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

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: tinyurl.com/2kudc6xr
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