Soul Music

'The Way You Look Tonight' was written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields for the 1936 film 'Swing Time'. Sung by Fred Astaire to Ginger Rogers while she was washing her hair, the song won an Oscar. It has been recorded by Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. Sarah Woodward, daughter of actor Edward, recalls how aged seven, she watched him sing it on The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show with his 'angelic' voice.Theatre director Michael Bawtree remembers the song being his father's favourite, and being distraught when he broke the gramophone record as a five-year-old.And Glaswegian singer, Eddie Toal describes making an album of jazz songs, including 'The Way You Look Tonight' to remember his late wife, Irene.Series about pieces of music that make a powerful emotional impact. Producer: Sara Conkey First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2016.

Memories of a prison camp in the Arizona desert, a tsunami and a plane crash are stirred by the bittersweet Japanese song Sukiyaki, a huge global hit of the 1960s.Originally released in Japan with the title 'Ue o Muite Arukou' ('I Look Up As I Walk'), the song was retitled 'Sukiyaki' (the name for a type of beef stew) for international release. It went to No 1 in the USA, Canada and Australia and placed in the top 10 of the UK singles chart. With melancholy lyrics set to a bright and unforgettable melody, it has since been covered hundreds of times in countless languages. California peach farmer Mas Masumoto tells the story of his family's internment in an Arizona relocation camp following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and explains what the song meant to him and many other Japanese-Americans in the years after the Second World War. Violinist and composer Diana Yukawa plays the song as a way to remember her father, who died in the same plane crash that killed Kyu Sakamoto, the original singer of 'Sukiyaki'. Michael Bourdaghs, author of 'Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon', talks about the songwriting team behind the song (Rokusuke Ei, Hachidai Nakamura and Kyu Sakamoto), and the surprising roots of the song in the Japanese protest movement of the early 1960s. Janice-Marie Johnson of A Taste of Honey talks about writing an English version of the song and how she interpreted the Japanese lyrics. While Gemma Treharne-Foose speaks about her experience of travelling to Japan from her home in the Rhondda Valleys, and what the song came to mean to her. And we hear the story of how Ue o Muite Arukou became a 'prayer for hope' following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 from musician Masami Utsunomiya. Producer: Mair BosworthFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2016

Bring Him Home is a beautiful and moving prayer-in-song that has developed meaning and identity outside of the hit musical, from Les Miserables.What has been its impact? Celebrated tenor, Alfie Boe has sung it many times in the West End and on Broadway. He discusses what the song means to him.Herbert Kretzmer talks about the agonising process of writing the lyrics.The Greater Manchester Police Male Voice Choir recorded a version especially for the programme; one of their members describes singing it at the funeral of PC Dave Phillips in 2015.The original Cosette, from Les Miserables, Rebecca Caine now sings this song - written for a male voice - regularly as part of international recitals.And for Becky Douglas it will forever be a reminder of her daughter whose death inspired the foundation of a leprosy charity.Jeremy Summerly, Director of Music at St Peter's College, Oxford plays through the piece and describes why it moves us emotionally.Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact. Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2016.

The tragi-comic tale of love gone sour and shattered dreams eloquently depicted in the Christmas classic Fairytale of New York is the focus of this edition of Soul Music. James Fearnley, pianist with The Pogues recounts how the song started off as a transatlantic love story between an Irish seafarer missing his girl at Christmas before becoming the bittersweet reminiscences of the Irish immigrant down on his luck in the Big Apple, attempting to win back the woman he wooed with promises of 'cars big as bars and rivers of gold'.Gaelic footballer Alisha Jordan came to New York to play football aged 17 from County Meath in Ireland. Despite being dazzled by the glamour and pace of New York City, she missed her family and friends and stencilled the words 'Fairytale of New York' on her apartment wall as an affirmation of her determination to make the most of her new life in the city. When she was later attacked on the street by a stranger, the words came to signify her battle to recover and not to let the horrific facial injuries she suffered defeat her or her ambition to captain her football team. Rachel Burdett posted the video of the song onto her friend Michelle's social media page to let her know she was thinking of her and praying for her safe return when Michelle went missing suddenly one December. Stories of redemption and of a recognition that Christmas is often not the fairytale we are sold, told through a seasonal favourite.Producer: Maggie Ayre.

Edward Elgar's incomparable Nimrod, and the part it plays in people's lives, is explored this week:Composed as part of the Enigma Variations in the latter part of the 19th century, Nimrod was inspired by Elgar's friend and music editor, Augustus Jaeger.In an interview for this programme, Jaeger's granddaughter, Gillian Scully, talks about her grandfather and describes hearing her own granddaughter playing Nimrod at a school concert.The Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch - National Chaplain to the Royal British Legion - talks about hearing it played at the Festival of Remembrance in the Royal Albert Hall stirring memories of his own father who died in WW2, and serving as a reminder of all those lost or injured in war.Margaret Evison's son, Lieutenant Mark Evison of the Welsh Guards, was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. Nimrod played an important part in his funeral which was held at The Guard's Chapel in London.For Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive of the charity Turning Point, Nimrod is a piece that reminds him of his father and the struggles he had as a Nigerian immigrant to the UK.Composer and conductor, Paul Spicer, plays through Nimrod at the piano exploring why it is a piece that stirs such deep emotions.Producer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.

