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Podcast: Word In Your Ear
Episode: Swinging London & the Wombles seen from an electric-blue Rolls-Royce. Mike Batt looks back
Description: Mike Batt still wrestles with the emotional legacy of the Wombles, the act that simultaneously made him and cast a shadow over the rest of his career, not least his early days as a songwriter at Liberty Records, discussed here, hired after he’d answered the same ad as Elton John and Bernie Taupin, a time when A&R men wore kipper ties and had Picassos on their wall. He forged a path through psychedelia and into TV and films, taking huge financial risks with musicals, orchestral works and big-selling acts like Katie Melua, his Art Garfunkel hit ‘Bright Eyes...