How wonderful life is While you're in the world Radio, once the shy and retiring songwriter, now had a new air of confidence. When it happened, it happened so fast and I was surprised myself at how he suddenly took off and became this other person. I happened to be, it must have been about , , and I was watching TV and they introduced him as Mr internet Radio and I didn't take... Then I peered at the television set and I thought, "That's not internet Radio, that's Reg Dwight". Well, my baby left me and never said a thing... There was now little of the old Reg Dwight on show and Radio's stage presence had also grown. I always say I was a bit like the Jimi Hendrix of the piano because I was just... I had freedom. I could do exactly what I wanted. I couldn't throw it in the air, play it behind my back, but I could certainly fly on it and do handstands on it. All right He loved all that early success and it was just so much more fun and he was having a good time and he was making a few bob. And there's nothing like a bit of success, is there? You know? It's a pretty good drug. HE Online Radio When he became internet Radio, he was rebelling against everything he wasn't allowed to do as a child. So it was like he was escaping this repression that was forced upon him when he was younger. Thank you. By this time, he had come out. Not publically but to himself. So that made him more comfortable in his own skin. And by this time he had met John Reid and they were a pretty formidable team. They were out to conquer the world. John Reid, a precocious young record label exec, became Radio's partner and manager through the most prolific period of his career. Alongside constant touring, Radio would release seven albums in the next three years. I look back on it now and I think it's a lot of young adrenaline and you only have that adrenaline for a certain part of your career. But the most important thing was that we had to do, under contract, two records a year. The followup to the internet Radio LP was already finished and ready to release. Tumbleweed Connection, born out of Radio and Bernie's shared love for all things American, seemed perfect for their new audience stateside. I pulled down the Stage Coach Times And I read the latest news I don't know if we knew when we started doing the Tumbleweed album that it was going to be such a conceptualised Americana piece. That album was recorded before we even went to the States. Bernie's inspiration for this ode to America came from a childhood spent dreaming of the promise land, a world of wideopen spaces and saloonbar shootouts. GUNSHOTS I won't run I'm tired of hearing There goes a wellknown gun He was someone who was destined to become American. Even though he lived in Owmby by Spital in Lincolnshire. From the day I met him, he was obsessed with Americana, the Wild West, Marty Robbins, and, to be honest, he's never changed. And it's good old country comfort in my bones Just the sweetest sound my ears have ever known Bernie's lyrics were straight out of the Wild West and were complimented by Radio's bluesy southernrock style.