Song for Belper

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BBC Radio 4 - Song for Belper

The wonderful history of pop songs and music commissioned by town councils around Britain.

Writer and musician Jason Hazeley and producer Peter Curran talk to composers, performers and town planners about the strange history of pop songs commissioned by town councils.

Britain has a revered canon of Great Music inspired by particular places and composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, Arnold Bax and others. Music performed live across the centuries and evoking parts of the British Isles in the imagination of millions around the world through recordings.

Then there’s the pop records released in the 1970s and 80s that were commissioned by town councils around Britain to promote the joys of the place and its people. 

These are the small songs about places that were not created by great artists in the bliss of inspiration - but by the offer of hard cash, as an answer to critics, or as social engineering by a local council. 

Bafta-winning writer and musician Jason Hazeley (Ladybird Books, Portishead) and producer Peter Curran enlist the help of legendary DJ Tony Blackburn, Emmy-winning James Bond and Sherlock composer David Arnold and contemporary architecture and social historian, John Grindrod. They are joined by town planner John Frankland and songwriters Tracey Wilkinson from the Rough Truffles Community Choir and The Rt Hon Sir Gregory Knight MP, composer of It’s a Leicester Fiesta.


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