BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax

Subject: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 12:46 AM

BBC programme "Great Lives": Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax

Released On: 21 May 2019
Available for over a year

The prolific and most significant of American song-hunters - Alan Lomax - is the choice of English folk singer Shirley Collins.

She's joined by singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg.

Lomax did whatever was necessary to preserve traditional music and take it to a wider audience. He was the first to record towering figures like Lead Belly, Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie. He was instrumental in the revival of U.S. and UK folk.

Shirley Collins met Lomax in 1954, after he'd moved to England to avoid the U.S. McCarthy witch-hunt. She tells the story of how they fell in love and describes their recording trips around Europe and in America's Deep South, on the cusp of the civil rights movement.

Lomax's ambition was to give a voice to the voiceless, and that took him from fisherman shacks to prisons, farmyards to cotton mills. His steadfast drive to capture cultures before they disappeared resulted in a staggering amount of recordings we can listen to today, from gospel choirs to Cajun fiddling, country blues to calypsos and Haitian voodoo rituals.

Presenter: Matthew Parris.
Producer: Eliza Lomas

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2019.

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 05:23 AM

has this not been posted here before, Subject: Lomax/Collins BBC Radio4 tonight Sat
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 27 Jul 02 - 02:15 PM

In case no-one else has posted this. Shirley Collins reminiscing on song-xollecting with Alan Lomax. 8-9 PM Sat 27 BBC Radio 4.
Joe Offer
it appears I am not the only one who does not always realise if something has been posted before

---

OK, that's enough, Dick.

Dick posted a series of messages, each in a new thread and each on subjects that had been addressed many times before. And then he had a tantrum when I criticized him on it.
If you start new threads that have been started before, that's understandable and not a problem. If you start several of such threads in a single day, that's another matter. Dick Miles claims not to understand that.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 08:14 AM

I'm trying to make a page of links for musicians in the 'Great Lives' series.
There are pages and pages,,,, give me a week or three!

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 11:50 AM

Greg's post was in 2002, the program referenced by YorkshireYankee was released in 2019.

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 03:27 PM

Apologies, I forgot to check.

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 16 Oct 22 - 06:22 PM

2 years?

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: GUEST,John Bowden ( not a typo!)
Date: 17 Oct 22 - 01:47 AM

I'm not sure what all the quarrelling on this thread is about. I think in her original post Vikki was alerting us to the fact that this programme is now available again - irrespective of when and how many times it's been broadcast before. The BBC regularly repeats programmes on Radio 4 or Radio 4 Extra. If you click on the blue link in Vikki's first post and then on Read More, then scroll down a bit the link to the programme is on the left.

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 22 - 01:49 AM

Actually you don't even need to click on Read More just scroll down when the blue link opens!

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 22 - 02:02 AM

Oh and by the way the programme Greg Stephens mentioned in 2002 is a different programme which is also available via Archive on 4 - Google "Radio 4" and "Southern Journeys"

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: GUEST,John Bowden ( not a typo!)
Date: 17 Oct 22 - 02:05 AM

Guest above x2 was me - more haste less speed!

Subject: RE: BBC prgrm: Shirley Collins on Alan Lomax
From: GUEST,CJB
Date: 23 Oct 22 - 10:39 PM

Massive archive of Alan Lomax recordings - going to waste / nothing online.

Forgotten Archive

An archive of BBC traditional folk programmes languishes on reel-reel tapes in a little known library. This is the Charles Parker Archive in Birmingham. The recordings are unique and not available anywhere else.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/5d429dc1-bf2a-4495-9ada-77970bc2ef92

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/a/A13532993

They were made by Alan Lomax for the series “A Ballad Hunter Looks At Britain”

http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=MS+4000%2f5%2f3%2f1

http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/TreeBrowse.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=MS+4000%2f5%2f3%2f1%2f7

One hopes that the tapes are being stored in a climatically controlled environment and are not suffering from mould or sticky shed. Whilst it is understood that they have been digitised this is only to unreliable CD-R media. It is hoped that the CD-Rs are duplicated across different brands. Optical discs are not a good medium for archiving, their life span is too short.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky-shed_syndrome

The track lists are as follows:

A Ballad Hunter Looks At Britain - Alan LomaxA.L.Lloyd (1963)

====

Prog 1

MS 4000/5/3/1/4        

Recording of a programme by Alan Lomax for the BBC Home Service called 'The Ballad Hunter looks at Britain: 1'. The first of eight programmes about British folk music in the company of Seamus Ennis and Peter Kennedy, called 'Come listen to my song'.

Track 1: Duration (min/sec): 2.18 Description of track:
Track 2: Duration (min/sec): 0.21 Description of track: Intoduction
Track 3: Duration (min/sec): 1.15 Description of track: Seamus Ennis
Track 4: Duration (min/sec): 1.09 Description of track: 'The bonny bunch of roses'
Track 5: Duration (min/sec): 1.41 Description of track: 'The Eire girl'
Track 6: Duration (min/sec): 0.48 Description of track:
Track 7: Duration (min/sec): 0.56 Description of track:
Track 8: Duration (min/sec): 2.22 Description of track: Scots Gaelic songs
Track 9: Duration (min/sec): 2.46 Description of track: The BBC's collection of folksongs The Copper family
Track 10: Duration (min/sec): 1.58 Description of track: Peter Kennedy and the songs of the travelling people
Track 11: Duration (min/sec): 0.38 Description of track: Ewan MacColl [cut short]
Track 12: Duration (min/sec): 1.38 Description of track: Ewan MacColl Sings the 'Lorry Driver's ballad'. Bruce Turner Plays clarinet
Track 13: Duration (min/sec): 1.12 Description of track: British folk music
Track 14: Duration (min/sec): 0.34 Description of track: Traveller's step dance
Track 15: Duration (min/sec): 0.37 Description of track: Shetland fiddle tune
Track 16: Duration (min/sec): 0.50 Description of track: Folk song styles
Track 17: Duration (min/sec): 0.49 Description of track: Hebridean group singing: leader-chorus style, in Gaelic
Track 18: Duration (min/sec): 0.25 Description of track: Mouth music
Track 19: Duration (min/sec): 1.40 Description of track: Irish singing style
Track 20: Duration (min/sec): 1.34 Description of track: English solo singing
Track 21: Duration (min/sec): 1.48 Description of track: Davy Stewart 'Macpherson's Rant'
Track 22: Duration (min/sec): 1.28 Description of track: 'She moved through the fair' sung by an Irish woman
Track 23: Duration (min/sec): 1.07 Description of track: Orkney band group
Track 24: Duration (min/sec): 0.58 Description of track: Skiffle band
Track 25: Duration (min/sec): 1.02 Description of track: Conclusion
Track 26: Duration (min/sec): 0.24 Description of track: Closing announcement

====

There’s similar track lists for Prog 1 [copy], and Progs 2 through to 8

====