Every year since its inception the Guernsey Literary Festival has included a musical cross over element to its programme from the punk poetry of John Cooper Clarke and Attila The Stockbroker to the comedy songs of Neil Innes or more straight musical performance for Heidi Joubert.

For the 2018 festival they presented two events with a musical side.

The first (which I was unable to attend) saw Peggy Seeger, widow of Ewan MacColl and sister of Pete Seeger as well as a folk musician in her own right, take to the stage at St James while this second one featured long time music journalist and presenter David Hepworth talking about his career and new book Uncommon People: The Rise And Fall of the Rock Stars.

For the best part of an hour Hepworth took us through the basics of what he’s done in his career and then the concept of his new book which traces the history of the rock star phenomenon from the mid 1950s to the mid 1990s.

As he took us through the story he was an instantly relaxed and engaging presenter with many fascinating stories to tell.

While he clearly has a great knowledge of the music and the surrounding personalities the highlights of the talk were the first hand stories, such as his experience with Bob Geldof around Live Aid and Band Aid.

Added to that were his personal views of earlier rock ‘n’ roll events that gave an interesting and fresh perspective on well trodden tales and legends.

While the event could easily have been longer given the stories he clearly has to tell, Hepworth packed a lot into 45 minutes and more than whetted my appetite for the book.

While strongly debatable, the notion that the rock ‘n’ roll era lasted from 1955 to 1995 is an interesting one that he presented a compelling argument for, while not shying from the less heroic side of the icons many of these people have been turned into in the public eye.

His final comment, based on a photo of Elvis shaking hands with Nixon, pointed out how in an equivalent photo today it wouldn’t be the rock star who was the unpredictable one, adding an interesting edge of politics and view of the shifting of celebrity culture to his thesis.

The Guernsey Gigs team had the opportunity to speak to him on their podcast while he was in the island, covering some of the same topics, you can listen to that by clicking here