Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell made Ain't No Mountain High Enough a hit for Motown in 1967.

Diana Ross followed suit in 1970 as a solo artist with her version of the song.

It has a place in people's hearts with its anthemic themes of love, loyalty, triumph and perseverance.

Cynthia Dagnal-Miron is an African American who grew up in the 1960s and she says the song gave black people a sense of comfort and of being loved.

Kevin Patterson recalls meeting an elderly lady in a store in Philadelphia and hearing the song. He learned she had been part of a movement to desegregate a local school in the 1960s and she had sung it then at a talent show.

John Harris says music and being part of a choir were what saved him when he sank into drug addiction and crime and ended up in court. When he got clean he sang that song at the Court's 25th anniversary celebration.

"No wind no rain no winters cold can stop me from getting to you" were the words Lesley Pearl sang to her birth mother as she lay gravely ill in hospital. Lesley had braved Hurricane Sandy to fly to Charleston to be with her and it brought them closer towards the end of her life.

At the height of the pandemic in 2020 when New York was suffering huge numbers of Covid deaths and hospitalisations, nurse Kym Villamer sang it to staff and patients at the hospital where she works to remind them of the perseverance of the human spirit and the goodness of humanity.

An Assistant Professor of Music at Washington University in St Louis breaks down the various musical elements that make it such an enduring powerful uplifting anthem.

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2021.

"Country roads, take me home

'Take Me Home, Country Roads' was written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert with and for their friend John Denver.

The song went on to be covered by Ray Charles, Toots and the Maytals, Olivia Newton John and many more.

A song about the longing for home and the desire to be back with the people you love, 'Country Roads' has become one of the official state songs of West Virginia but it also speaks to people from around the world and across political divides.

It's a song about togetherness, belonging, homesickness, the immigrant experience and the hold that the landscape of your 'home place' can have on you.

Featuring contributions from:

Bill Danoff

And from Molly Sarlé, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Meath of the band Mountain Man.

Produced for BBA Audio in Bristol by Mair Bosworth.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2021.

"But since it falls unto my lot

The Parting Glass was written in Scotland and has criss-crossed the Irish Sea, becoming a popular song among Celtic peoples around the world.

Folk singer Karine Polwart, talks of its fragile beauty as a song that can be a rousing drinking song at the end of the night but equally a poignant farewell at a funeral.

For Alaskan Fire Chief Benjamin Fleagle, there was no more fitting song to honour his mentor and colleague at his Fire Department when he passed away over a decade ago.

Alissa McCulloch 'clung' to the song when she heard the Irish singer Hozier sing a version of it at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. At the time, Alissa was mentally unwell at home in Australia and was admitted to hospital where she listened to the song over and over finding comfort in its timeless beauty.

After Canada's worst mass shooting in its history, Pete MacDonald and his sisters recorded an acapella version of the song as a musical tribute to those who lost their lives. It's a tradition in Nova Scotia to sing in the kitchen at parties, wakes and celebrations and they wanted to pay their respects to the dead.

Irish singer Finbar Furey has performed the song with his band the Fureys and talks about its appeal not only in Scotland and Ireland but throughout the Scots-Irish diaspora.

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact

Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2021.

The Carpenters - brother and sister duo Richard and Karen - were one of the most popular groups of the 1970s.

His outstanding compositions and her stunning vocals created several massive hits including We've Only Just Begun.

Originally written as a TV advert for a bank portraying happy young couples embarking on married life full of hope, they loved it and released it as their third single in 1970. Karen's wistful voice gave the song a melancholy that has long resonated with fans.

After her premature death from heart failure due to anorexia nervosa, the song took on an extra poignancy with lyrics like "so much of life ahead".

Fans tell their stories about the song and how it relates to their own life journeys.

For Professor Karen Tongson (named after the singer), We've Only Just Begun is about growing up in the Philippines where The Carpenters epitomised the American Dream. When she emigrated to the USA, the song became a metaphor for the immigrant experience.

