The Arnisdale Fiddler and the Fairy - 2024
The Essay - Dig Where You Stand
Allan Henderson was taught by the great fiddler Aonghas Grant. Aonghas gave Allan the tune 'Dalshangie' and shared the story of the Arnisdale fiddler, Neil Campbell, who was on his way home from playing at a wedding in Knoydart and chanced upon a fairy.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00209wd
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
: Anarchy Must Be Organised - 2016
BBC Radio - Archive on 4
2016 saw the 50th anniversary of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band going “professional” – kick-starting the chaos with a performance on the bastion of psychedelia and avant-garde: Blue Peter.
The legendary Neil Innes looks back at the influence and influences of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and the collision of art, humour, music, language and anarchy that permeated the band’s career.
Archive interviews and performances accompany new interviews with Legs Larry Smith, Rodney Slater, Vernon Dudley Bowhay Nowell, Sam Spoons, and Bob Kerr and contributions from friends and fans including Terry Gilliam, Adrian Edmondson, Kevin Eldon, Diane Morgan, Rick Wakeman and Stephen Fry.
Neil Innes died in December 2019 at the age of 75.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b072zn42
Death in the Yarrow Valley - 2024
The Essay - Dig Where You Stand
The 'Dowie Dens o' Yarrow' is a border ballad collected by Walter Scott and published in his 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border' in 1802.
Singer and ethnologist Lori Watson has unearthed an alternative version of the ballad which was sung by Margaret Laidlaw, the mother of the writer James Hogg.
Lori explains why this version of the tragic song offers more meaning for her as she stands under the James Hogg statue in the Yarrow Valley.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00209vp
Some programmes from The Food Programme at the Taste The World stage at WOMAD.
WOMAD 2010
Shelia Dillon presents from the Taste the World stage at the WOMAD festival in Wiltshire.
Musicians from Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Finland and Sicily, cook, play and chat.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00thmvc
A World Stage for Food and Music - 2013
How cooks from 12 countries gathered to share food and music on stage at Womad. Presented by Sheila Dillon.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0381l43
Taste the Music and Dance - 2019
Find out what happens when you mix Turkish psychedelia with dumplings and what a Yoik served with Sami bread involves.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00082dp
The Great Outdoors - 2023
Archive on 4
Matthew Sweet goes outside on an expedition to survey the history of the Great Outdoors.
A couple of brief folky snippets
> ~31:00 Ewan MacColl
> ~33:40, ~39:00 ,,, archaeologist David Petts shows him Heartbreak Hill, the site of a 1930s work camp in Cleveland set up to get unemployed ironstone miners back to the land. One of its driving forces was Rolf Gardiner, the rural revivalist and fundamentalist Morris dancer.
and
> ~45:30 With Sandra Kerr, the folk singer and, in guise of Madeleine the rag doll, esteemed colleague of Bagpuss, Matthew explores how rural romanticism preoccupied the song collectors of the early 20th century and has his own Madeleine moment as he listens to her sing by a mill stream.
Presenter: Matthew Sweet
Producer: Natalie Steed
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ml5f
Larking About in the Fields of Cornwall - 2024
The Essay - Dig Where You Stand
'The Lark in the Morning' is an English folk song which has been sung by many artists over the years. However, singer Angeline Morrison - with the help of Merv Davey - has discovered a different version which was collected at the Falcon Inn in St Mawgan in the 1890s known simply as 'The Lark'.
Angeline shares the story of the song and brings it back to life in the place it was found.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00209r6
Rediscovering my ‘Mama’ – the music legend I never got to know -
Outlook
Cass Elliot, known as 'Mama Cass', shot to fame in the 1960s with the folk-rock group The Mamas & the Papas. Their intricate harmonies in songs like California Dreamin' and Monday Monday captivated audiences. After launching a solo career Cass Elliot became a regular face on television chat shows and in 1974 had just completed a run of concerts at the London Palladium when she died unexpectedly aged only 32. Cass left behind a musical legacy but also a seven-year-old daughter, Owen, who has spent the last 50 years speaking to those who knew Cass best and trying to discover who her mother really was.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5pcd
Miranda Rutter Rob Harbron - 2024
Front Row
Using birdsong to inspire composition.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001zg5n
>17:30 ~11 minutes
tunes & album
https://mirandarutter.com/album/2808980/bird-tunes
Moondog: Sound of New York - 2018
Huey Morgan returns to his home city to learn more about Moondog, his life and his music. He discovers how Moondog went on to influence other musicians, including Phillip Glass, and how his work is continuing to be used and adapted to this day.
