Presenter:Colin Aitchison
Music aficionado and band leader Colin Aitchison presents the musicians who were the huge, million-selling recording stars of an often forgotten era.
Before Bruno Mars, there was Bing Crosby, before the likes of Adele, there was Billie Holiday ... and before Justin Bieber ... well, where to start!?!
There’s some terrific music and stories from the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s, plus a few laughs!
Every Sunday, 8.30am-9am
An outstanding VCT recording and arrangement from 1932, this week, from Billy Banks with Pee Wee Russel on Sax and clarinet (we also find out what Billy’s other superpower was!). We travel to 1925 with a very well known Irish tenor for a bit of a tear jerker written in the 1860s. Glen Mason, in the 50s, covers an already well covered rock n’roller, and Colin digs a up a big movie number by a much forgotten band leader that was at the top of the charts for 12 weeks.
This week a show dedicated to recordings made in an 1831 Georgian townhouse, which, in 1931, became The Gramophone Company, later EMI and finally Abbey Road Studios. We start off in 1931, when the studios were brand new, with Ray Noble and Al Bowlly. We then make our way through the decades with Fats Waller, Glenn Miller, Shirley Bassey and, of course, Cliff!

Presenter:Colin Aitchison
We’re off to the islands this Sunday morning to join long time Radio 3 supporter and Lamma legend, Dan Peterson. Dan has chosen a collection of classic island songs for us, including a 1957 tune from a probably forgotten movie called 'Coconut Woman'. There’s mighty theme from another movie and stage show, this time sung by capitol records top money making female artist of the time. Colin and Dan try to work out the deep, meaningful lyric to Satchmo’s ‘song of the island’, and we round things off with Something Smith And The Redheads.
See you at the ferry pier!