser, 28, who makes stunning ceramics inspired by the natural world.
The phrase “generational magic” really jumps out during this conversation, as the three women discuss motherhood and creativity, making art out of the everyday, being a mixed race family and the importance of exploring their African-American heritage, and the life and career advice that has been passed down from generation to generation.
It was such a privilege to join them one afternoon at Alison’s house in LA. We hope you enjoy hearing their gorgeous slice of life among the birdsong and car beeps.
CREDITS
Presenter/Exec-Producer: Kate Hutchinson
Producers: Sue Merlino and Holly Fisher
Additional production: Will Horrocks
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
With thanks to: The Saar family, Emma Haru, Lisa Jann, Kimberly David, Lauren Graber and Julie at Roberts Projects LA, and Bobby Lee and Ali at Warm Music for generously donating us the track Walking With Trees.
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
The Last Bohemians returns with a brand new series set in Tinseltown, supported by Audio-Technica. From forgotten feminist artists to Sunset Strip sexpots and from punk performers to subversive style disruptors (and one Californian arts dynasty!): these are some of the most maverick women in LA, whose stories each say something different about the city.
In episode two, Team TLB head up to the valley and to the incredible home of Linda Ramone, wife of the late Johnny Ramone – guitarist in one the greatest punk bands there ever was – and custodian of the Linda and Johnny Ramone Ranch, a paradise of countercultural curios, movie memorabilia and Elvis collectables. Over a morning aperitif, Linda talks about growing up with NYC punk, dating bandmates and younger men, what Lisa-Marie Presley thinks of her themed Elvis room, the importance of fandom, her musical obsessions, how she maintains rock’n’roll’s legacy and the best way to silence your critics.
CREDITS
Presenter/exec producer: Kate Hutchinson
Editor: Georgie RogersRecording and additional production: Holly Fisher
Additional production: Colour It In.
Photography: Lisa Jelliffe
With thanks to Nancy Sinatra.
MUSIC
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog JonesDiamondsnake - Rock n Roll DreamPudge - ABCDX_________X - Black Leather RockKathleen Martin - Play on Words (Doo Wop You Do To Me)Overnight Lows - Slitwrist Rock N' RollApache Tomcat - Alright Rock N' RollElvis Depressedly - Rock N RollThe Whips - Rock N Roll DanceHoliznaCCO - House of the Rising Sun
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
The Last Bohemians returns with a brand new series set in Tinseltown, supported by Audio-Technica. From forgotten feminist artists to Sunset Strip sexpots and from punk performers to subversive style disruptors (and one Californian arts dynasty!): these are some of the most maverick women in LA, whose stories each say something different about the city.
Episode two is with 1970s Bond Girl, Gloria Hendry. She made film history when she snogged 007 in Live and Let Die, becoming Bond's first Black love interest. She took on edgy roles in what were known as blaxploitation films, like Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem. And before that, she became a Playboy Bunny in 1960s New York at the same time as training as a legal secretary, right when the Civil Rights Movement was bubbling up around her.
She's a total trailblazer, whose life story takes us from a broken home in New Jersey to the glitzy casinos of New York, via a film audition with Roger Moore in New Orleans. She remembers filming Bond, her raunchy scenes from what she calls the “Black renaissance” in cinema, how her life unravelled and how California helped get her back on her feet, what the Playboy Club taught her about life, why she stays in shape and how she paved the way for Black women in film.
If you want more, do check out her recent memoir, GLORIA, which is filled with incredible Playboy photographs of her from the 1970s and some abs to die for.
Trigger warning: this episode contains themes of abuse and suicide towards the beginning.
CREDITS
Presenter/exec producer: Kate Hutchinson
Editor: Georgie Rogers
Recording and additional production: Holly Fisher
Photography: Lisa Jelliffe
With thanks to Anders Frejdh, Dan Moss @ Colour It In, Mr & Mrs Smith.
