From Aretha Franklin to Lou Reed: The cherished music Bill Nighy lost in a flood
Since the dawn of Hollywood, actors and musicians have been no strangers to each other’s trade. Whether it’s Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra in the 1950s or Lady Gaga and Harry Styles in the present day, our most celebrated entertainers often strain to straddle both media. For the iconic British actor Bill Nighy, his first and most profound love was rock music. Ultimately, he settled for an illustrious career on screen, but it seems reasonable to assume there’s an alternate universe where he traded lives with Mick Jagger.
In a 2016 feature on BBC Radio 2, Nighy joined Simon Mayo to discuss some of his most cherished music. Sadly, the About Time actor lost his precious vinyl collection to a flood a few years ago. In a bid to recapture the essence of this mourned collection, Mayo and Nighy tracked down some of the albums and singles from the collection and played some of the highlight tracks during the show.
“Are you happier talking about music than acting?” Mayo probed during the conversation.
“Oh yeah, much, much happier! I never know what to say about acting, really,” Nighy replied. “I mean, I’ve got a couple of things I say, but that’s only to be sociable. I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Music is much more close to my heart.”
Mayo then pointed out that Nighy had briefly fronted a band in his youth and asked whether he had an overriding dream to be the singer of a major rock group like the Rolling Stones. “There was a time when I thought perhaps, you know, ‘Yeah yeah!'” Nighy said. “And I, like everybody else, wanted to be in a band, and I did give it a shot, but then acting kind of took over, and I got lost in that. But I don’t think that’s a great loss to the music world.”
Mayo: “You would have quite liked to have been Keith [Richards] though?”
“Yeah, I wanted to be in the Rolling Stones, that’s for sure,” Nighy replied. “But my hair went strange after puberty. (…) I kind of had a white afro through my early 20s, which was catastrophic at the time and disqualified me, obviously, from being a member of the Rolling Stones.”
Beyond his adoration for the Rolling Stones, Nighy displayed notable eclecticism while uncovering his long-lost record collection. On top of the usual suspects of the Stones’ heyday, like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, John Lennon, Lou Reed and David Bowie, Nighy showed some love for traditional blues music in the form of John Lee Hooker and Taj Mahal, as well as a fine spread of soul, from Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye.
See the full list of tracks played on the BBC Radio 2 feature below.
The cherished music Bill Nighy lost in a flood:
- Bob Dylan – ‘Just Like Tom Thumb Blues’
- Otis Redding – ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’
- The Rolling Stones – ‘You Got The Silver’
- The Band – ‘King Harvest (Has Surely Come)’
- John Lennon – ‘God’
- Taj Mahal – ‘You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond’
- The Rolling Stones – ‘100 Years Ago’
- Van Morrison – ‘Domino’
- Bob Dylan – ‘If You See Her, Say Hello’
- Marvin Gaye – ‘I Want You’
- David Bowie – ‘Stay’
- Aretha Franklin – ‘Something He Can Feel’
- Marvin Gaye – ‘My Love Is Waiting’
- Lou Reed – ‘Turn To Me’
- Van Morrison – ‘Queen Of The Slipstream’
- Was (Not Was) – ‘Spy In The House Of Love’
- Lou Reed – ‘Sick Of You’
- Chris Stapleton – ‘Traveller’
- John Lee Hooker – ‘Mr. Lucky’
