Round Table discussion

Just got home from a late night spell on the radio. Once a month, John Mostyn (right), music manager, promoter, agent and pop svengali chairs a discussion on BBC WM’s Jimmy Frank’s show (Jimmy seated), and brings along a couple of industry types to discuss new pop records.

The show’s called Round Table, and it goes out live from 11pm till midnight across Coventry, Wolverhampton, Birmingham and some other places it’s too late for me to remember.

This time the panel guests were me (left) and soul singer Judy Duff (guess). We played and appraised songs by:

Sugababes vs Girls Aloud – a cover of ‘Walk this Way’ (for Red Nose Day)

Yusuf (the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens) – something dreary but nice;

James Morrison with some generic Americana that didn’t even touch the sides;

Former Blue member and current Dancing on Ice favourite Duncan James

Christina Aguilera, who was channelling the Andrews Sisters.

Mostly, it was nonsense — but it was great fun. We had to declare whether the song was going to be a hit or a miss, make our own comments about the songs, and then John would finish off by trying to spot a Birmingham connection.

There was only one. One record was released on Polydor, whose boss is an ex-Kings Heath lad.

Walk This Way was a clear winner in the ‘obvious hit’ stakes, though Sugababes were doing all the work… and Duncan James redefined ‘derivative’ (“Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Bryan Adams”).

Good fun. Wouldn’t rush out in a buying frenzy for any of the records though…