MUSIC
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
Lobo Loco - Little Caesar of the Boulevard
Juanitos - Do The Kangaroo
Dee-Yan Kee? - Sunday Morning
HoliznaCCO - Laundry On The Wire
Nuisance - Qanisqineq (Instrumental)
U.S Army Blues - Oginiland
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
instagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
The Last Bohemians returns with a brand new series in Tinseltown, supported by Audio-Technica. From forgotten feminist artists to Sunset Strip sexpots and from punk performers to subversive style disruptors (and one Bond Girl!), these are maverick and radical women whose stories each say something different about the City of Angels. Recorded in spring 2022, host Kate Hutchinson decamped to Hollywood with producer Holly Fisher and photographer Lisa Jelliffe to find inspiration from cult figures, forgotten stars and cultural firebrands alike.
Episode one kicks off with LA legend Angelyne, the blonde bombshell who rose to fame in the 1980s when billboards of the then-unknown pin-up started mysteriously appearing around the city (and about whom Peacock released a major biopic this year). Get to know the real Angelyne, one of the city’s most recognisable cult figures, as Kate takes an eventful ride in her hot-pink Corvette and is schooled in the difference between mystery and mystique. She gets an introduction to image as business and hears how Angelyne laid the groundwork for the influencer generation of Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and more. She even once ran against Arnie to be Governor of California. As the TV show aims to uncover Angelyne's true identity, we try to uncover what makes her tick. And what does she really want with LA?
CREDITS
Exec producer/host: Kate Hutchinson
Producer: Holly Fisher
Sound Design: Holly Fisher
Photography: Lisa Jelliffe
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
With thanks to Scott.
MUSIC
Angelyne - Kiss Me L.A.Angelyne - Animal AttractionLotus - Black TernLotus - Sleepy BeastELFL - Blissful MorphFLYIN - Blue Red SkyOh The City - Divine ComedySven Karlsson - Sin CityOTE - Gone For Days
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.
thelastbohemians.co.uk
patreon.com/thelastbohemians
Iinstagram.com/thelastbohemianspod
twitter.com/thelastbohospod -
Get in the mood for our upcoming LA series with this classic episode from series 1 featuring the OG Hollywood bohemian, Pamela Des Barres. The Last Bohemians: LA launches on 13 July 2022.
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The Last Bohemians has gone to LA for a brand new series, supported by Audio-Technica, starting in July and starring LA icon Angelyne, subversive fashion disruptor Michéle Lamy, punk-rock widow Linda Ramone, feminist surrealist Penny Slinger, punk performance artist Johanna Went, artists and sculptors Betye Saar, Alison Saar and Maddy Leeser, cult musician – and LA's first female barber – Lynn Castle and Bond girl Gloria Hendry.
Heartbroken and feeling adrift during the pandemic, host and creator Kate Hutchinson decamped to Hollywood in search of the wildest women in the City of Angels to help her get her mojo back. From Sunset Strip sexpots to Downtown artists, she meets a diverse range of incredible women – and one artistic dynasty! – who have lived life on the edge and who, even in their seventies, eighties or even nineties, still refuse to play by the rules.
Series four stars:
Angelyne, the blonde bombshell who rose to fame in the 1980s when billboards of the then-unknown pin-up started mysteriously appearing around the city and about whom Peacock released a major biopic last month.
Michéle Lamy: the subversive French fashion disruptor at the Chateau Marmont on style, inspiration, how she works with her husband Rick Owens and her one-time notorious LA nightspot, Les Deux Cafe.
Gloria Hendry: the former Bond girl, blaxploitation-era star and Playboy Bunny talks about being 007’s first black love interest, breaking taboos onscreen and paving the way for the Black Panther generation.
Linda Ramone: the punk-rock widow shows us around her home, the Linda and Johnny Ramone Ranch, with its themed Elvis and Disney rooms, and discusses love triangles, legacies and the demise of rock’n’roll.
Betye Saar, Alison Saar and Maddy Leeser: a joyous encounter with the 95-year-old African-American artist Betye Saar, her artist daughter Alison and grand-daughter Maddy, at home in Laurel Canyon.
