Show Notes
Nige Tassell fell in love with the literary allusions of Prefab Sprout when at school and his new book ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ tells their unique and inscrutable story – and involves some delightfully off-road “deerstalker” investigation. You’ll find self-sabotage, square pegs in round holes, the eternal pressure to have hits, and a devoted portrait of ringmaster Paddy McAloon that leaves you convinced there’s never been anyone quite like him before or since. This sparks off in a million directions, these among them …
… the lure of bands who'd clearly been to the library and were unlikely to have a huge hit
... Paddy’s stoic defence of their name
… his distaste for “diary songwriting” of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen
… Jesse James, Elvis, Hey Manhattan: the obsession with the romance of America
… the archive of unrecorded songs (one box labelled ‘For Rod Stewart’)
… how the success of The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll came to haunt them
… the inconceivable moment they appeared on the National Lottery with Bob Monkhouse and Mystic Meg
… pop tribalism on the school bus
… the dreadful circumstance that lead to I Trawl the Megahertz
… Paddy’s visual transformation from tousled pop star to hermetic semi-reclusive Gandalf
… and the fate of the Steve McQueen motorbike.
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