Earlier this week Vintage TV broadcast a one hour “Henry Priestman Needle Time” special. Hosted by the Daily Telegraph’s music critic Neil McCormick, it was the first programme of this sort (ie in-depth interview and live session) that I’ve ever done…nerve-wracking!
I have to say TV scares me (tho’ I love radio), so I was dead nervous, but Neil did his best to put my at my ease, taking me right through my “career” from Yachts right through to this my “late bloomer” solo adventure. I don’t have Sky TV so haven’t seen the programme to check whether you can see the fear in my eyes, but they have put a couple of the live songs I recorded that day up on youtube; acoustic versions of two songs off the new album “We Used to be You” and “True Believer”.
I was writing with Graham Gouldman in a nearby studio on the day we recorded the programme, and he kindly agreed to come & busk along with me, and I can’t thank him enough!…I love the little look we give each other at the end of “We Used To be You”, as if to say “phew, we got away with that!”
“We Used To Be You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EnHD_JWrr4
“True Believer”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1d0jGClK-0
I hear they are going to repeat the programme later this week (25th May 8pm, Sky 369, Virgin 343 and Freesat 515), but I’m not sure whether to watch, it might be too painful, I’ll only find fault, and think “why did I say that” and “oh, you do look a prat”…no, perhaps best to just leave it to this 40 second clip that they’ve also put on youtube, where I sum up my career and put it down to “just a couple of lucky meetings and the love of an Aminor chord”…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWOkSqYpjrE
[photos by Roger Goodgroves]
