This week, I welcome Barrie Cadogan to the podcast.

Barrie's from Nottingham, and started playing guitar in his teens after hearing the Stone Roses' debut album. As he explains in the episode, that record, and John Squires' playing, had a massive impact on him, leading him on to all sorts of other guitarists and playing styles.

He formed his band, Little Barrie, not long after, recorded their early material and moved to London. The band's debut, We Are Little Barrie, was released in 2005, followed by Stand Your Ground, King of the Waves, Shadow and finally Death Express, which was released in 2017. Sadly the band's drummer, Virgil Howe, passed away the day before the band were due to head out to tour that record, so they've been on a break since then. As Barrie reveals in the interview, however, he and Lewis have been busy and there will be new Little Barrie music coming later this year.

Barrie's also well known as a guitarist in other people's bands, famously playing in Primal Scream between 2006 and 2015 and for Paul Weller, Edwyn Collins, Steve Mason, Spiritualized, Anton Newcombe, Johnny Marr and, as he explains, he was Matt Johnson's guitarist during The The's recent tours. If you're fan of Better Call Saul, you will also be familiar with Barrie's guitar playing - that's him playing the show's intro music.

Thanks to Gibson for letting us use their showroom to record the episode. And go to Littlebarrie.com to find out when the band have more shows and music coming up.

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This week, I welcome Ben Watt to the podcast.

Ben is, of course, best known as one half of Everything But The Girl, the duo he and Tracy Thorn formed in 1982 after meeting at Hull University. They released 10 albums, amassing millions of sales around the world.

Prior to that career, however, both Ben and Tracy had already released music - Tracy as part of Marine Girls, and Ben with Robert Wyatt and then as a solo artist. That solo music is what we focus on here - particularly North Marine Drive, his debut, released on Cherry Red records in 1983, and its follow up, Hendra, released 31 years later, and featuring the former Suede guitarist and record producer Bernard Butler.

Ben and Bernard worked together again for Ben's third album, 2016's Fever Dream. In the interview, we discuss all of that, as well as Ben's new album, Storm Damage, which was released at the end of January, his love of John Martyn, performing live, working with David Gilmour and, of course, his numerous guitars.

Ben is on tour in the UK from February 27, beginning in Leeds, and tours the US at the end of March. For more information on that, go to benwatt.com

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Welcome to the second series of Star Guitar. And the first guest is Marika Hackman.

After a string of early EPs, she released her debut album, We Slept At Last, in 2015, followed by I'm Not Your Man, recorded with The Big Moon, in 2017. Any Human Friend, her fantastic third album, was released in August 2019.

She invited me to her house late last year to go through he gorgeous collection of Fender Mustangs and chat about her approach to guitar playing. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Marika is on tour from February 24, beginning in Manchester, and she's also announced a handful of festival appearances. For more information on all that, go to her website, www.marikahackman.com

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