Huey is joined in New York by Moondog biographer Robert Scotto and poet and writer Magie Dominic who remembers meeting him in the 1960s. They take Huey to some of the places popular with Moondog, including Carnegie Hall and his regular pitch on 6th Avenue.
Huey hears from the Swedish musician Stefan Lakatos who befriended Moondog when he moved to Europe, from composer John Zorn, saxophonist and composer John Harle and classical pianist and composer Joanna McGregor.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b48wq9
mudcat thread
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=165490
Pickin' Tatties near Arbroath - 2024
The Essay - Dig Where You Stand
Whilst digitising archive tapes from the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh, folklorist and singer Steve Byrne came across the songs of Mabel Skelton recorded by Hamish Henderson in the mid 1980s.
The song 'Pickin' Tatties' struck a chord and resulted in Steve taking it back to the town of Arbroath and teaching it to school children. He takes us to the spot where the song was born and discusses the cultural confidence that comes from connecting local people with their own traditions.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00209qg
Same Time, Same Place, Next Year - 2006
Archive on 4
Malcolm Taylor explores the work of folk archivist Doc Rowe.
Doc has been returning to the same places at the same times for over 40 years to record, photograph and film annual events.
These include the hobby horses (Obby ‘Oss) dancing through Padstow in Cornwall on May Day, the Burry Man of South Queensferry in Scotland on the second Friday in August, and the building of the Penny Hedge in Whitby on Ascension Eve.
Malcolm is the English Folk Dance and Song Society's librarian. He follows Doc as he adds to his vast archive of the sounds and images of British vernacular culture.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076zt4
(Doc Rowe Archive and Collection :
www.docrowe.org.uk/
linktree
https://linktr.ee/docrowearchive)
Walking the Old Lumphanan Road with the Late Stanley Robertson - 2024
Scotland Outdoors
Stanley Robertson was from the Travelling People and in the 1980's he published a book called 'Exodus to Alford' featuring stories associated with a particular road his people used to take each Summer when he was a boy. Former BBC Producer Doreen Wood went there with Stanley in 1988 and recorded an interview with him describing his memories of this special place.
In this podcast, Mark Stephen and Helen Needham go in search of the Old Lumphanan Road with the archive of Stanley in their ears, offering a fascinating insight into the culture and beliefs of him and his people and a way of life that no longer exists in this part of the world.
The only bit of singing is in the last half minute but it's good to hear Stanley Robertson being interviewed in 1988.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0hrczkz
Suck it and See - 2016
Grammy award-winning songwriter Amy Wadge investigates the history and global influence of the harmonica.
Here she investigates the history and potential of the diatonic instrument, a European toy which in the hands of expert players became the the iconic sound of the Mississippi Delta and the Chicago Blues.
According to music historian Christoph Wagner, the very first example of the instrument goes back to Vienna.
But it was in America that it scored its biggest success. Joe Filisko reveals it was there that harmonica technique underwent a transformation. Instead of exhaling air, blues players would draw air in, and bend notes to achieve the characteristic sounds of the blues.
Proving that for all its limitations - 10 holes and 3 octaves - there's life yet the harmonica.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b074x4tc
btw Brighton's "Harpin' By The Sea"
www.harpinbythesea.com/
&
www.facebook.com/harpinbythesea
Tim van Eyken
- The Loving Ballad of Captain Bateman - 2012
Tim van Eyken composed the music for The Loving Ballad of Captain Bateman
This is the music; the associated drama by Joseph Wilde isn't available to listen to.
,,,a modern love story based on a very old folk song in which a noble lord goes abroad, lands in prison and falls for the gaoler's daughter.
In the play, Captain Bateman is badly wounded in Afghanistan. Sofia and her father give him shelter and succour in accordance with pashtunwali, the code of honour and hospitality. But when Bateman inconveniently refuses to die they face grave danger from the Taliban for harbouring him and from the British army for keeping him prisoner.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p012dg9k
associated article by Julian May
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/entries/cd9d7e9a-8ec0-3354-8405-3d5f9598bba4
Werca's Folk, Warkworth in Northumberland - 2013
Ramblings -
Clare Balding joins the walking group of Werca's Folk, a women's choir from Warkworth in Northumberland, led by the legendary Sandra Kerr of Bagpuss fame.
As they set off on a circular route around the village they talk to Clare about the role the choir plays in their lives and the joy of singing and walking together.
Expect songs en route.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfsz6
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