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Stuart Maconie sits in, and Edward II guest

Stuart Maconie sits in for Mark Radcliffe, and folk-reggae band Edward II talk with Mark about local broadside songs in Manchester Central Library.

An hour of the best folk and acoustic music from Britain and beyond.

This week, Stuart Maconie sits in for Mark, and you can hear Mark's visit to Manchester Central Library with folk-reggae band Edward II, to look at broadside ballads from the industrial revolution.

The band, along with Manchester singer Jennifer Reid, discuss their new album called Manchester's Improving Daily. The project sees them rework a classic collection of 19th century broadside songs about life in the city.

Broadsides were cheap pieces of street literature, printed on single sheets of paper and pasted on walls in pubs and other public places. They were used to spread news and ideas in the form of song lyrics, which would then be sung to a mostly illiterate audience.

Collections of broadsides, like the one in Manchester, are among the main ways that folk songs have survived for hundreds of years.

57 minutes

Last on

Wed 16 Mar 2016 19:00

Music Played

  • Eddi Reader

    Willie Stewart

  • The Fair Rain

    Mannequin

  • Flats & Sharps

    Ninety-Nine Years and One Dark Day

  • Coope Boyes & Simpson

    The Emperor's New Clothes

  • Edward II

    Manchester's Improving Daily

  • Jennifer Reis

    Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night

  • Edward II

    Kersal Moor

  • Megson

    Generation Rent

  • Paddy Breen

    Katie's Reel

  • Michael Daly & Liam Farrell

    The Galway Rambler

  • Buena Vista Social Club

    Amor de Loca Juventud

  • Kris Drever

    Capernaum

Broadcast

  • Wed 16 Mar 2016 19:00