Have A Soulful Christmas

Seasons greetings!

Just a brief update to let you know that my exclusive interview with James Brown's widow, Tomi Rae Brown, was published today on the fourth anniversary of her husband's death.

In October, Tomi Rae granted me the most in-depth interview she has ever given to any reporter. During our 75 minute chat we discussed her marriage the Godfather of Soul and the nightmarish four years she's spent battling a smear campaign orchestrated by some of her late husband's associates.

In a teaser published earlier this week, Tomi Rae slammed claims that James Brown had used controversial doctor Conrad Murray and then recommended him to Michael Jackson. The full interview, published today, includes the shocking revelation that trustees ordered James Brown's legs to be cut off in order to obtain DNA for a paternity test.

Click here to read my exclusive interview with Tomi Rae Brown.

Christmas Day always brings back memories of James Brown for me. As an 18 year old journalism student, my first celebrity encounter was James Brown. Having been on my journalism course for just a matter of weeks, in October 2006 I managed to talk my way into a press conference with my hero, the Godfather of Soul. Mr Brown not only took a question from me, but also put me on his personal guest list for the show. They say journalism can afford you the opportunity to meet your heroes - I met mine in training and it was an experience I'll never forget.

Less than two months later, I walked downstairs on Christmas Day and almost immediately saw Mr Brown's picture on television. Beneath it flashed the dates, '1933-2006'. I stood frozen for a moment before blurting out, 'James Brown has died.' I was in total shock; just weeks previously I'd watched him perform a two hour concert in London. A dark cloud hung over that Christmas.

Nowadays, Christmas has become a time to celebrate James Brown. Although there'll always be a hint of sadness at losing my hero on Christmas Day, it's an ideal time to put his CDs in the stereo or his DVDs in the player and bask in his incredible talent.

With that in mind, here are three pictures I took from my front row spot at James Brown's gig at The Forum, London, on 26th June 2005. Of the four James Brown gigs I attended before he passed away, this was easily the best. In fact, it was probably the greatest concert I've ever been to. Having recently staved off prostate cancer, Brown had lost a lot of surplus weight and seemed to be in very high spirits. His energy was unbelievable.

This is how I like to remember James Brown at this time of year. Have a soulful Christmas!

Martha Reeves Interview - A Teaser

Last week I conducted an exclusive 90 minute interview with Motown legend Martha Reeves. The article won't be published until January 2011 but in the meantime, here's an exclusive clip.

In this clip Martha describes the thrill that comes from being a part of the Motown dynasty and also recalls the recording of one of Motown's greatest hits, Dancing In The Street. She even puts on her best Marvin Gaye impression and sings a few bars of his original rendition, which was scrapped and replaced with her version. The rest is history.

Apologies for the background noise - I interviewed Martha in the restaurant at her hotel. However, you can still hear her loud and clear.



To receive alerts when I upload new videos, subcribe to my YouTube channel.

My Day With Martha

It's not often that you get the chance to spend time in the presence of true pop music royalty but yesterday (Thursday 16th December) was one of those days; I had the good fortune to spend several hours with Motown legend Martha Reeves.

Often referred to as the Queen of Motown, Martha's gospel roots helped set her apart from the label's other female leads. She's known around the world for hits including Jimmy Mack, (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave and Nowhere To Run, but she's perhaps best known for Dancing In The Street, one of Motown's most famous tracks (and that's really saying something).

A few weeks ago I learned that Martha was embarking on a short UK tour including several nights at London's Jazz Cafe. A keen Motown fan, I immediately requested an interview.

Initially I was told that Martha would only be available by telephone - that was fine by me. How many people even get the chance to speak to music royalty on the phone? But on Wednesday morning I got an email to say that Martha had decided to meet me in person instead. I'm not sure what made Martha decide to meet me after all - I forgot to ask her - but I'm glad she did. It was a last minute affair, arranged with less than 24 hours' notice, but the experience was one I will never forget.

Generous with her time and her answers, Martha spoke to me over lunch for roughly one and a half hours. Our discussion encompassed subjects including - but not limited to - the increasing sexualisation of female musicians, why a computer will never create better music than a live band, her former drug dependency and subsequent Christian rebirth, the corruption she witnessed while serving on Detroit City Council and her plans to return to her gospel roots.

Upon learning that I didn't have a ticket to her sold out show at the Jazz Cafe, Martha insisted that I meet her back at her hotel later on so we could travel together to the gig and she could bring me in for free. Arriving early on with Martha and her entourage allowed me to secure the best spot on the lower level - front row and centre.

Photograph: Charles Thomson

From there I watched Martha, backed by her Vandellas and a tight band (led by Al McKenzie, Martha's musical director of 30+ years), deliver an energetic 90 minute set comprising some of her biggest hits, a few lesser known classics like Third Finger, Left Hand, and an array of tributes to artists including Marvin Gaye (What's Going On), Billie Holliday (God Bless The Child) and James Brown (I Got The Feelin').