Lynn Castle: the 83-year-old musician and first lady barber of Los Angeles on cutting Jim Morrison and Neil Young’s hair, being Phil Spector’s high school sweetheart, her relationship with Elvis, and Nancy Sinatra stealing her style.
Johanna Went: the most notorious performance artist on the 80s LA punk scene – and the Lady Gaga that never was – gets frank about the power of ageing.
Penny Slinger: the forgotten feminist surrealist and British bohemian – who escaped England for California – explores the divine feminine, exorcisms, making counterculture films in the 1960s and how her work came to define Women’s Lib.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANSThe Last Bohemians is the vivid, hallucinatory podcast-portrait series started in 2019 by journalist Kate Hutchinson and now in its fourth series. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards, stealing hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. If you like what you hear, feel free to support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/thelastbohemians
LINKS
www.thelastbohemians.co.ukIG: @thelastbohemianspod; @katehutchinsonpow
Twitter: @thelastbohospod; @katehutchinson
The Last Bohemians LA team:
Kate Hutchinson (exec producer/host)
Holly Fisher (senior producer)
Lisa Jeliffe (photographer)
Matilda Jenkins (photographer, Michele Lamy),
Sue Merlino (producer)
Georgie Rogers (editor) -
Cleo Sylvestre (1945-) is a woman of many firsts: she is the first Black woman to play a leading role at the National Theatre in London, one of the first Black actors to have a recurring role in a primetime British soap and one of the first Black Brits to release a single in 1964 – with none other than her friends, The Rolling Stones. The Guardian called her “the Black actor who should have been one of Britain’s biggest stars”. So why isn’t she a household name?
Sylvestre was born in Euston, London, and attended Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts before launching into a life on stage and screen: she made her West End debut in 1964 alongside British acting legend Alec Guinness and went on to star in some of the definitive shows of the Sixties, those that put working class actors on TV for the first time, including visionary director Ken Loach’s Up The Junction, Cathy Come Home and Poor Cow, as well as Doctor Who, Coronation Street and Crossroads.
Like Dana Gillespie, who is also featured this season, Cleo hung out at the Marquee Club in Soho, which is where she met the Rolling Stones, who invited her to record the 1964 single, To Know Him Is To Love Him, while rock’and’roll royalty like Jimmy Page and the Hollies would often come for one of her mother’s home cooked meals.
It wasn’t easy being one of the few Black women breaking through in the entertainment industry, as she explains, discussing race, resilience, rejection and wanting to pave the way for working class actors, as well as how she’s returned to singing after 50 years with her blues alter ego, Honey B Mama. It’s interesting to compare Cleo’s and Dana’s stories – they moved through the Swinging Sixties differently but have both ended up performing the blues later in life. And they didn’t meet each other till later in life, either!
If you liked this, listen to our PP Arnold episode, another singer who Mick Jagger was quite taken with early on… And you can catch Honey B Mama and her band playing at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in London, where Cleo served as co-director for 20 years.
This episode was produced by Antonia Odunlami,
and presented and exec-produced by Kate Hutchinson,
with sound design by Hana Walker-Brown.Music in this episode via FreeMusicArchive:Gary War - Bounce FourJoel Holmes - African SkiesShaolin Dub - OverthrowJahzzar - Boulevard St Germain -
Dana Gillespie (1949-) is one of the few remaining women who was at the centre of the Sixties and Seventies in London and in New York, having been best mates with David Bowie and pretty much anyone who was anyone back then. Eric Clapton was very nearly her guitar teacher, Led Zep’s Jimmy Page played on her early folk records and she was in and out of the tabloids with Bob Dylan as a teenage girl. She has recorded with Elton John, had her portrait screen printed by Andy Warhol's Factory, and shared a stage with rock’n’roll greats Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and the Stones. She's lived a life as starry and storied as Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg – so why hasn't anyone heard of her?
