BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 22 Feb:

Arthur Miller: the Accidental Music collector
In 1941 Arthur Miller was sent south to Wilmington, North Carolina, to record the accents of the former slave port a few weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Chritopher Bigsby discovered the material he gathered and hears Miller tell the story of how, quite by accident, the playwright became a music collector.

A longer write-up explains how he was working for the Library of Congress, "But what he witnessed ... was to change his view of the world forever and, as a result, the nature of the dramas he wrote. For in the middle of appalling poverty and disgusting racial prejudice flourished protest songs and exquisite blues music. Needless to say, Miller recorded the songs as well as the spoken voices."

RT went to press too early for the news of Miller's death to be included, so it should make a fitting tribute.

Steve