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When Jazz Came to Europe

The British Invasion. Europop. Bubblegum. The West Coast Sound. In the age before instant gratification, musical trends used to take their time to cross the Atlantic. As teenagers in Liverpool, John Lennon and Paul Macartney relied on American sailors and local music stores to bring them the latest from, say, Big Mama Thornton and Little Richard. Similarly, when Sam Wooding took his eleven piece band and 30 dancing girls by sea and rail to Berlin in 1925, they were lionized. Not least because, unlike in Paris, Black faces were a complete rarity. Much more than that, as their fame spread around the continent so did the American style of syncopated jazz they brought with them. Tony Staveacre and I are happy to bring you the story of When Jazz Came To Europe.

Tony’s Taste of Comedy

When Tony Staveacre was trying to get to the bottom of his life’s obsession with comedy, he went back to the 4th century BCE for a word from Aristotle. The great dramatist opined that it is the power of laughter which defines us as human beings. So when the news is grim and we are looking for messengers we can trust, their ability to put things in perspective can often raise an unexpected laugh. In the words of The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan’s washed-up spy sealed-off from the outside world in a dystopian village, “humour is the very essence of a democratic society.” In this flying visit to a century of fun, with stops in both  forgotten and unforgettable places, TS presents Tony’s Taste of Comedy.

Dream World – The Life and Death of Al Bowlly

Tony Staveacre has been back into his archives and once again he has pulled out a plum. Tapes and tapes of interviews from the mid-1970s with musicians who played with one of the greatest stars of them all. As we face uncertain times, it’s cheering to discover that in the middle of the Depression, people partied like there was no tomorrow. Out in front was an inveterate party animal, a crooner who went from singing for theatre queues to outselling Bing Crosby. At the height of his fame in Britain, Al Bowlly set sail for America where he promptly headlined the brand new Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. It seemed he was going up and up, until he wasn’t. And then the bomb fell. Here, with seven of his original hits, TS presents Dream World – The Life and Death of Al Bowlly.

Tim’s Comedy Links

Early in 2002, Tony Staveacre proposed a radio show to his friend, the beloved British comedian Tim Brooke Taylor. They would celebrate at least two of Tim’s great loves, after his family  – golf and comedy – by playing a round together at the club where Tim grew up and learned to play, the Cavendish in Buxton Derbyshire. Actually Tim would play and Tony would caddy for him. Tim’s Comedy Links is a celebration of some great radio comedians who were to Tim what he was to a new generation.

The Band Played On

On the Titanic eight members of Bristol’s charmingly named Savage Club sat down at their instruments in the city’s Red Lodge and started to play. The resulting entertainment, scripted by Tony Staveacre and thick with the atmosphere of an Edwardian parlour, was The Band Played On. Here Tony and I recreate this paeon to White Star Orchestra, the band on SS Titanic.

Astor Piazzolla – The Last Interview

In July 1989 the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla flew from Berlin to Bristol, UK, at the invitation of a BBC producer. Tony Staveacre was convinced that Piazzolla would make an excellent subject, and so it turned out. One July night, Piazzolla and his sextet played a memorable set before an invited studio audience. He also sat for an interview and talked frankly with Tony about the troubled birth of the musical form he invented – New Tango. It was to be his last public conversation, and never broadcast. Here is that interview for the first time, stirringly illustrated from the sextet session – more than thirty years since Piazzolla’s death.

Allan Schiller – Music Made Me, part two

ALLAN SCHILLER launched his professional career as a concert pianist at the age of nine, playing Haydn’s D major Concerto with the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra at Leeds Town Hall. He went on to make his name as a soloist, playing for audiences near and far with great international orchestras. In this second part of “Music Made Me” we can hear a shy and gifted young student grow into his illustrious career while coming to terms with life in 1960s U.S.S.R.

Allan Schiller – Music Made Me, part one

ALLAN SCHILLER is a modest maestro, acclaimed in The Guardian as the best Mozart interpreter of his generation. Now aged 80, and still playing his Steinway for several hours a day in his Bristol home, he has taken time out to write and record an account of his life in music. Here it is, read by the author, who also provides the elegant musical illustrations.

Up On the Roof — An Up All Night Flashback

It was 50 years ago to the day when four of the very few people in the world who can actually say “I was there” talked to RHOD SHARP about The Beatles’ rooftop concert on January 30, 1969. In a conversation broadcast on BBC 5 Live’s Up All Night in 2019, Let It Be director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Apple Corps’ Kevin Harrington and Ken Mansfield and Metropolitan police constable Ken Wharfe provide a fresh take on the events depicted anew in Peter Jackson’s extended documentary.

Our House – Robert Moore

Robert Moore of Britain’s ITV News stepped out one January morning a year ago into quite possibly the biggest scoop of his career. By luck and judgement he and his crew would be there in the Capitol reporting on the first time in US history that the building had been breached by a hostile force: a force of self-described American patriots.

The Revolution’s Black Soldiers

At least 5000 Black soldiers fought on the colonists’ side in the American war of of independence, despite a tempting offer to join the British forces. When a new school is dedicated to one of them, ALGY WARD tells the story of Marblehead’s Joseph Brown.

Our Town – Chris Hood

Rhod Sharp gets into the rich yachting history of Marblehead Massachusetts with the yacht designer and builder CHRIS HOOD.

Risk! Heather Cairns and Rick Boyd

Our Town – Heather Cairns

It all began with… a Chinese dinner? Or did it begin when HEATHER CAIRNS would invigilate the tests taken by two “child prodigy” graduate students in the engineering faculty at Stanford. Anyway, one thing led to another. Heather eventually returned to her home town on Boston’s North Shore where people still call her The Google Lady.

