David Hepworth's Uncommon People

'Uncommon People', the new book by David Hepworth, is sub-titled 'The Rise And Fall Of The Rock Stars'.

'I’m not one of those people who claim to be only in it for the music,” he says. “I’ve always been just as interested in the people. That’s why we had rock stars. It was the combination of sound and personality that made them exert such powerful fascination for us. Nowadays we talk about everyone from politicians to celebrity chefs as being ‘rock stars’. This usually means that they have unfeasible amounts of charisma and sex appeal and rugged independence that we came to associate with rock stars as a tribe.'

'Obviously there were many different sorts of people who went to make up our idea of a rock star . What I’ve tried to do with this book is describe how that picture was built. I’ve taken one rock star for each year between 1955 and 1995 and focussed on one day in that year when something significant happened to them. With a bit of luck reading it will be like seeing the rise and fall of these figures who loomed so large in our lives through a flick book.'

'And if you don’t get that there’s plenty of sex, money, jealousy, violence, comedy and death'.

Mark Ellen and David Hepworth will be talking about the 'Uncommon People', from Little Richard to Kurt Cobain via Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Ian Dury, Hank Marvin, Freddie Mercury, John Lennon, Bob Dylan and many more at this special, extra show added due to popular public demand.