Martin Bandyke Under Covers | Ann Arbor District Library

In this episode, Martin talks to Broadway theater producer Vivek Tiwary about his latest project, a graphic novel entitled The Fifth Beatle, which recently reached the #1 spot on the New York Times best-sellers list. The Fifth Beatle tells the story of Brian Epstein, the Liverpool record shop owner who discovered and then managed the Beatles from 1961 until his untimely death in 1967. Tiwary will also write and produce a feature film based on his book, due out in 2015.

In this first podcast of a new series, Martin Bandyke Under Covers, Martin interviews Ray Davies, the legendary vocalist of British Invasion rock band the Kinks. Ray talks in detail about his insightful, witty and candid new memoir Americana, which details the good, bad and tumultuous times he has spent in the USA over the last six decades. After the Kinks were banned from playing in the U.S. for several years in the mid-60s due to assorted misdeeds, they roared back in the 70s & 80s and gained enormous acclaim here, selling millions of records and filling concert arenas from L.A. to Detroit to New York. After the Kinks disbanded in the 1990s, Davies embarked on a successful solo career and continues to record and tour. As Davies tells Martin in the beginning of the podcast, he was inspired to write Americana after a life-changing 2004 shooting incident in New Orleans.