Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Popular broadcaster who presented record and jazz programmes, and an accomplished guitarist.
On the island
Eight records
This first one is um a little piece of South American music from the Lonely Mountains of the Andes. Uh it's played on two flutes, which I think are made of silver, but could be made of clay. I can remember during the war when we were short of musical instruments, I was tried to make uh pipes out of reeds and things like that. One day I shall. But in the meantime I'd like to listen to Los Incas playing the theme de huaino.
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
When I was very young I started to buy records,'cause in those days they were all seventy-eights, and it was possible, even when I was at school, to sort of save Perhaps a shilling a week by walking to school or playing football on the way to school and that sort of thing. And of course a brand new record would only cost one and thruttens or two shillings in those days, and now you started collecting these sort of thrutny and forkney ones from junk shops. I guess those days And somehow I found myself with a collection of Ellington, and quite honestly I've never looked back. So this really has to represent all the Ellington records. uh that I like. This particular one is a piece of mood music. That's called dusk. But actually it could quite easily be sunrise or hot afternoon on the desert island.
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
My third record really connects up two things. One is The fact that I did start collecting records when I was very young And uh at that time the man who was really leading the field was Bing Crosbie. In fact, Crosby himself sort of reflects the history of popular music. And when I was in Burma with the Fourteenth Army, we got stuck for a few weeks in one place, and we got to know the local villagers very well, and they had one Crosbie record in their collection, and this was it. It's easy to remember.
Well this is a guitar record and um Oh, I see guitar music there then. by one of the greatest of classical guitarists, Segovia. And I'd like to combine this with another great love of mine, which is the music of Bach. So this is Segovia playing a Bachevat.
Well, I think we ought to have something cheerful. And um this is a nice sort of swingy piece of music by a young lady that I first appreciated when she was singing with Benny Goodman's Orchestra. I think she's got a very warm voice and a great stylist, Peggy Lee.
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26
Well this is a record of the Warning Concerto by Max Bruch, which I suppose it was written about a hundred years ago, but it's still really part of modern classical music. And uh I wonder if it possibly has anything to do with my Middle European descent that I sort of feel gypsy overturns in this, but I think it's a very beautiful piece of music.
This is a piece of um South American music, which, um well, I say South American, it's really Latin it's Latin American because it comes from Mexico. The Trio los panchos, uh one of Mexico's best trios This is a piece of music that I came across a few years ago when we started Guitar Club, and I began to meet a lot of people who had uh interests in other types of guitar music. This struck me as a particularly beautiful tune. And this record I don't think has ever been issued over here, although other groups have sung it and played it. But this is the Los Panchos version of Una Avanturamas.
NuagesFavourite
My last record well, it must be one of Django Reinhart, because Django, this French gipsy guitarist, I think is one of the greatest natural musicians of this century. Uh he's been A man, a guitarist, whom I've met and admired. Well, pretty well ever since I started playing guitar. This is, I think, his best-known composition, and I know it's the one that he liked best. And although it's rather sad, and this particular recording was only made about a month before he died, Nevertheless, it's a beautiful piece of music. I'd like to have it with me. It's uh Django's Nuage.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:00How do you think you would take to being a solitary exile?
I might actually enjoy it, just for a while.
Presenter asks
1:08Is there any one thing you would be happy about having got away from?
Apart from the usual sort of. Blessings of civilization like smells and noises, I think I'd be glad to get some leisure to not only to think but to do practical things with my hands, which I don't have time to now.
Presenter asks
6:32What was your first ambition to be?
I wanted to have something to do with maps, plans, diagrams, something like that, possibly an architect, but uh my m my maths was against that, so eventually I became a geographer.
Presenter asks
9:54You never had a guitar lesson, is that true?
I've never had a lesson, no, but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody else. You learned the hard way. I did indeed.
The keepsakes
The book
Lancelot Hogben
I think what I would like is something that would give me the sort of basis of science … right from the principles upwards.
Presenter asks
12:39Was this double life appreciated by your students?
They didn't seem to mind actually. They sometimes wondered uh if I was the right person, you know, they'd ask who I was. Was I uh the same Ken Sikora that played guitar. So I'd say, Well, as a matter of fact, that's my brother. They'd say, Well, but you've got exactly the same name. I'd say, Well, twin brothers But this was pretty hard work keeping the tool gang together. It was hard work, yes. Um I know, um, sometimes my Educational superiors would wonder whether My job wasn't suffering, I don't think it did.
Presenter asks
19:28If you could construct a craft, would you try to escape, or sit it out on the island?
Well, I don't think I'd like to face a long, lonely sea voyage, you know, over uncharted waters with no sight of land. I think on the whole I would um build a craft purely for sort of practical use and use and leisure, for fishing and so on, and stick it out on the island.
“I might actually enjoy it, just for a while.”
“I think I'd be glad to get some leisure to not only to think but to do practical things with my hands, which I don't have time to now.”
“I've never had a lesson, no, but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody else. You learned the hard way. I did indeed.”
“I think on the whole I would um build a craft purely for sort of practical use and use and leisure, for fishing and so on, and stick it out on the island.”
“Django, this French gipsy guitarist, I think is one of the greatest natural musicians of this century.”