Robert Wyatt has been recognised as a prog-rock drummer, jazz composer, avant-garde cornet player, artist and activist in a wheelchair. But, above all else, he has been known by one of the most instantly recognisable and distinctive voices of the last fifty years. Forever associated with Shipbuilding, Elvis Costello's song written in reaction to the Falklands War, Wyatt's voice and the causes he gives voice to are intricately entwined. This intimate radio portrait, in his own words, traces...

Ten years ago rap superstar Jay-Z was struggling to get a record deal after being spurned by every major label - so he started his own. A decade on, with 20 million CD sales under his belt, he is now a major music industry player, and currently reigns as president of the legendary Def Jam records. He built on his success with lucrative sidelines in the fashion industry, a chain of bars, his own brand of vodka, and is also part-owner of a professional basketball team. Now some of America's...

Broadcaster Toby Amies digs into the archives to discover the value and significance of old vinyl. He uncovers a network of dealers and buyers, supplying a community of 'crate diggers' and 'beat miners' and a world in which samples from records bought for a few pence in a car boot sale can provide the basis for a million-selling hit.

In November 2005, Kate Bush broke a 12 year silence with the release of her double album 'Aerial', In this programme she gives a very rare interview to John Wilson in a special edition of Front Row, where she talks about why the album took so long to appear and tells some of the stories behind the songs.

Cerys Matthews celebrates the life of one of her musical heroines, the great gospel singer Mahalia ("Halie") Jackson, who died in 1972. Jackson became one of the most influential gospel singers in the world at the height of her popularity, inspiring singers like Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples. But she was also one of the unsung heroes of the civil rights movement in America, described by the legendary historian and broadcaster Studs Terkel as one of the bravest people he'd ever met. As a...

Fela Kuti is Africa's most famous musician. Before his death in 1997 he recorded nearly 50 albums and invented his own genre of music: Afrobeat. In the 70s and 80s his legendary club in Lagos was famed for housing the best live band on Earth. As witnessed by James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. But there was more to Fela Kuti than ground-breaking music. He was also a political revolutionary who spent his life strongly criticising successive military regimes in his native Nigeria....

In a rare interview, Neil Young talks to John Wilson about his album 'Americana' and his long, somewhat unpredictable career. He talks about his politics, the current state of the protest song and the joys of playing with his longterm sparring partners Crazy Horse.

Robin Denselow profiles the musician Youssou N'Dour as he reaches his 50th birthday, and travels to Senegal to interview the singer in his home city of Dakar. Denselow analyses not just his music but the way N'Dour has used it for the benefit of his country and his continent. He had huge success with the duet 7 Seconds with Neneh Cherry in 1994, but he has been making music for nearly 40 years and has collaborated with many international artists. Contributors include Peter Gabriel,...

John Aizlewood examines the oft derided genre of Progressive Rock, a catch all term for a variety of bands from Pink Floyd to Yes to Hawkwind to Jethro Tull. He talks to Floyd's David Gilmour, Rick Wakeman of Yes and Keith Emerson, and ponders the subtle difference between 'Prog' and 'Progressive', before asking the difficult question - was any of it any good?

Billy Preston was a musical genius. A child prodigy, he was first seen as a small boy performing live on national TV with Nat King Cole. He was a star of the Hammond Organ, an accomplished dancer and a talented singer-songwriter. He is the only person 'officially' recognised as the fifth Beatle, although that title would turn out to be more of a millstone than a milestone. By the 1970s he'd written three number one singles, toured and recorded with the Rolling Stones and collaborated with...

Nick Barraclough pays tribute to arguably one of the least recognised jobs in pop, that of the backing vocalist. Tracing the evolution of vocal harmony from Medieval canon through to Gladys Knight and the Pips, he draws a straight line from the ‘Fa-la-las’ of Tudor song through to 50s doowop with the help of arranger and musicologist Harvey Brough. Along the way we'll hear examples of the art from The Shangri-Las to Steely Dan, and find out what happens when session singers mover their larynxes.

