He makes it view simple but Evans knows how to preserve his Radio 2 breakfast motoring along. Over on Radio 4,Elvis Costello is reading from his mammoth memoirThat combination of lightness and energy that a breakfast point to DJ is supposed to provide seems such a simple ability that it’s amazing that more radio presenters don’t have it. Chris Evans (Weekdays, 6.30am, and Radio 2) does. His trick is never to stay on one topic too long because it’s amazing how quickly cheekiness curdles into sarcasm once you finish that. As I was reminded the other week,Evans knows how to preserve things moving, from Olivia Newton-John doing Xanadu (just how Radio 2 is that?) through Anthony Newley’s Pop Goes The Weasel to the latest by One Direction, and via some light banter with newsreader Moira Stuart about what happened to London fog and a well-drilled nine-year-stale who’d just been to see The Railway Children. A master at work.
Elvis Costellos father was a dance band singer and so,for Elvis, becoming a professional musician was not an impossible dream so much as the family business. Among the themes of his mammoth memoir Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, and which he reads this week (Weekdays,9.45am, Radio 4) are the illusions that other people have about the things that move with that trade. In only his moment interview as a somewhat reluctant pop star in the late 70s, or a man from the Mirror in a reassuringly dirty mac nudgingly begs: “Tell us about the girls.” Elvis is forced to confess that until you reach a certain eminence there really aren’t any,which is still one of the best-kept secrets of the music business.Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com