Halfway through her set, Martha surprised me by name-checking me from the stage. "I want to dedicate this next song to Charles. He's a young, up-and-coming writer - he's right here in the front," she said, gesturing towards me, "and he's never seen our show before. He's all of twenty-something years old, I think." Then she launched into a rendition of A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday). It was a strange moment, feeling everybody's eyes on me, but one I will never forget. It's not every day that a music icon dedicates a performance to you.

Martha captivated the audience - a much younger crowd than I had anticipated. Her voice has aged and she sings in a higher register than she used to, but her performance was brimming with energy. New material such as Home To You suited her voice perfectly. The show built to a crescendo when Martha fused her hit Dancing In The Street with tracks from other Motown artists like the Four Tops and Stevie Wonder. The audience went wild.

A great ending to a great day - made possible by a great woman.




NB. My exclusive, in-depth interview with Martha Reeves will be published in January 2011.

OFCOM ignored 115 complaints; ITV ignores hundreds more

Data released today shows that OFCOM ignored a total of 115 complaints about Tuesday 9th November's episode of 'This Morning'.

Figures show that the episode was last week's third most complained about television programme, beaten only by two episodes of controversial talent show 'X Factor'.



On Thursday 11th November, just two days after 'This Morning' aired a series of nasty comments by Kelvin MacKenzie about Michael Jackson and his children, OFCOM announced that it had already obtained the footage and conducted an investigation into the incident. The body refused to uphold complaints about the show on the fictitious premise that the segment had not breached the OFCOM code.

Bizarrely, ITV seemed to reach the opposite conclusion. On the same day that OFCOM claimed there had been nothing wrong with the segment, ITV removed the clip from its online catch-up service.

Not content with contradicting OFCOM, ITV have spent much of the last few days contradicting themselves. Despite believing that MacKenzie's comments were offensive enough to warrant removing them from the catch-up service, ITV is now bombarding Jackson's fans with generic and inaccurate emails denying that there was anything wrong with the segment.

The email, apparently written by ITV's head of legal compliance Mark Sunderland, completely re-writes the events of Tuesday 9th November and is successfully rebutted, point by point, in this eloquent and frequently hilarious response by Deborah Ffrench.

In the email Sunderland dismisses those offended by MacKenzie's comments as 'fans', but makes no mention of Jackson's friends and family. This is despite Jackson's nephew Taj publicly voicing his dismay over the comments and US Ambassador Paul W Jones, a personal friend of Michael Jackson, sending a letter of complaint to the broadcaster.

Sunderland also wrongly claims that 'This Morning' host Phillip Schofield made clear that MacKenzie's comments did not represent the views of ITV. The footage tells a different story but, of course, ITV destroyed that evidence on Thursday.

Exposing the Lies of Conspiracy Bloggers

As I mentioned in a blog entry earlier today, on Friday evening I was invited onto Blog Talk Radio to be interviewed about my reporting on Kelvin MacKenzie's recent diatribe against Michael Jackson's children on British TV.

During the half-hour interview a number of other subjects were covered, including the release of the new Michael Jackson album and the campaign waged against me this summer by conspiracy bloggers. The latter discussion appears to have provoked the ire of one such conspiracy blogger, whose latest entry is a frenzied rant about my appearance on the broadcast.

During the last five months or so I have become accustomed to seeing harebrained blog entries written about me and have mostly managed to abstain from responding to them, but this one caught my attention because the blogger in question - Bonnie Cox - told some pretty sizable porkies, including a couple about the content of her own blogs.

During my interview on Blog Talk Radio I discussed two of the accusations that Bonnie had made about me in the past few months; namely that I was involved in a plot with John Branca and that somebody had hired me to attack AEG.

Bizarrely, Cox took to her blog this weekend to deny ever making either of those accusations, apparently forgetting that the original accusations were still on her blog for anybody and everybody to read.

Here's Cox in her latest blog entry, denying that she ever accused me of being involved in a plot with John Branca:

And yet here she is the previous month, blatantly accusing me of being involved in a 'buddy-buddy three-some' with John Branca and Randy Taraborrelli, 'getting along on MJ's wallet, name, blood, sweat and tears':



Back-pedal, or amnesia? You be the judge.

Similarly, here's Bonnie in her latest entry claiming that she didn't accuse me of being hired to attack AEG:



No Bonnie, it wasn't Muzik, it was you. Look:



Jog any memories?

During my discussion with the hosts about conspiracy bloggers and their methods, I mentioned how these bloggers totally dismiss any evidence which contradicts their pre-determined conclusions. I used the example of bloggers who constantly claim that I didn't write positively about Michael Jackson until after he died, even though a fifteen second visit to my website will show that I've been writing pro-Jackson articles for several years.

