Radio-ballad
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The radio-ballad is an audio documentary format created by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, and Charles Parker in 1958. It combines four elements of sound: songs, instrumental music, sound effects, and, most importantly, the recorded voices of those who are the subjects of the documentary. The latter element was revolutionary; previous radio documentaries had used either professional voice actors or prepared scripts.
The radio-ballads were originally recorded for the BBC. MacColl wrote a variety of songs especially for them, many of which have become folk classics. The trio together made eight radio-ballads between 1958 and 1964. They were: The Ballad of John Axon (1958), about railwaymen, Song of a Road (1959), about road-builders, Singing the Fishing (1960), about herring fishermen, The Big Hewer (1961), about coal miners, The Body Blow (1962), about people suffering from polio, On the Edge (1963), about teenagers in Britain, The Fight Game (1963), about boxers, and The Travelling People (1964), about the nomadic peoples of Britain.
All eight radio-ballads were released on LP, by Argo Records, and later on CD. They are also available via Listen Again on the BBC Radio 2 website.
[edit] 2006 Radio Ballads
In 2006, BBC Radio 2 broadcast six new Radio Ballads using the same format, with musical direction by John Tams, and contributions from Karine Polwart, Jez Lowe and Cara Dillon among others.
The following ballads were broadcast between February and April 2006: The Song of Steel on the decline of the Sheffield and Rotherham Steel Industry (27 February); The Enemy That Lives Within, on HIV/AIDS (6 March); The Horn of the Hunter, on Foxhunting (13 March); Swings and Roundabouts, on Travellers who run fairgrounds (20 March) Thirty Years of Conflict; on the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland (27 March); and The Ballad of the Big Ships, on the shipyards of the Tyne and the Clyde, (3 April).
