# Joan Armatrading, Tom Robinson and the great music meltdown of Summer ‘76

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-3755187/joan-armatrading-tom-robinson-and-the-great-music-meltdown-of-summer-76
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-3755187/joan-armatrading-tom-robinson-and-the-great-music-meltdown-of-summer-76.md
Podcast: [Word In Your Ear](https://stenobird.com/podcast/word-in-your-ear-3755187)
Published: 2026-07-03T09:48:44+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/word-in-your-ear-2/episodes/word-podcast-933-john-williams
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5ff0586154e2a73589267809/e/6a47857c04fac73b24a11c44/media.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/word-in-your-ear-3755187/episodes/joan-armatrading-tom-robinson-and-the-great-music-meltdown-of-summer-76
Duration seconds: 2378

## Resource

The blistering heat of 1976 burnt various things onto the memory – standpipes, strikes, Entebbe, ‘Confessions’ movies, Jeremy Thorpe – but most of all the records that became its soundtrack, some of them revolutionary, others begging for extinction. John L Williams captures the moment in ‘Heatwave: the Summer of 1976, Britain at Boiling Point’ and a paints of picture of a country on the brink of a vast pop-cultural shift. We talk to him here about …   … violence at gigs and football and on Derek & Clive albums   … dumb people pretending to be clever (prog rock) and clever people pretending to be dumb (Ramones)   … the rise of Joan Armatrading in the days before ‘identity’ marketing   … how ‘funny’ t-shirts were the memes of their day   … when Tom Robinson saw the future in Scarborough   … “mainstream culture gave you things to both love and hate”   ... how Rock Follies featured an imaginary Blitz Club where people danced in military uniforms   … Andy Summers (with Kevin Ayers) and Stewart Copeland (Curved Air) on the same bill a year before the Police   … why anyone with a Sensational Alex Harvey Band scarf got a wide berth    … Time Out’s headline: "It's the Buzz, Cock!"   … Tom Waits, aged 25, unconvincing hobo-hipster   … and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Emmanuelle and the lowest point of the Radio One Roadshow.   Order copies of ‘Heatwave’ here: https://tinyurl.com/2kudc6xr Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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