Did Bonnie take this opportunity to 'fess up to her deception? No. She logged straight into her blog and repeated the exact claim that I'd just debunked:


Her comment is a lie. Simple as that. The first time I was ever paid for a story about Michael Jackson was in March 2009 when I was contacted by a member of MJ's camp and specifically asked to leak information on his trip to London, in order to create hype around his impending concert announcement. Prior to that my only work on Michael Jackson was largely very sympathetic and was written pro bono, such as my 2008 interview with Aphrodite Jones about her book 'Michael Jackson Conspiracy'.

Any claim that I was paid for anything Jackson-related before March 2009 is a lie and any claim that I didn't support Jackson before he died is also a lie.

In her new blog entry, Bonnie once more utilises the exact tactic that I described in my radio interview, telling her readers a half-truth and filling in the gaps with pure fantasy. She mentions my 2007 article about the album 'Thriller 25' and claims that it is proof of a pre-existing relationship between myself and Sony:

Firstly, Bonnie is a liar. I did not interview Sony's 'marketing head honcho'. I interviewed a member of Sony's catalogue release department marketing team. On top of this outright lie, she omits important information with the specific intention of misrepresenting my interaction with Sony.

What Bonnie doesn't tell you is that I was dispatched to Sony HQ in December 2007 by a fansite. Like many journalism students, I used to write for free for fansites in order to bolster my portfolio of published work and gain vital interviewing/writing experience.

In other words - as a 19 year old journalism student I interviewed a member of Sony's catalogue release marketing team for a Michael Jackson fansite. This, according to Bonnie, proves that I am a dastardly co-conspirator in an evil Sony plot to murder Michael Jackson.

The other thing Bonnie doesn't tell you is that my review of 'Thriller 25' was negative, not positive, which totally negates any implication that I was somehow acting as an agent of the record company who put it out. I described one of the remixes on the set as sounding like 'a hobo bludgeoning a dwarf with a sack full of windchimes'. In fact, the review was so negative that Sony complained about me in writing and issued me with a lifelong ban from their catalogue release department.

The latest blog from Bonnie is, essentially, just more of the usual; another gigantic dose of paranoia with a generous sprinkling of deception. But this time she has been caught out in a series of undeniable lies. She denied writing certain comments about me when those comments were still on her blog in black and white for all to see. In doing so, she has demonstrated just how changeable and unreliable she really is.

In the past it has been pointless to respond to Bonnie's claims because there has been no way to refute them. How can you prove that you haven't done something? If you've been to the Grand Canyon and someone accuses you of lying, you can pull out a photograph. If you haven't been to the Grand Canyon and somebody claims that you have - how can you prove they're lying?

What differentiates Bonnie's latest blog from her previous offerings is that this time she's trapped herself in her own web of deceit. Here, in black and white, are Bonnie's lies for all to see. On one day she'll claim that I'm in cahoots with Branca, on another she'll deny ever saying any such thing. In one entry she'll say I've been hired to attack AEG, in another she'll claim that it wasn't her and that it must have been a different blogger.

Her reader numbers have dwindled significantly since the summer after she embarked on a number of ill-advised campaigns against everybody from make-up artist Karen Faye to a variety of innocent fans. But after this latest embarrassment, it'll be a wonder if she has any readers left at all by the end of the year.

Here's an excerpt from the Blog Talk Radio discussion that caused the controversy:

US Ambassador Lends Support to Kelvin MacKenzie Campaign

Paul W Jones, US Ambassador to Malaysia, has added his voice to the growing chorus of protest over Kelvin MacKenzie's controversial comments about Michael Jackson last week.

MacKenzie provoked a storm in Jackson's fan community this week after saying that he had a 'substantial question as to how and why' Jackson's children had ever been born, that the star's death could have 'saved some children from a lifetime of being mentally corrupted' and that the star's children are better off now their father is dead.

The comments have already attracted the ire of Jackson's nephew Taj, who on Thursday used his twitter account to threaten ITV with legal action unless they issue an on-air apology.

Now US Ambassador Paul Jones, a friend of Jackson's, has fired off a missive to ITV. He has not released his email for publication as he complained in a private, not professional, capacity - but his wife today confirmed that both she and her husband had registered complaints with the broadcaster.

In her email to ITV, Jones' wife Catherine said she was 'disgusted' and 'angry' over MacKenzie's 'sickening' comments and that an on-air apology is 'the very least [ITV] can do'.

New Clip: I speak on Blog Talk Radio about the Kelvin MacKenzie debacle

I was invited onto Blog Talk Radio on Friday night to discuss the Kelvin MacKenzie outrage. Here's an extract from my interview.



To receive notices when I upload new clips, you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel. I also post regular updates on my twitter page.