Hear the interview of the week from the Music Show, where composer Andrew Ford entertains and informs a wide audience each week, providing two hours of essentia...
Percussionists and poets in Caroline Shaw's music; David Keenan's Irish Songs
American composer Caroline Shaw’s latest album, a collaboration with Sō Percussion, is called Rectangles and Circumstance. It’s a collection of ten songs run through with words by Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte, William Blake and Christina Rossetti, as well as Caroline herself. She joins Andy from her home in the US to talk about her collaborators and her co-poets.When Irish singer songwriter David Keenan came onto the scene he was described as “the sound of Tim Buckley and Brendan Behan arguing over a few jars, while Kavanagh deals Dylan a suspicious hand of cards, and Anthony Cronin and Jack Kerouac furiously try to scribble it all down” – so no pressure there. He talks about wearing those comparisons, writing songs about Ireland, and the story behind his guitar as well as performing new music live.
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54:06
Remembering Ruby Hunter, with Emily Wurramara and Dan Sultan
The Music Show explores the legacy of the late Ruby Hunter – short in stature, a giant in music, and a mentor and parental figure to so many First Nations musicians in subsequent generations. We’ll hear Ruby from the archives, and catch up with Emily Wurramara and Dan Sultan, both of whom have sung a tribute to Ruby Hunter alongside their fantastic new albums.
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54:06
Folk singers and the FBI
Some of the most prominent folk singers of the twentieth century like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan were being surveilled and, in some cases, blacklisted by the FBI due to their political activism and ties to the U.S Communist Party.Writer and historian Aaron J. Leonard has written several books on the subject and is in to reveal why the US Government was so fixated on musicians in the 1940s and 50s, and what he unearthed from the FBI files he gained access to. Aaron J. Leonard's books on this subject include The Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, the Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist Party, USA-1939-1956 and Whole World in an Uproar: Music, Rebellion and Repression - 1955-1972, both published by Repeater Books.
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54:05
Ziggy Ramo's exploration of dark histories and big questions
Ziggy Ramo returns to The Music Show with a new album that’s more than just an album. Human? is a new and beautifully contradictory sound for Ziggy. It blends folk (with guest vocals from Vonn) and his signature rap, precipitated by Ziggy picking up the guitar for the first time in the wake of his 2021 single Little Things. Ziggy joins Andy to talk about the project - which spans the album, the book, and a related exhibition. It's an exploration of dark histories and big questions. The book is called Human? A Lie That Has Been Killing Us Since 1788.
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54:04
The last violin of Harry Vatiliotis; the exile of Arooj Aftab
Romano Crevici has been playing violins made by Harry Vatiliotis for decades. Now drawing to the end of their respective careers, Harry has made one final instrument, which will be Romano's last violin too. The process, challenged by sore joints, thin skin, and Harry's caring responsibilities to the love of his life Maria, have been captured in a moving film called The Last Violin by Carla Thackrah. Romano and Carla are in the studio with the titular violin.Arooj Aftab’s album Vulture Prince took her ten years to write, and for the final two she had to shut all other music out of her life. “I just was trying to make a thing that didn't have a blueprint" she says, of an opus that combines jazz, experimental electronica and Sufi devotional music with her own unique voice.
Hear the interview of the week from the Music Show, where composer Andrew Ford entertains and informs a wide audience each week, providing two hours of essential listening from the world of music.
UK