Actor Clarke Peters narrates this special edition to mark 50 years since the assassination of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King on April 4th 1968.  "If in doubt, pray and sing" an activist recalls how music was used as part of Dr King's non-violent resistance movement. The stories of the songs behind the Civil Rights Movement include the spirituals and freedom songs that were integral to the struggle. In the 19th century, music became a tool for protest and resistance among the enslaved peoples of the American South.  Hear the stories behind some of the most popular anthems and Freedom Songs that were later used as part of the civil resistance movement that eventually led to voting rights and desegregation.  From Swing Low Sweet Chariot and We Shall Overcome to Amazing Grace, Strange Fruit and A Change Is Gonna Come, witnesses to and participants in the Civil Rights Movement recall how songs were such a vital part of the story. Producer: Maggie Ayre First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

Songs of the Civil Rights Movement

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact

Personal Journals

Society & Culture

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Music

Written by George Gershwin for the musical Oh Kay, Someone To Watch Over Me has endured as a tender ballad about searching for someone special.  It has been recorded by many different artists from Ella Fitzgerald to Willie Nelson but it's perhaps Ella's version that is best known.
Lyn Mackay grew up listening to it as a small child at her parents' home in Swansea. As she grew up and became a musician and entertainer the song has changed its meaning to her over the years.
Nica Strunk heard her father singing it during one of their sessions at his piano.  As he sang the line "where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?" she began to understand the difficulties he faced in expressing his emotions and the song brought them closer together.
Nicholas McInerny loved Sarah Vaughan's version and his daughter sang it at his second wedding.
Music producers James Morgan and Juliette Pochin have been Ella Fitzgerald fans since they met as students and are thrilled to have been behind the most recent release of Someone To Watch Over Me using Ella's original vocals accompanied by the LSO. Producer: Maggie Ayre

Someone to Watch Over Me

Sweet Thing by Van Morrison has an atmosphere full of tenderness, wonder and joy. But underneath this there a feeling of transience, a melancholy sense of things coming to an end, and of inevitable change. It was written for his 1968 album Astral Weeks, at a time when the Northern Irish born Van had left his home country and was down-and-out in Boston, USA. We hear how the track has come to mean so much to so many.  Caroline Mellor from Brighton remembers an intense moment of hearing Sweet Thing whilst staying in the mountains of Andalucía, Spain.  Sammy Douglas, Councillor and current High Sheriff of Belfast, reflects on memories of the Troubles and how the song intertwines with the tale of his first love.  Ryan H. Walsh, Bostonian and author of Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, explains how the seminal album Astral Weeks came about, and John Payne, flautist on Sweet Thing, shares memories of those extraordinary recording sessions with Van Morrison.  And singer-songwriter Alanna Joy from South Africa considers why she opens her live sets with her own rendition of Sweet Thing, and recalls hearing it for the first time through Jeff Buckley's cover. Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio in Bristol 
Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
Editor: Emma Harding.

Sweet Thing

Antonin Dvorak wrote his Gypsy Songs in 1880. He was passionate about the folk music of his native Bohemia and set a poem by Czech poet Adolf Heyduk to music. Songs My Mother Taught Me is the fourth song in the cycle. Songs my Mother taught me
In the days long vanished
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banished.... It's a wistful melancholic piece evoking memory and loss.  Soul Music hears the stories of musicians, poets and singers from around the world of why they are so drawn to it.
The poet Raine Geoghegan is the daughter of a Romany woman whose life was weighed down with the loss of her father at a young age.  Raine identifies with the sadness of the music because it not only represents grief at the loss of her father but also for the loss of a way of life for the gypsy people.
For Emily MacGregor it's all about the music we inherit from our parents.  She is writing a book about music and grief and says this piece perfectly represents the bittersweet feeling of listening to music associated with the loss of a loved one.  Dvorak had already lost three children in infancy by the time he wrote his Zigeuner Lieder.
Paris based violinist and conductor Bartu Elci-Ozsoy associates Songs with the innocence of childhood and was moved to perform it at a benefit concert he organised in aid of the children affected by the devastating earthquake in his native Turkey and Syria in early 2023.
The Korean soprano Sumi Jo recorded it in honour of her mother and presented it to her a year before she died in gratitude for her determination to see her daughter become a professional singer.
When The Scotsman newspaper commissioned a series of lockdown concerts in Spring 2020 cellist Sua-Lee chose to recreate the concert  by Beatrice Harrison a century earlier when she played the piece accompanied by nightingales in her garden in Surrey.  Sua set up her cello in woodland near her home in Grantown- on-Spey and performed Songs My Mother Taught Me to a collection of woodland creatures
Singer Ruby Hughes performed the American composer Charles Ives' version of the piece for a collection called Bright Travellers - music curated and composed by Helen Grimes from poems by Fiona Benson.  Ives wrote his own version of Dvorak's piece not long after the Czech composer had settled in America.   She loves the rocking gentle lullaby sensation created by the lilting melodies of both Ives' and Dvorak's compositions. Featuring additional recordings by Sua Lee and Zoe Challenor Producer: Maggie Ayre

Songs My Mother Taught Me

James Taylor's song of suicide, loneliness and addiction somehow remains hopeful and uplifting, even as people experience their own dark times. Holly Sinclair was driving through a Missouri winter to see her brother, in hospital after a suicide attempt, when the song came on the radio. Michael Granberry, arts writer for the Dallas Morning News, is also a huge James Taylor fan. He's the same age as Taylor, and reflects on the context of assassinations and war raging in America when he wrote Fire and Rain. Peter Asher was James Taylor's manager and producer, and remembers their first meeting, and the first time he heard Fire and Rain. Marcia Hines released a successful cover version of the song after moving from America to Australia as a teenager, and hearing the song blasting out of radios on both sides of the world. Mark Deeks and Jeff Alexander from Sing United community choir talk about the emotions generated when people sing a song they feel a connection to. And Peter Bardaglio, climate change activist, talks about a summer of fire and rain. Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sally Heaven

Fire and Rain

Miriam Makeba recorded 'Pata Pata' in 1967 with the help of American producer Jerry Ragovoy.  It became a huge hit and Miriam Makeba used newfound fame to speak the injustices of apartheid.  Her records were banned and South Africa and she was forced to live in exile.  Here, people from around the world share their stories about what this iconic track means to them. Actor John Kani grew up in Johannesburg remembers dancing to the song when it came on the radio and says that Miriam Makeba became an inspiration for how art could bring about change.  He would meet her years later after a concert in New York, and again in Johannesburg after apartheid ended.  Author of 'Makeba: the Miriam Makeba Story', Nomsa Mwamuka, charts the history of 'Pata Pata' and why Makeba would come to see it as "frivilous". Buks van Heerden is a pace-runner who has completed over 800 marathons.  He plays 'Pata Pata' late in the race when the runners he's pacing are getting tired and says it always lifts the mood. Angelique Kidjo says Miriam Makeba was the first African woman on the cover of an album.  Hearing 'Pata Pata' inspired her to perform, and later in life she and Makeba became friends. Dr. Niyi Coker devised 'Mama Africa: The Musical' in Cape Town when he realised that a younger generation of South Africans weren't aware of Miriam Makeba of her work.  'Pata Pata' would see two generations of 'Miriam' singing together and it would bring the house down. Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Toby Field
Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
Editor: Emma Harding With thanks to Rita Ray, Dr. Niyi Coker, and Moses Molapisane at the BBC bureau in Johannesburg.

Songs of the Civil Rights Movement

Download our free app to listen on your phone