Our Town – Bette Hunt

One hot day in June, Rhod joins BETTE HUNT, the emeritus historian of Marblehead, Mass. for a walk through the town’s almost 400 year old graveyard. Old Burial Hill connects the living with the dead in some strange ways as they discourse on Thornton Wilder’s famous play, George Washington’s favorite general, the Marblehead woman convicted at the Salem witch trials and the fairly undiscussed existence of a “negro” burial site in this quintessentially Yankee town.

When America Stopped Being Great – Nick Bryant

The BBC’s New York correspondent sees the USA that so excited him as a youth sapped of vitality, politically divided against itself but in an old saying, always headed to hell and never getting there. When America Stopped Being great merges Bryant’s reporting experiences with a historian’s perspective in a way which, as the Washington Post said, gives foreign laments a fresh arc.

Our Town – The Missing Paintings (part 2)

He tried to hawk them from his wheelbarrow and even built a backyard museum for them without success. After his death some of his paintings were used as building material by his cash-strapped son. And yet as his huge output of historically significant work became better known in the 1950s, “a pretty big shadow” was cast over the art of JOJ Frost. What prevented people who owned his paintings from coming forward? Rhod hears from one of the mother and daughter team who have done more than anyone to try to bring the rest of Frost’s surviving “canvases” to light.

Our Town – The Missing Paintings

Who hid the painting in the wall of that old house? Rhod delves into the story of the eccentric artist JOJ Frost, who tried unsuccessfully to sell his pictures from a wheelbarrow, and whose paintings were worth less during the Depression than the boards they were painted on. Yet he left an incomparable account of a vanished way of life. And his paintings keep on turning up.

Once Upon a Rhodcast

Rhod Sharp discovers the pilot of a never-to-be-made podcast series. This cornucopia of offbeat stories from the first week of July 2008 may be of special interest to fans of Rhod’s appearances on BBC 5 Live’s Up All Night.

Bitcoin Millionaire – Rick Boyd

The outrageous success story of RICK BOYD. Since being furloughed by the pandemic from his job managing a small resort in southern Florida, he has done so well trading Bitcoin that he says neither he nor his wife he will ever have to work again.

London’s Cycle Wars – Jeremy Vine

Land – Simon Winchester

Republic of Broken Windows, 4 – John Nichols

Republic of Broken Windows, 3 – Patt Morrison

Republic of Broken Windows, 2 – Ethan Zuckerman

A president bound over to the Senate for impeachment yet who said not a word about it in his latest video. What really sent President Donald Trump ballistic in the words of a senior aide quoted by Politico was the decision by Twitter to block his output permanently. ETHAN ZUCKERMAN is associate professor of public policy and information at U Mass Amherst and he has studied social media since it was in diapers (nappies to you). What does it mean to “deplatform” a president, and where do his followers go from here?

Republic of Broken Windows, 1 – Rep. Seth Moulton

RHOD SHARP reports the American Insurrection of 2021 in the countdown to the inauguration of President Biden. Representative SETH MOULTON relates his own experience of the Congressional invasion and discusses Monday’s first steps by the House of Representatives towards the second impeachment trial for President Donald Trump.

A Christmas Celtic Sojourn – Brian O’Donovan

Facing the awful producers’ dilemma of 2020, BRIAN O’DONOVAN, host of WGBH’s insanely popular A Celtic Sojourn, talked to the artists signed for this year’s live show and they decided to bubble. Like basketball players, they would see only each other while they taped this year’s online version. And it worked. With music from past years, here is our Christmas offering to you.

A Love Letter to America, 2 – Jim Naughtie

Starting at a party thrown by the Kennedy family at their compound on Martha’s Vineyard and ending with an autumn 2020 encounter in a Scranton, PA. coffee shop with two voters separated by generations and party affiliation, JIM NAUGHTIE weaves more stories of the  changing American body politic while asserting unshakeable faith in human nature. 

A Love Letter to America, 1 – Jim Naughtie

Even if it was hard to see the outlines of America’s 2020 presidential election for all the shouting in the political fog, listeners to BBC Radio 4 were in the best possible hands. Rhod talks to his old friend JAMES (Jim) NAUGHTIE about Jim’s introduction to the country 50 years ago this year and other memories collected in a new book On The Road.

Beyond the Red Sofa – Graham Stuart

Four million viewers in the UK alone were waiting for him to pull it off, but how did the team who produce The Graham Norton Show do it? GRAHAM STUART, Graham Norton’s executive producer, lifts the lid on lockdown TV — and relives The Tay Bridge Disaster.

The Boy in the Field – Margot Livesey

In a big year for books, Rhod Sharp talks to the writer Margot Livesey about sending a new novel into the world in time of Covid. It’s late summer when Rhod invites Margot into his garden for a conversation about The Boy In The Field.

Election Extra – Young Voters

We can’t let it pass. As committed citizens of the world, we cannot afford to seek comfort in ignorance in the final tumultuous weeks leading up to this election for the next leader of the United States. Join me and a group of four involved and articulate young Americans as we discuss the disease which has turned their world upside down. Let’s hope they don’t miss their shot in the age that is to come.

Poet in Lockdown – Ian McMillan

Ian McMillan – Poet in Lockdown. It’s official. Formerly Barnsley’s Poet Laureate, Ian is now the Yorkshire ex-mining town’s poet in lockdown. Rhod and Ian discuss how poetry can break the bonds of confinement and riff on what Ian calls the universal in the local. Special this week, 400% more poetry than in previous RHODcasts.

The Anarchy – William Dalrymple

The prize-winning historian and author William Dalrymple discusses Britain’s rosy view of its history in India with Rhod as they turn the pages of The Anarchy, an unblinking look at two centuries of corporate misconduct by officers of the East India Company.