Nomad and writer Jeff Read remembers his childhood in a poor part of Los Angeles brought up by a single mother who eventually died homeless on the street. The song brings back memories of childhood optimism and his longing for a stable family life.

Poet Abigail George recalls seeing a film about Karen Carpenter's life and identifying with the singer's struggles with an eating disorder as she herself had to cope with a difficult family life in South Africa.

Retired policeman John Weiss was reminded of the song when he attended the death of an elderly person at a care home. John looked at the deceased man's wedding photos and was struck by the brevity of life.

The singer Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes always loved The Carpenters and recorded her own version of We've Only Just Begun as part of an album where things don't end well for the young bride. Ironically, her version now features in a commercial for a British bank so the song has come full circle.

Randy Schmidt is the author of Little Girl Blue (The Life of Karen Carpenter).

Versions of the song featured are by

Grant Lee Buffalo

Producer: Maggie Ayre

A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in July 2021.

This disco classic tells a powerful story: that of a young, gay man leaving his homophobic small town for the freedom of the big city. Released in 1984, Smalltown Boy continues to resonate and has become an anthem for the LGBTQ+ community. The track appeared on their album 'The Age of Consent' which drew attention to the inequality between the ages at which heterosexual people and homosexual men were legally able to have sex.

Taking part in the programme:

Shaun Dellenty, an ex primary school leader and author who developed an award winning LGBT+ training programme 'Celebrating Difference-Inclusion For All' which he now delivers to students and staff around the world.

Paul Flynn, journalist and author of 'Good As You, 30 Years of Gay Britain'.

Diane Anderson-Minshall, CEO and Editorial Director of Pride Media.

Colin Crummy, freelance journalist

Neil Brand, pianist, composer, writer and broadcaster

Adam Carver aka Fatt Butcher, drag artist, creative producer, and community organiser.

Archive: The audio of Jimmy Somerville is taken from the BBC archives

Music:: various versions of Smalltown Boy by Jimmy Somerville, and Bronski Beat. Also covers by Dido, and Orville Peck.

Produced by Karen Gregor for BBC Audio in Bristol.

Sunshine on Leith was released in 1988 but didn't become the big hit The Proclaimers had hoped for.

However it has endured and become an anthem of love and a celebration of life.

It is the song played at Hibs FC matches and has come to symbolise the sense of community felt by supporters. Margaret Alcorn recalls how she and her husband were involved in the Hibs Supporters Club organising and taking part in social events for local people in Leith.

When their club came under threat from a merger with rival Edinburgh team Hearts she and her husband worked tirelessly to preserve it - and when her husband passed away the song was played at his funeral.

Musician Ross Wilson grew up in Leith and is also a passionate Hibs Supporter. The feelings of comfort and solidarity he experiences at home games led him to create his own version of the song which he performed with a choir to celebrate one of his favourite songs that reminds him of home and that he calls true soul music.

Melinda Tetley's family would always sing Proclaimers songs at home in Edinburgh while her three children were growing up. But when her teenage son fell ill with leukaemia, the song took on a special significance for them culminating in a spontaneous joyful singalong on a walk along a lochside.

The human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith is a big fan of The Proclaimers and remembers seeing them perform Sunshine on Leith in New Orleans just days after 9/11 to an audience of exactly eight people - half of whom were the prosecuting team in a Death Row murder case he was defending.

Musicologist Dave Robb who toured with The Proclaimers explains the song's lasting emotional appeal and spiritual beauty.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.

Life on Mars was released on David Bowie's Hunky Dory album in 1971.

Two years later it came out as a single in its own right. Famous for its exploration of disillusionment and alienation, there is no one single definitive story behind it. But that is perhaps the song's beauty and the secret behind its appeal - that its cryptic lyrics are open to interpretation, and can mean different things to different people.

Musicians and fans talk about what Life on Mars? means to them, and its lasting emotional impact.

Special programme made to mark Bowie's birthday on January 8th 1947 and commemorating his death on January 10th 2016.

And what does the question mark in the song's title mean?

