Featured writer of the month: Joe Jackson

The first piece that Joe Jackson wrote for Hot Press was a tribute to Elvis Presley. The year was 1977, the month was August – just eight weeks after the launch of Hot Press – and the King had just died.

It was an emotional and moving piece, born out of the passion that Jackson had felt since his childhood for the music of Elvis. Joe was a deeply committed fan and so it is appropriate that – in this, the 25th anniversary of both the launch of Hot Press and the death of one of the founding greats of rock’n’roll – Joe should have firmed up a deal to work on the script for a stage musical, on the greatest music legend of them all.

From that first piece on, Jackson’s career with Hot Press flourished, and he became one of the major contributors to the paper during the 1980s, handling some of the most prestigious – and often controversial – interviews done by the magazine. "I’ll never forget talking to Ben Briscoe, who was the Lord Mayor of Dublin at the time," Jackson recalls. Neither will we: Joe was thrown out after just twelve minutes and a legal ding-dong ensued. Hot Press decided to run the unexpurgated interview anyway, and the national media was buzzing with the story for days.

Jackson has turned his hand to radio with considerable success and is a regular contributor to RTE Radio One, having presented The Arts Show, as well as a series on the history of contemporary music, entitled The Years Go Pop. He has also written a book on Boyzone, as well as Nanci Griffith’s Other Voices (in collaboration with the singer) and a collection of interviews, Troubadours and Troublemakers.

One of the key arts writers with the Sunday Independent, Jackson is still a mainstay with Hot Press and last year provided one of the magazine’s most riveting reads with a powerful and sometimes confrontational interview with Bob Geldof.

He has recently been a regular stand-in for Brendan Balfe on his Saturday noon show and is currently in the news because, this summer, he will take over the weekday 12 o’clock slot on Radio One, occupied for the rest of the year by John Creedon.

To read Jackson's heartfelt tribute to the King, click here.

To read the transcript of those twelve minutes in the Mansion House that preceded Jackson being angrily shown the door, click here.

To read Jackson's tete a tete with Bob Geldof, then just returning to public and musical life after his bereavement, click here.