The Big Hewer - A Radio Ballad by Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker & Peggy Seeger, released on Argo in 1967 but first broadcast on the BBC Home Service in 1960.

Coalmining presented itself as a natural subject for a radio ballad since Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger had spent part of 1960 working as resident songwriters and music arrangers for the National Coal Board film department. The Big Hewer was the fourth in the series and named after the mythically prodigious miner of coal legend who appears by a different name in each mining locality (a similar figure with superhuman work powers, John Henry, exists in American work gang mythology).

https://ewanmaccoll.bandcamp.com/album/the-radio-ballads-the-big-hewer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf7LuLSJBLM

#EwanMcColl #PeggySeeger #CharlesParker #RadioBallad #FolkMusic #CoalMining #BBC #Music

Song Of A Road - A Radio Ballad About The Building Of The M1 Motorway by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, Charles Parker, released on Topic Records in 1999 but broadcast on the BBC Home Service in 1959.

A radio ballad is a sound-tapestry woven of four basic elements: songs, instrumental music, sound effects and the recorded voices of those with whose lives each program deals.

After the relatively contained Ballad of John Axon, the scope of the second radio ballad widened considerably. The construction of Britain's first motor-highway, the M1 or, as it was then known, the London-Yorkshire motorway, then stood at 57 miles of muddy road and a workforce of 19,000 men. From the simple telling of a story, the team now had a much more ambitious subject with its shadowy chronology, complex background and multitudinous tradesmen, labourers, management and administrators.

https://ewanmaccoll.bandcamp.com/album/the-radio-ballads-song-of-a-road

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOjWsoy6IME

#EwanMcColl #PeggySeeger #RadioBallad #Motorway #BBC #Music #SpokenWord

Ted Tocks Covers

The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face

Originally posted on April 15, 2018

Remembering Roberta Flack

The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the endless skies, my love
To the dark and the endless skies

#EwanMacColl #PeggySeeger #RobertaFlack #GordonLightfoot

https://tedtockscovers.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/the-first-time-ever-i-saw-your-face/