In the 1970s, Dana went glam-pop with the track Andy Warhol, which Bowie had written for her, and released the 1974 album Weren’t Born A Man, where she appears in a corset and stockings on the cover. But then Bowie’s management company went bust and The Thin White Duke stopped returning her calls. Unable to get out of her contract for years, she turned to acting and starred in musicals, though the tabloids were always distracted by her buxom image. In the 1980s, she reinvented herself as a blues singer, founded the Mustique blues festival and has now released upwards of 70 albums, including 13 in Sanskrit.
Dana is perhaps just as famous for her long list of lovers, including Keith Moon, Michael Caine and Sean Connery. But Dylan clearly recognised that she is one of a kind and, in the 90s, invited her to open up for him on his UK tour. She has also become a rock star of the spiritual world, having performed in front of a million people at her guru Sai Baba’s birthday celebrations. Her style of blues is saucy and knowing, and you can still see her performing every month at a venue called the Temple of Music And Art in south London.
Truth be told, Dana has lived such a life that we could have made an entire series about her. If you want more no-holds-barred tell-alls, check out her 2020 memoir, Weren’t Born A Man. In this episode, she talks about coming from money, her infamous basement hangout in South Kensington, her love of the blues, how she met Bowie, her freewheeling attitude to sex, love and forgiveness, her spiritual awakening, making music into her 70s and how she hopes she won't be forgotten in the pantheon of great British artists.
This episode was produced by Sarah Nichol, presented by Kate Hutchinson and sound designed by Colour It In. Portrait by Laura Kelly.
Music in this episode:
Dana Gillespie - Track 06Dems - UnreleasedBlue Dog Sessions - Funk & FlashMr Smith - BadassDana Gillespie - Track 07Kevin McLeod - HustleBruce Millar - Sitar & Tabla DuoJim Barrett - Star Fragment
Ident music: Emmy The Great. -
Maggi Hambling (1945-) is a British painter and sculptor whose visceral work spans portraits of her bohemian friends past – from Soho dandy Sebastian Horsley to Henrietta Moraes, once the 1950s queen of London bohemia and muse to Francis Bacon, then Maggi’s own – and divisive public works that include her giant scallop on a beach in Suffolk on the English coast, near where she grew up, her Oscar Wilde bench in London and most recently, her 2020 bust of early women’s rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, who she depicted naked.
For the first of three special episodes for Women’s History Month 2022 – and ahead of the opening of her first ever show in New York – we find Maggi and her pug dog, Peggy, through the fog of cigarette smoke at her south London studio. As she puffs, she reminisces about her crucial life training at the East Anglian Art School, her younger years falling in and out of Soho drinking establishments, and her love affair with the 1950s queen of bohemia, Henrietta Moraes, who was Francis Bacon’s muse and later her own.
Maggi gives us a whistlestop tour through her approach to creativity and process, the controversy that some of her public artworks have caused, becoming a national treasure, how she deals with bad reviews, being a gay icon and calling herself queer in tribute to her late filmmaker friend Derek Jarman, her affinity with Oscar Wilde and why the work, above all else, comes first. An audience with Maggi is never a dull moment.
Maggi Hambling: Real Time is at the Marlborough in NYC, 10 March-30 April 2022. marlboroughnewyork.com.
This episode was produced by Hannah Fisher and presented and exec-produced by Kate Hutchinson. Additional reporting by Georgie Rogers. Sound design by Colour It In. Photography by Laura Kelly.
Music in this episode with thanks to freemusicarchive.org:
Humbug by Crowander
Carpe Diem by Dee Yan Key
Lava Spout by Blue Wave Theory
Be My Guest - Crowander
Intro music by Emmy The Great. -
For International Women’s Day 2021, The Last Bohemians returns with a special lockdown episode, supported by KLORIS, starring Marina Abramović: the groundbreaking Serbian artist and self-described "godmother of performance art" who has spent the past 50 years confronting the mental and physical limits of the body and using it as a powerful canvas.
Her early work in the 1970s is famed for its extremity, with pieces where she would cut the communist star into her stomach or invite an audience to use weapons on her if they pleased. It was a radical thread she continued when she teamed up with Ulay, her one-time creative collaborator and former lover, who passed away just before the pandemic struck in 2020. Their final piece together in 1988, where they each walked from one end of The Great Wall of China and met in the middle, is one of the most elaborate break-ups of all time.
