大象传媒

Charles Hazlewood takes a personal journey around Britain, uncovering the music that has shaped who we are today. The music of this Island is incredibly diverse and in this six-part series, Charles Hazlewood examines and celebrates our unique pop music heritage.

Through interviews with the musicians who live and make music here, Charles will explore and illustrate musically, some of the themes that have shaped British pop music today.

In this episode, Charles explores folk music and the beginnings of pop. Ray Davies talks about why he started to write songs of social observation and how the themes of nostalgia, class and identity are so important to him.

Sussex singer Shirley Collins describes how her vision and songwriting became refined when she left Britain and how folk music can be enthralled with melancholy.

Charles also gets the chance to play one of the most enduring British folk songs with Eliza Carthy. Plus, interviews from Richard Thompson and producer Joe Boyd, and Charles reveals how singers began to reflect their own personal reflections on life, rather than those that had gone before.

But what does the music reveal about the people that play it? How has it shaped Britain?