..Great to tap into such a rich period of rock hist.
..and refreshing to hear a veteran not being hysterical about the rapidly changing face of the music selling game.
He is right though, the art of making proper albums is nigh on defunct.

I see that on BBC4 tonight at 11.40 there's something that may interest anyone who, to borrow a phrase, was affected by any of the issues in this podcast:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vfhyc

I note Heppo tells us Electra moved from recording folk acts to rock acts. What is a rock act David?

On less bolshy note, excellent 'cast ;-)

and a fascinating interview with a truly remarkable man.

I was interested to hear Jac talk about the label's shopfront in Soho's Dean Street because between 1967-70 I worked in publishing just a few yards away around the corner in Old Compton Street and would often visit the Elektra offices to deliver/collect stuff.

The warehouse guys thankfully tolerated a 16 year-old hanging around looking through the boxes of records and would regularly slip me American promo singles by the Doors, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton etc, even if they didn't quite share my enthusiasm for the strange new music.

One memorable day in mid-1967 the Incredible String Band's landmark second album The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion arrived and several copies of the eye-watering sleeve went on prominent display in the Dean Street window. I cheekily managed to blag a mono copy of the LP (which I still have).

Not many UK acts were signed to the UK branch of Elektra, but along with the ISB was Eclection, a multi-national outfit featuring future Fairporters Trevor Lucas and Gerry Conway. Lucas of course would later become Mr. Sandy Denny.

I don't know if the podcast was edited for reasons of time, but it would have been interesting to hear Jac's memories of Tim Buckley.

He really does come across as an extraordinary man. Listening to him makes one realize that record companies weren't always the monolithic money grabbers they're often portrayed as being. Acts were damn lucky to have someone as driven, enthusiastic and knowledgeable as him steering the ship.

As for his late blip with regards Michael Bublé... well, nobody's perfect.

Not just a podcast, an historical document. Superb.

Good Time Music was the first rock sampler LP of any kind I can remember. It dates from 1967 and so pre-dates the famous CBS LP The Rock Machine Turns You On, which is often cited as the first UK rock sampler.

There are a couple of strange things about this album:

Firstly the sleeve design and title are very different to the US version, which was called What's Shakin'

Secondly, it not only contains the Lovin' Spoonful demo tracks Jac mentioned in the interview, but it also features 3 otherwise-unavailable Joe Boyd-produced recordings by Eric Clapton & the Powerhouse dating from 1966. This was a band consisting of Clapton, Jack Bruce (then with Manfred Mann), Paul Jones, Steve Winwood and Pete York (from Spencer Davis Group).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Clapton's_Powerhouse

..doing "Crossroads" with Winwood on vocals. Cream would, of course revisit this later on "Wheels Of Fire,Live At The Fillmore" but this version is a little less busy.

...and not a guitar solo in sight.

Who would have guessed from that recording that this song would loom so large in Clapton's life for the next 40-odd years?

....but I don't claim any credit. I just sit there with the recorder and direct the traffic if called for. I know there's any amount of things and people you could ask somebody like Jac about but we're trying to end up with a coherent 40 minutes that might make sense to the casual listener rather than a research project that fills in lots of holes. If you want to know more, read the excellent book.

... yet. Fascinating stuff.

Given Jac's propensity to record quality, why was this podcast so poorly recorded? Jac was very hard to hear and the compression was horrible. Stuck with it despite having to have volume cranked up to eleven (making the mid podcast jingles a bit of a shock!), as he was fascinating and will definitely research further. What a splendid example of an 80 year old, doesn't look or sound anywhere near it, obviously preserved in fine music.