Spent a little while looking into embeds, ...
Spent a little while looking into embeds, as recommended, and it seems like it could be worthwhile. I tested the native embed, as it were, by tacking /embed onto a URL, and it is not very attractive. But customising the embed by using the other image and the audio will take a bit of work. I have found some useful resources for that, notably www.sitepoint.com/customizi… for the code needed.
Might also be worth implementing a different audio player on the site – using this plugin wordpress.org/plugins/p… – but still feeding it the blueberry version of the audio URL to maintain continuity of stats.