E57: Aretha's Amazing Grace + Mark Ronson audio + Tom Cox

In this week's episode – the last of 2019 – Mark, Barney & "Jazzbo" see out the year by celebrating the sheer majesty of Aretha Franklin and the posthumously-released Amazing Grace documentary.

Featured writer Tom Cox provides the perfect segue: a 1999 piece about the Queen Of Soul and her Atlantic Records producer/mentor Jerry Wexler. Your hosts also enjoy a chuckle as they revisit Tom's 2004 piece on Apple's new GarageBand "workstation".

Attention then turns to a 2007 audio interview with uptown funkateer and retromaniac producer Mark Ronson. We hear a clip from Maureen Paton's back-of-a-cab conversation with Ronson, after which RBP's three amigos discuss his subsequent career and his work with Amy Winehouse.

Marks talks us through new additions to the RBP library, including Keith Altham in the studio in 1968 with the Rolling Stones (and Jean-Luc Godard!); a 1971 Roy Carr rendezvous with the skinhead edition of Slade; and Joe "Mr. C" McEwen profiling the splendidly eccentric Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams in 1975. Jasper rounds matters off with quotes from David Toop's 2001 Wire interview with the brilliant Björk … and a brief chat about Boris Johnson's new nemesis Stormzy.

Oh, and to prove we're not just about yesteryear, we've compiled a playlist of our favourite tracks of 2019: beautiful & thrilling music by the likes of Lizzo, Foals, Brittany Howard, Bon Iver, Nilüfer Yanya, Rustin Man, Billie Eilish, Vampire Weekend, Joan Shelley... and of course Amyl & the Sniffers! 

Pieces discussed: Aretha Franklin: Amazing Grace film, Amazing Grace album, Rev. James Cleveland, Jerry Wexler, Garageband, Sloan, Mark Ronson audio, Stones set studio on fire, Lionel Hampton, Sly & the Family Stone, Slade, Carl Palmer, Swamp Dogg, Culture Club, Pavement, De La Soul, Björk, Jamie Cullum and Stormzy.

The RBP podcast is part of the Pantheon Podcasts network.