Ziggy Stardust was a rock and roll fantasy. But David Bowie's fictional rockstar, around whom his 1972 album, stage show, and film were built, was inspired by a real performer, Vince Taylor, born in Isleworth, Middlesex. This programme uncovers the truth about a singer whose wild lifestyle ultimately destroyed him, but in so doing he gave rise to a myth that transcended glam-rock and science fiction. His record "Brand New Cadillac" remains to this day a British rock 'n' roll classic,...

In 1938, pianist and jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton was running a bar in New York, unable to get anyone to play his music and having failed to make much money out of his compositions. It was there that broadcaster Alistair Cooke came across him and persuaded folklorist Alan Lomax to record Morton at the piano, singing and reminiscing about his days in New Orleans. The resulting tapes form the basis for this programme. Historian Marybeth Hamilton examines the recordings, which lay untouched...

Music critic Pete Paphides tells the story behind three 'follow-up' albums - from Dexys Midnight Runners, Fleetwood Mac and Suede - with tales of musical pressure, creative differences, personal politics and mixed results. How many bands have found themselves with a massive and often unexpected hit album, only to struggle with the creation of their next opus? Sometimes the follow-up exceeds the first album, but often nerves kick in and bands are removed from the very stimulus that created...

John Wilson tells the story of American music promoter Bill Graham. Through his work with the top bands of the day, Graham pioneered big concerts in well-equipped venues and was the first to use rock music to raise money for good causes. Contributors include Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, biographer Robert Greenfield and British promoter Harvey Goldsmith.

Mark Lamarr looks at the little-known story of Memphis Minnie, known for her guitar skills, her rowdy ways and the song 'When the Levee Breaks' a musical celebration of a key moment in Blues history. 'Levee', later made famous by Led Zeppelin and Dylan, was released in 1929, long before guitars found amplification, in reference (like many blues songs of the time), to the great Mississippi flood of 1927. The flood was a huge factor in the Migration of African Americans into what would...

Stephen Evans talks to record producer Rick Rubin, who resurrected the faltering career of Johnny Cash in the early 1990s. Rubin talks about his close relationship with the country star and the remarkably personal music that came out of it.

The story of American traditional music is dominated by the father and son team John and Alan Lomax who discovered, recorded, and popularised the music of the poor, the dispossessed and voiceless. During Alan Lomax 's 1959 tourofthe southern states, he was accompanied by his then lover, English folk singer Shirley Collins , and here she tells the story of how he recorded the sounds of a world that was fast disappearing, but which still influences popular music today.

In the summer of 1987 Britain's best loved indie band abruptly came to end when guitarist Johnny Marr sensationally quit. The Morrissey/Marr partnership that had produced such a wealth of finely crafted pop tunes was over, just weeks after the group finished recording their fourth album, "Strangeways, Here We Come." Since then, all four band members have separately pronounced the LP as their best work. Bass player Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce also claim that, at the time, they were...

In this BBC Radio 4 programme, Tracey McLeod rewinds over half a century to the golden age of the Girl Group. The songs of groups like the Chantels and Shirelles were songs sung by girls for girls. These groups, formed at the dawning of the pop music industry, paved the way for the likes of The Shirelles, The Ronettes, The Crystals, The Shangri-Las, and eventually The Supremes. We hear recollections from those involved as well as observations from writer Charlotte Greig and producer Pete...

Phill Jupitus celebrates the phenomenon that was 2-Tone music. Thirty years ago, bands such as the Specials, the Beat, Madness and the Selecter created a new sound born from a blend of punk, reggae and ska.

David Stafford celebrates the Fender Stratocaster with the help of some of its key players including Hank Marvin, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Jeff Beck and Johnny Marr.

Mark Radcliffe charts the history of the unwieldy Mellotron, a bizarre, tape-driven instrument that dominated the soundscape of the late 60s and 70s and featured on records by The Beatles, The Moody Blues, King Crimson and Tangerine Dream, to name a few.

Series of biographical discussions with Matthew Parris. Poet Simon Armitage nominates Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who took his own life in 1980 at the age of 23. Curtis's fellow band member Peter Hook remembers his friend.