Since then, Abramović, 74, has become known for intertwining performance art with spirituality, shamanism and pop culture: she trained Lady Gaga in her ‘Marina Abramović Method’, starred in a Jay-Z video and turned her attentions to durational works. These feats of endurance include her infamous piece The Artist is Present, at the MoMa in New York in 2010, where she spent some 700 hours sitting silently across a table from spectators – over 1,500 people came to sit opposite her. Many of them were moved to tears, though critics have accused her over the years of being an exhibitionist and a narcissist.
In this interview, conducted via Zoom from her home in upstate New York at the start of 2021, Abramović talks about creative fearlessness, the importance of failure and taking risks, why she never had children, why we should be hugging trees and what she has in common with the opera singer Maria Callas, on whom she has based her own mixed-media performance (and which will return to the stage later this year following its pre-pandemic premiere last April). A retrospective of her life's work, meanwhile – her first major exhibition in the UK – will now be showing in 2023.
Presenter: Kate Hutchinson
Producer: Holly Fisher
Ident: Emmy The Great
Logo: Rebecca Strickson
www.thelastbohemians.co.uk
Instagram: @thelastbohemianspod
With thanks to KLORIS (www.kloriscbd.com), the Marina Abramović Institute, Lisson Gallery, Irma Crusat, Laura Martin at Real Life PR, Ali Gardiner and Toni and Andy Shaw.
Music used in this episode:Daniel Birch - Indigo MoonDaniel Birch - Indigo ShoreChad Crouch - AlgorithmsLobo Loco - Deepest BreathSalakapakka Sound System - Kapina TiibetissaSiddhartha Corsus - Victory of BuddhaSputnic - Spiritual DreamsTortue Super Sonic - Klezmer Uno -
Maxine Sanders is one of the country’s most iconic and possibly most controversial witches. In the 1960s and 70s, she and her late husband Alex Sanders were at the centre of Britain’s witchcraft boom. At the height of their fame, they were featured weekly in tabloid newspapers and starred in numerous documentaries and films where they would recreate their dramatic rituals…
It was the era when Flower Power and the sexual revolution were in full swing. The Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951 making it no longer illegal to practise witchcraft, and Maxine and Alex were sexing its image up. Their coven was rapidly growing in size, as more and more people were drawn to the occult, and eventually they moved from Alderley Edge, near Manchester, to Notting Hill in London, where musicians like Jimmy Paige and Marc Bolan flocked to their wild parties. But it was also where a strange set of circumstances saw them linked to Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders in California...
Presenter Kate Hutchinson came across Maxine in a book that she'd bought on her birthday in 2019, from Donlon Books in east London – in it was a striking image of a stunning woman with long blond hair, holding a dagger, in the middle of a circle, and she knew she had to find out more.
We finally tracked Maxine down to her home in North West London, where we sat in her living room, filled with amazing antique books and ancient magic regalia.
What she told us may raise an eyebrow or two, as Maxine recounts her early years in the craft, meeting her husband – the King of the Witches, Alex Sanders, how she dealt with being the subject of a tabloid frenzy week on week, the meaning of being a witch today, what it feels like to do a spell, her experiences of astral projection, sex magic and death, and overcoming persecution.
It's quite a magical ride, so strap in tight.
This episode was produced by Hannah Fisher.
1. Malani Bulathsinhala - Wasan Karannata Bae
2. Roh Hamilton and Tiffany Seal - Enchanted Forest
3. Bishi - All Across The Universe (BISHI's 'The Telescope Eye,' EP, produced on by BISHI & Richard Norris. Out on Gryphon Records on all streaming platforms now)
4. Lobo Loco - Lake of Avalon -
Rewind to the 1980s and London nightlife was an explosion of creativity – the new romantics were in, dramatic fashion looks were everywhere and at the back of the club, having a gossip, there’d be Sue Tilley, also affectionately known as Big Sue.