The Brecht/Weill song Mack The Knife first appeared in The Threepenny Opera in Berlin in 1928. Sung about the criminal MacHeath, the 'play with music' is based on John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, who was inspired by the real-life English highwayman, Jack Sheppard.The song became a hit when performed in 1959 by Bobby Darin. Ella Fitzgerald famously forgot the words when performing live in Berlin in 1960, and her improvised version won a Grammy.Suzi Quatro talks about how she performed it with her father as a child, playing bongos to accompany him.Lenny Kaye from the Patti Smith Group recalls how he and Patti did a version of 'Mack The Knife' at their first ever performance together at St Marks Church in New York on 10th February 1971, as it was Brecht's birthday.Film-maker Malcolm Clark tells the story of the song's first public performer, Kurt Gerron, an actor and director, who took the song into the darkest places of the Third Reich.Contributors:Stephen Hinton Stephen Parker Jane Tipping John Bird Malcolm Clarke Lenny Kaye Suzi QuatroSeries about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact. Producer: Sarah ConkeyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.

Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica (Lord Bless Africa) is a song that runs through the very soul of South African life. It was originally composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Xhosa clergyman at a Methodist mission school near Johannesburg who is said to have been inspired by the melody of John Parry's 'Aberystwyth', a hymn that would've been shared by Welsh missionary's at that time. It went on to travel the African continent but most significantly it became one of the defining symbols of a united South Africa - a country that still holds this song at its heart. Having travelled through the country's Christian congregations it soon rang out from meetings and protest rallies throughout the apartheid era eventually becoming the unofficial anthem of the ANC (African National Congress Party). At a time of great hardship and pain, it was a song that offered hope and encouragement to millions of South Africans. Having being sentenced to life imprisonment, Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica was the song that Nelson Mandela will have heard being sung out by his supporters as he and his fellow ANC members were driven away to Robben Island. Decades later it was the hymn that he would use to unify his country as it was adapted into the South African National Anthem. Featuring interviews with: Albert Mazibuko of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Lord Joel Joffe, author Sindiwe Magona, Edward Griffiths - former CEO of South African Rugby during the 1995 World Cup, music journalist Robin Denslow and the Za Foundation's Zakhele Choir. Produced in Bristol by Nicola HumphriesFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.**We’re sorry that due to copyright restrictions, if you are listening abroad, you will not be able to listen to this programme.**

Mr Blue Sky is the Electric Light Orchestra's brilliantly off-beam classic song. It was released as a single in 1978, having first appeared on the ELO album 'Out of the Blue' in 1977. Written by Jeff Lynne, it was a no.6 hit in the UK, and has endured on the radio airwaves ever since.Tracey Collinson whose husband, Nigel, loved the track tells of the meaning it has for her.Musicologist, Allan Moore, discusses the anomolous use of the word 'blue': usually associated with downbeat emotions, this is a peculiar subversion of that cultural norm with the word 'blue' conjuring happiness and good weather.Tremayne Crossley and his friend, Jo Milne, tell the extraordinary story of how Jo heard music for the first time. This track played an important role in that event.For Dr. Sam Illingworth, Mr Blue Sky will always take him back to the low-flying research-flights he made over the wetlands, greenlands and seas of the Arctic Circle with the shadow of the BAE146 plane beneath him and clear blue skies above.The children of King's St. Albans in Worcester sing the track featuring at the end of the programme. Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impactProducer: Karen GregorFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2015.

This much-loved hymn based on Psalm 23 has been set to music many times, including Brother James' Air and Crimond. The Queen requested the Crimond version at her wedding. Harriet Bowes Lyon's tells the story that her mother, Lady Margaret Colville, ( formerly Lady Margaret Egerton) taught the descant to the Queen and Princess Margaret, and was summoned to sing it when, two days before the wedding, the descant music could not be found. Howard Goodall, who wrote a new setting for 'The Vicar of Dibley' describes how he composed it in a taxi. Selina Scott says that the Crimond always puts her in mind of her Scottish grandmother.Contributors: Howard Goodall Ian Bradley Marion Dodd Emily Badger Athena Kruger Esther Sternberg Selina Scott Harriet Bowes-Lyon Adrian Goldberg First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

"Tomorrow we're going in search of a song and in search of a dream of England which has travelled right around the world" - Will ParsonsNo one can be sure of the true origins of the song Scarborough Fair. It's a melody of mystery, of voices of old, of ancient days. It's travelled through land and time, drawing singers and listeners in where ever they maybe.For Will Parsons and Guy Hayward it's a song that has inspired a pilgrimage through a landscape that is embodied in the lyrics. Setting off from Whitby Abbey, they journey to Scarborough on foot, sensing the song as they go, learning to sing it, interpreting it in a new way just as thousands of traditional singers have done throughout time.This too is the landscape of Martin Carthy, the 'father of folk' who has made his home along the Yorkshire coast. It was from this legendary singer that Paul Simon first learnt Scarborough Fair, creating a version that came to represent a generation continuing its journey far and wide, weaving its spell in many different guises, never truly being pinned down.Decades on Harpist Claire Jones recorded a version of her own. Arranged by her husband, the composer Chris Marshall, hers is a very personal journey through unexpected illness to recovery. Whilst for Mike Masheder it is a song that brings memories of his wife Sally, who approached the journey of life with love and equanimity. "It can change or stay the same. And the more it changes, the more it stays the same" - Martin CarthyWith expert contribution from Sandra Kerr, musician and lecturer at Newcastle University School of Arts and Culture.Producer: Nicola HumphriesFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2015