With contributions from:

* Musician Dana Gillespie whose autobiography is Weren't Born A Man

Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio Bristol

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2021.

Stories from people about how ‘Once In A Lifetime’, Talking Heads' existential hit from 1980, touched their lives.

Talking Heads emerged out of the post punk scene of the late 1970s. 'Once In A Lifetime' is the iconic single taken from their album Remain In Light. With its looped synthesizer and Afrobeat inspired by Fela Kuti it seemed to pre-empt the consumerism and ennui of the 1980s.

Writer Ian Gittins interviewed David Byrne and later wrote his book Once In A Lifetime. He says David Byrne had in mind people of a certain middle class existence who seemingly breeze through life with ease when he wrote the lyrics. They may get to middle age or reach a crisis point and ask "How did I get here?" For a song that invites us to question our lives it has a surprisingly emotional core that encourages people to be grateful and make positive changes in their lives where necessary.

For Glaswegian Gerry Murphy that meant becoming more present for his family after serious illness forced him to reconsider the amount of time he devoted to his career. He went on to write a book about his experience - And You May Find Yourself: A Guided Practice To Never Fearing Death Again.

Ian Peddie was inspired by the song to leave his dead end existence in Wolverhampton in the mid 1980s to 'find himself in another part of the world' following his dreams.

Kelly Waterhouse says the song symbolises gratitude for all the things she takes for granted and sometimes struggles with in her life as a busy working mother.

And singer Angelique Kidjo recorded her own version of Once In A Lifetime in 2018 after coming full circle with the song from her arrival in Paris in 1983 after fleeing the dictatorship in her home country of Benin. She heard the song at a student party and recognised the Afrobeats adopted by David Byrne and Brian Eno that made her feel both joyful and homesick at the same time.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.

As Christmas approaches, Soul Music leads you through Advent with the Appalachian carol "I Wonder as I Wander".

Written by American folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles, its origins come from a song fragment collected in 1933.

Mysterious, inspiring, this traditional Christmas carol reflects on the nativity and the nature of wondering.

While in the town of Murphy in Appalachian North Carolina, Niles attended a fundraising meeting held by evangelicals who had been ordered out of town by the police. He wrote of hearing the song:

“A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievably dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins. ... she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song”.

The girl, named Annie Morgan, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, and a magnificent idea". Based on this fragment, Niles composed the version of "I Wonder as I Wander" that is known today.

This most unusual of carols touches people in different ways. With childhood memories from a 1960’s RAF base in Oxfordshire, a Nigerian school girl who found her place in Winchester Cathedral, reflections from a candlelit vigil in an Appalachian town, and a Christmas gift as described by world renowned singer Melanie Marshall.

With guests:

* Performer Melanie Marshall

Featuring music from:

* John Rutter

Consultant: Ted Olson.

Producer: Nicola Humphries

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.

An enduring classic which delivers a message of support and friendship.

Never more so than in 2020 when Lean On Me by Bill Withers was the musical backdrop to the Covid crisis in the UK, and at Black Lives Matter protests in the US.

Featuring:

Andy Greene, a senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine, who tells the remarkable life-story of Bill Withers.

Composer, Neil Brand, explains how the simplicity of this track is what enables it to pack such a strong emotional punch.

Sara Morrell is a nurse whose version of Lean On Me, recorded quickly at home as a way of cheering-up colleagues, caught the attention of some big names in the music industry.

Sharmila Bousa organised a community flash-mob to show support to her local shops in Westbury-on-Trym which had suffered a spate of armed-robberies.

Arianna Evans has become a voice of the Black Lives Matter protests. She recalls a powerful moment at one of the Washington DC rallies where local singer, Kenny Sway, sang Lean On Me creating a memorable and much-needed moment of joy and unity.

Thanks to: Ian DeMartino who recorded the speech given by Arianna Evans; Zaranyzerak who provided the recording of Kenny Sway's performance; and to Tristan Cork who filmed the Westbury-on-Trym flashmob for Bristol Live.

Produced at BBC Bristol by Karen Gregor.

A BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in December 2020.