She was the best friend of the outrageous performance artist and fashion designer Leigh Bowery, who became known for his shocking stage shows and about whom she wrote a biography. Sue worked at the Job Centre during the day and the door at his infamously wild club night Taboo, which was later immortalised by Boy George in the musical of the same name, by night. This was a place, in the mid-80s, where genders and sexualities were blurred and the more flamboyant your costume, the better.
It’s also where Leigh and Sue met the painter Lucian Freud – both ended up sitting for him but Sue’s nude portrait, 1995’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, is perhaps among his most famous works, which, when it sold for $33.6 million, was the most expensive painting by a living artist ever to be sold at auction.
Sue left London to retire by the seaside on England’s south coast and it’s where she can often be found hosting quizzes and DJing in one of the local pubs, or working on her own pieces – she is now an artist in her own right and often paints the colourful characters she remembers from her clubbing days.
This episode was produced by Gabriela Jones.
Music: Ad Infinitum - Oh The City; Photosynthesis - Lagua Vesa; Waking Dreams (Nada Copyright Free Music); Santosha - Can Sandano; A Message From Your Space Cat - Felix Johansson Carne; Cotton Candy - Copse; Backplate - Joseph McDade; Waking And Dreaming - Brendon Moelleer -
Zandra Rhodes OBE has spent 50 years at the forefront of British fashion, having dressed everyone from Freddie Mercury to Princess Diana in her signature printed chiffons. Her work was adopted by the Studio 54 crowd in the 1970s, her gold lamé dresses modelled by the likes of Donna Summer and Pat Cleveland. Then she lacerated her chiffons with safety pins and was dubbed the Princess of Punk, a name that matched her trademark fuchsia bobbed hair. To this day she remains independent, having never sold out her brand to a big fashion house. At 79, she is as DIY as ever.
The Last Bohemians caught Zandra at an interesting – and stressful – time as she was celebrating her career's five-decade run at the same time as getting to grips with the death of her long-term partner. Themes of life, loss, grief and relevancy weave throughout this episode, as do ruminations on creativity, routine and restlessness and stories about Studio 54, her eccentric friendship circle, her take on the royal family and more. Her work ethic is infamous – but has the death of a loved one shifted her priorities?
We meet the style icon in her multi-hued apartment on two separate occasions to find out how she manages to do it all... -
P.P. Arnold isn’t called a soul survivor for nothing. She recently made a comeback with her first album in 50 years, following a long, hard fight, at the age of 73, to get her music career back on track.
In America, she had been an Ikette with Ike & Tina Turner and then moved to London at the height of the Swinging Sixties, where she hung out with Jimi Hendrix, had a sexual awakening among the rockstars of London, and was signed by Mick Jagger to his label, Immediate. She released the hit single First Cut Is The Deepest and two brilliant soul albums. But her third, 1971’s The Turning Tide, which was co-produced by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and Eric Clapton, was blocked from being released.
After that, P.P.'s career floundered. She sang with Peter Gabriel, Billy Ocean and The KLF – who burned the money to pay her in their £1million stunt – and appeared in the musical Starlight Express, but musical dead ends danced with tragedy, when she lost her daughter in a car accident. Her solo career never quite got back on track – until she encountered the British mod band Ocean Colour Scene. Steve Cradock from the band helped her finish The Turning Tide and produced her first new album in 50 years, The New Adventures of... P.P. Arnold.
And what an adventure it’s been. P.P's story is incredible and her laugh is infectious, as she remembers her first interracial relationships, hanging out with friends like Brian Jones and what she really thinks about Rod Stewart. We went back to the place where it all started, the Bag O’ Nails in Soho, now a sleek members club, to talk about being an "authentic" soul singer in 1960s London, her journey from then to now and how she’s made it – with a few famous flings along the way.
This episode contains discussions about domestic violence, which some may find triggering, and so listener discretion is advised.
P.P. Arnold's episode was produced by Cassandra Denton and presented by Kate Hutchinson, with portraits by Laura Kelly. - Laat meer zien
