BBC Radio 2 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Light Programme.

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Russell Davies

Music: Easy Listening, Soundtracks & Musicals

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Russell Davies celebrates the art, craft and inspiration of the popular song

Russell Davies: 02/12/2012

02/12/2012

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Russell Davies, 02/12/2012

As we come into December, Russell opens with a sequence of winter-associated songs.

As we come into December, Russell opens with a sequence of winter-associated songs. Other featured artists include Doris Day and Harry Nilsson.

As we come into December, Russell presents a little sequence of winter-associated songs: Flanders & Swann's Song Of The Weather, Irving Berlin's I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm, and Ted Shapiro's I Love The Winter Weather, each with a different message. 

Next up is a song that might have been more famous had it not shared honours in the film Holiday Inn with Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Be Careful, It's My Heart is sung by Frank Sinatra.

On this day 70 years ago, Enrico Fermi achieved the first nuclear chain reaction thus bringing about the Atomic Age. Two recordings mark this anniversary: The Golden Gate Quartet's Atom and Evil and, celebrating the Geiger counter, Doris Day with Tic Tic Tic. This song creates its own chain reaction from Gently Johnny, to Wooden Heart, to Hello Mary Lou. 

Most of the rest of the show is devoted to songs composed by Brooklyn-born writers - and sung by Brooklynites, too - like Harry Nilsson with Sylvia Fine's Lullaby In Ragtime and Lena Horne with George Gershwin's The Man I Love.

The programme concludes with Daryl Sherman's version of The Japanese Sandman, to note her imminent departure for a long residency in Tokyo.

Amazing music. Played by an amazing line up.

Radio 2: Amazing music. Played by an amazing line-up. The home of great music, entertainment and documentaries

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02/12/2012

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