Don't even think about the number of guitars he's got these days.
Charming, witty, and with vast musical knowledge, Horace Panter is brilliant company.
I really can't remember first chatting with Horace Panter, but it might well have been in 1978, when the Specials played at Birmingham University.
They were at that fantastic phase in a new band's career, when the band has gelled, strings of gigs have knocked them into shape, and the whole point of the exercise seems to be coming together in an exciting way. I asked them if they would do a session for the old BRMB Radio that night.
If not then, it would have been at the now long-gone Outlaw Studios, when the band squeezed six songs out of that three hour session for BRMB. I went on air with those songs the next day. That probably makes me the first DJ to have played the Specials on radio, by the way. Jerry Dammers left the session in a grump once his vocals were down, but Horace was the soul of patience and courtesy. And it's been that way ever since.
Talking music with Horace is completely engrossing and serious fun. It was really, really enjoyable. And, d'oh, I learned something about basslines for Time is Tight and Rescue Me. Marvellous for my age, me. We veered off my initial Lives In Music track, and wound up gossiping about all sorts of things, as you'll hear.
See all the Lives In Music episodes here
Music Links
Needles and Pins - The Searchers
Judy in Disguise With Glasses -John Fred & his Playboy Band
Time is Tight - Booker T and the MGs
Blank Expression - The Specials
Whiter Shade Of Pale - Procol Harum
Gangsters - The Specials
Monkey Man - Toots and The Maytals
Ghost Town - The Specials
Okie From Musgokee - Merle Haggard
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band
Six Days On The Road - Taj Mahal
BHS - Sleaford Mods
Wind Whispers - Pete Williams
Band Links
The Specials website and wikipedia pages
Horace Panter on facebook
Horace Panter Art on facebook and website
Lives in Music
The Lives in Music series celebrates people who have spent a lifetime in music. They may be famous; they may be people who have spent their lives working in the background for the love of it. They all have stories. Lives in Music is a Radio To Go production.
The theme music for this series is by Big Q Fish. 'Boksburg Jive Toon' was written by Brian Neil, and recorded at the Jam House, Birmingham, in 2017.
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