Father Karl Wallner on Chant: Music for Paradise. (In Memory of Pope Francis).

Really saddened by the death of Brian Wilson. I will post a podcast based on an interview we did. In the meantime, here is Mike Love - falsely claiming since Brian died, that he himself "co-created all The Beach Boys music" - and who was not a particularly pleasant guy when I interviewed him in 1989. Judge for yourself. 'Love' is a funny surname in this context!

Bono makes magnificent self-promo videos. The latest is on Apple. However, most Irish journalists are aware that he has never told the whole story. Dunphy and I talked about this 30 years ago. He wrote their bio

While watching the funeral of Pope Francis on TV, I was transported by the hymns being sung. It brought me back to my roots. I dedicate this podcast to the memory of Pope Francis

As I say in the intro to this podcast, made March 22, 2025, the week of the Trump dump of JFK assassination papers that still didn't tell us conclusively who killed Kennedy, I have been fascinated by JFK and the murder of the man since I was a child. Hence, circa 1990, when I got to interview Anthony Summers, Oliver Stone, and later Sam Giancana, I was entranced by talking with them all. This is the first of a series of podcasts based on those interviews. 

It does not seem like thirty years since I sat and chatted with Dermot before he was forced to leave Ireland to go to the UK to get a TV station to back Father Ted. I'm rerposting this and will repost part two. 

Boyzone No Matter What, the Sky documentary being screened globally, originated in The Joe Jackson Archive of 1,400 tapes of celebrity interviews. It uses my tapes and photographs, but there is far more material in my archive that was unused because of time restraints, such as this clip from a 2002 interview with Ronan Keating. 

I loved Kris Kristofferson's music since a girlfriend gave me his first LP. So you can imagine what a joy it was to meet and interview the man for the first of four times in 1993. We had a two-hour chat backstage at a Johnny Cash gig in Dublin. Check my website joejacksoninterviewer.com for articles

Kris has died since I first posted this podcast. I love the song, was thrilled ot be able to talk to him abiut its geneisis and about Johnny Cash Enjoy

I wrote a book called Nanci Griffith's Other Voices: A Personal History of Folk Music. For it, I did a half-hour phone interview with Pete Seeger - from Ireland to America – hence the sound ain't great - and for a few minutes, we discussed Dylan's legendary gig at Newport. Pete says he got pissed simply because the crowd couldn't hear the words of Maggie's Farm!

While digitising my Boyzone interview tapes that led to the Sky documentary Boyzone No Matter What, I came across this short clip at the end of an interview, I was taping on the phone with Sinead. She had read and loved my Keith Duffy interview and had choice words to say about Louis Walsh - in 2001.