Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Publisher and editor who co-founded Allison and Busby, the first black woman to set up a UK press, and created the landmark anthology Daughters of Africa.
On the island
Eight records
Neneh Cherry (collaborator/featured artist) – as stated in transcript: 'Yusuindo and Nenicheri' is corrected based on canonical artist. Composer not specified (co-written by Youssou N'Dour, Neneh Cherry, Jonathan Sharp, Cameron McVey). Retain as null if no classical/composer designation given.
Soca calypso by David Rudder. Composer David Rudder. (Transcript: 'David Rudder who wrote a very perceptive soca tune called Haiti, I am Sorry.') Retain as null.
Ave Maria (after Bach Prelude in C)
Charles Gounod (after Johann Sebastian Bach)
Gounod's Ave Maria is based on Bach's Prelude in C major. The transcript mentions 'Ave Maria by Gouneau, sung by Kathleen Battle with the Orchestra of Saint Luke's, conducted by Leonard Slatking.' Canonical corrections applied.
VisionsFavourite
Transcript: 'Stevie Wonders Visions'. Composed by Stevie Wonder. Retain as classical/named? Yes, single songwriter is a named composer.
Walter Donaldson (music) and Gus Kahn (lyrics)
Transcript: 'Nina Simone singing My Baby Just Cares for Me'.
Jean-Bosco Mwenda (traditional/own composition)
Transcript: 'Masanga by Jean-Bosco Mwender' – corrected to Jean-Bosco Mwenda. Also mentioned John Williams recording the tune.
Transcript: 'Miriam McCabell' corrected to Miriam Makeba; 'Hugh Matakela' corrected to Hugh Masekela; 'Soweto Blues' confirmed.
On the Sunny Side of the Street
Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt
Jimmy McHugh (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics)
Transcript: 'Sunny Side Up' is the album; track is 'On the Sunny Side of the Street'. Performers: Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:16How was it pulling that shortlist together?
I think you have to give credit to the people who chose the judges … it was a very diverse group of judges … diverse in terms of the fact that it had people of different ages, people from different areas, different backgrounds, people who are readers, people who are editors, people who are reviewers, people who are writers. We all came together from different perspectives … it was wonderful to find that we all did agree on the long list, the short list, and the eventual winner.
Presenter asks
5:48Tell me more about [your father] and more about that story and his connection to that area [Walthamstow].
My father was actually born in Barbados, and his father was a tailor. When my father was a few weeks old, the family moved to Trinidad … his father took him when he was a young boy to show him the premier school … and said to my father, 'If you want to go to this school … you have to be bright and win scholarships.' So that's what my father did. He won a scholarship to Queen's Royal College … then won what was called the Island Scholarship, which meant that he could go and study in Britain … he came to Britain … studied first of all at the University of Edinburgh … then he went to Dublin and qualified as a doctor from Dublin … then went to practice as a doctor in Walthamstow in London … he was there until 1929 … he told me that there was a barter system so that the butcher used to pay him in pork chops.
The keepsakes
The book
Aimé Césaire
So that to me gives hope that we're all going to get together and have a good time in the end.
Presenter asks
What did he tell you about his experiences while he was training and in the early days of his career?
He wasn't one that had the spotlight focus on himself, but I remember bits and pieces. For example, he told me when he was in Dublin, a nickname he was given was Burnt Cork, which I guess was a reference to his skin colour. But … he went to Ghana, or the Gold Coast as it was then, at a time when there were a handful of other doctors and lawyers and professional people from the West Indies who were, I suppose, part of that Pan-African movement … they became like extended family.
Presenter asks
19:06Were you inured to [racism in finding accommodation] or were you angry about it, hurt by it?
I think always in those situations you have to choose which battles you fight. I could have fought a battle every day, all day, but I was focused on what I was doing. I was associating with people who didn't believe there was anything wrong with being black, so it wasn't something that I had to deal with on a daily, intimate basis. And what I was doing was more important than worrying about what people thought about me.
Presenter asks
22:27How did the business actually get started [Allison & Busby]?
Alison and Busby started from the meeting of Clive Allison and Margaret Busby before we were even graduates … we were talking about what we were doing … writing poetry, publishing poetry, editing college magazines. The question was, 'What are you going to do when you graduate?' I thought I might go into publishing. 'I thought I might go into publishing. Let's start a publishing house.' … We started from the point of knowing nothing about the industry … we didn't know the conventions, we could break the rules … we could just do what we believed in.
Presenter asks
27:18How on earth did you set about deciding what to include [in Daughters of Africa]?
The first volume, Daughters of Africa … was easier, because I just went to my bookshelves and my boxes and piles of newspapers and magazines and books and selected what I wanted … It's just amazing how many wonderful writers haven't had enough attention … you may have all the writers you already know … but there are so many other writers who deserve attention. I could do another volume tomorrow of all the people I left out.
“I was watching him in a group of friends. Everything just seemed right. And this is a song that brings me back to that moment. But apart from that, the words are just so telling and so important and there's a line I particularly like: 'when a child is born into this world it has no concept of the tone the skin is living in' and that's to tell you that everything we know about prejudice and racial discrimination is not born with us, we learn it.”
“We could break the rules. We didn't know the conventions, we could break the rules, we could just do what we believed in.”
“I think you have to just look at it in terms of why would you only eat spinach if you can also eat chocolate?”
“'No race holds a monopoly of beauty, of intelligence, of strength, and there's a place for all at the rendezvous of victory.' So that to me gives hope that we're all going to get together and have a good time in the end.”