George Melly discusses being a jazz entertainer.

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George Melly discusses his career path.

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George Melly discusses pop music.

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Q: “What do you think of pop music? I have rather negative feelings about it but perhaps you’ve had a wider exposure and aren’t quite so down on it…”

A: “Oh, I think it contains as it were in parallel, everything between Ted Louis and Louis Armstrong. I mean, it’s an awful lot of rubbish, but I think the Beatles are genuinely creative artists and then the way the Stones, as a presentation of attitude through music is important. I think it's a mirror of its time, and whether you like the time or not, it's another matter. It's a very accurate mirror, and I quite like the new upsurge, a rather crude part, because it seems to me to relate to the 70s, the anxious, blank 70s as opposed to the flowery, silly 60s. I like it as a way of testing the water, you know, and I think some people have great talent. I think Randy Newman does for instance. I think his songs are really touching nerve, that's what it does as its best, it touches a nerve. And it has some fine instrumentalist within it, too, like Eric Clapton who certainly relates it back to the blues and yet it transformed them in a certain way. “