Mastertapes

Bellowhead talk, and play tracks from their most successful album, released in 2010, 'Hedonism'.

Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios, each edition includes two episodes - the A-side and B-side.

In the A-side, Donovan talks to John Wilson about what is still the best selling independent folk album of all time.

The idea for Bellowhead came to John Spiers and Jon Boden when they were caught in a traffic jam on tour. The longer they were stuck in the car, the more names of friends they came up with of whom to invite – initially settling on a ‘modest’ line-up of 10 which then grew to an even sillier 11-piece after the recording of their first EP.

In June 2015, they announced that the band would be calling it a day on May 1st 2016, and exactly two weeks after the twelfth anniversary of their first ever gig in Oxford Town Hall they will finish their farewell tour with an intimate final show in the very same venue. The tickets for this gig sold out in two minutes.

Their most commercially successful album, Hedonism was recorded in Abbey Road Studios and released in October 2010. Produced by John Leckie, it served up a further mix of shanties, folk songs and dance tunes, arranged in an eclectic mix of musical styles and influences.

The album includes rousing versions of ‘Cold Blow The Wind’, ‘New York Girls’ and the Jacques Brel song ‘Amsterdam’

In the B-side of the programme, it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions.

Producer: Paul Kobrak

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2016.

Following on from the A-side of this two-part programme, the audience ask Donovan questions about his 1966 album Sunshine Superman.

According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it 'ignited the psychedelic revolution virtually single-handedly' when it was released in the summer of 1966.

Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them.

With John Wilson at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios in London.

Donovan also performs exclusive live acoustic versions of some of the key tracks from the album.

Producer: Claire Walker

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2016.

Donovan talks about his psychedelic revolution inspiring 1966 album Sunshine Superman.

Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios, each edition includes two episodes - the A-side and B-side.

In the A-side, Donovan talks to John Wilson.

Sunshine Superman, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 'ignited the psychedelic revolution virtually single-handedly' when it was released in the summer of 1966.

It was Donovan’s breakthrough third album and a radical departure from his previous work.

Born in Glasgow, Donovan Phillips Leitch grew up listening to his father reading him poetry and his family singing Scots Irish folk music. He began playing guitar when he was 14 and was 18 when he had his first hit, Catch the Wind. A year later he began work on the album that first introduced meditation, Celtic mythology and Flower Power to the world.

Creating a unique fusion of classical, jazz, folk, pop, Celtic, Latin and Indian music, the album veered from the LA-influenced The Trip and The Fat Angel (written for Mama Cass) to the medieval tinged Guinevere and Legend of a Girl Child Linda (written for Brian Jones’ ex-girlfriend Linda Lawrence who became Donovan’s life-long muse and wife). Linda is also the Sunshine Super-Girl of the song Sunshine Superman which topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and featured a young Jimmy Page on lead guitar.

In the B-side of the programme, it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions.

Producer: Clare Walker

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2016.

Following on from the A-side of this two-part programme, the audience ask David Hinds and Selwyn Brown questions about Steel Pulse's 1978 debut album, 'Handsworth Revolution'.

With John Wilson at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios in London.

David and Selwyn also perform exclusive live acoustic versions of some of the key tracks from the album.

Producer: Paul Kobrak

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2016.

David Hinds and Selwyn Brown talk about Steel Pulse's 1978 debut album, 'Handsworth Revolution'.

Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios, each edition includes two episodes - the A-side and B-side.

The A-side, David and Selwyn talk to John Wilson.

Originally formed at Handsworth Wood Boys School in 1975, Steel Pulse were initially refused live dates in Birmingham’s Caribbean venues because of their Rastafarian ideals. Instead they aligned themselves With Rock Against Racism and appeared alongside the likes of the Clash, XTC, the Stranglers, Tom Robinson and X-Ray Specs.

It was Burning Spear who brought the group to the attention of Island Records who in February 1978 first released Ku Klux Klan as a single – a full five months before the album itself, which also included Prodigal Son, Prediction and the title track, Handsworth Revolution.

Here David Hinds and Selwyn Brown talk about the album that is widely regarded a milestone in the development of British Reggae, but also perform exclusive acoustic versions of some of the key tracks.

In the B-side of the programme, it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions.

Producer: Paul Kobrak

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2016.

Following on from the A-side of this two-part programme, the audience ask Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford questions about Squeeze's 1981 album, 'East Side Story'.

With John Wilson at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios in London.

Chris and Glenn also perform exclusive live versions of some of the tracks from the album.

Producer: Paul Kobrak

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.

Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford talk about Squeeze's 1981 album, 'East Side Story'.

Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios, each edition includes two episodes - the A-side and B-side.

In the A-side, Glenn and Chris talk to John Wilson.

'East Side Story' was originally intended as a four-sided double LP with each side using a different producer (Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello). It was released in 1981 as a single LP with 14 songs. With it Squeeze moved away from their traditional ‘new wave’ sound to a more varied mix of genres that took in rockabilly, R&B, blue-eyed soul, Merseybeat, and psychedelia.

With tracks like Tempted, Is That Love, Messed Around and Labelled with Love (which was only on the album because eventual producer Elvis Costello persuaded Glenn Tilbrook it should be included) the album is packed with keen, precise, funny and sad lyrics about lovers, drunks, deadbeats and lonely working girls – or as Chris Difford describes them: ‘suburban short stories’.

In the B-side of the programme, it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions.

Producer: Paul Kobrak

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.

Following on from the A-side of this two-part programme, the audience ask Georgie Fame questions about his 1963 debut album, 'Rhythm & Blues at the Flamingo'.

With John Wilson at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios in London.

Georgie also performs exclusive live versions of some of the tracks from the album (accompanied by his sons James and Tristan Powell, as well as a few of the original Blue Flames).

Producer: Paul Kobrak

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.

Georgie Fame talks about his 1963 debut album, 'Rhythm & Blues At The Flamingo'.

Series in which leading performers and songwriters talk about the album that made them or changed them.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios, each edition includes two episodes - the A-side and B-side.

In the A-side, Georgie talks to John Wilson.

At the age of 16, former apprentice cotton weaver, Clive Powell, successfully auditioned for pop impresario Larry Parnes who then forced him to change his name to Georgie Fame.

After touring alongside Marty Wilde, Joe Brown, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, Georgie played the piano in Billy Fury’s backing band, the Blue Flames. By March 1962 it was Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames who began a three year residency at the Flamingo Club in London’s Soho.

Including tracks like ‘Night Train’, ‘Work Song’, ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go’ and ‘Do The Dog’, 'Rhythm And Blues at the Flamingo' captured the vibrancy and excitement of the famous and notorious club which played a significant part in the breakdown of racial prejudice in post-war British society.

Here Georgie Fame talks candidly with John Wilson about the album that started it all and, together with some of the original Blue Flames (including guitarist Colin Green, saxophonist Mick Eve and trumpeter Eddie 'Tan Tan' Thornton) as well as his two sons Tristan and James Powell, play exclusive versions of some of the key tracks.

In the B-side of the programme, it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.