FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER 2019

FRI 19:00 World News Today (m00095kq)
The latest news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


FRI 19:30 The Live Lounge Show (m00095ks)
Series 3

With Lana Del Rey

Clara Amfo takes us behind the scenes of the world-famous Radio 1 Live Lounge, showcasing the biggest names in music. In this episode, Lana Del Rey, Jax Jones and Sam Fender.


FRI 20:00 Rock 'n' Roll America (b0615nmw)
Sweet Little Sixteen

In Cold War mid-1950s America, as the new suburbia was spreading fast in a country driven by racial segregation, rock 'n' roll took the country by surprise. Out of the Deep South came a rhythm-driven fusion of blues, boogie woogie and vocal harmony played by young black pioneers like Fats Domino and Little Richard that seduced young white teens and, pre-civil rights, got black and white kids reeling and rocking together.

This fledgling sound was nurtured by small independent labels and travelled up from the Mississippi corridor spawning new artists. In Memphis, Elvis began his career as a local singer with a country twang who rocked up a blues song and sounded so black he confused his white listeners. And in St Louis, black blues guitarist Chuck Berry took a country song and turned it into his first rock 'n' roll hit, Maybellene.

Movies had a big role to play thanks to 'social problem' films exploring the teenager as misfit and delinquent - The Wild One showed teens a rebellious image and a look, and Blackboard Jungle gave them a soundtrack, with the film's theme tune Rock Around the Clock becoming the first rock 'n' roll Number 1 in 1955.

Featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Don Everly, Little Richard, Tom Jones, Wanda Jackson, Pat Boone, The Spaniels, PF Sloan, Joe Boyd, Jerry Phillips, Marshall Chess, JM Van Eaton (Jerry Lee Lewis's drummer), Charles Connor (Little Richard's drummer) and Dick Richards (Bill Haley's drummer).


FRI 21:00 Top of the Pops (m00095kw)
Janice Long and Mark Goodier present the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 4 August 1988. Featuring Kim Wilde, The Funky Worm and Fairground Attraction.


FRI 21:30 Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes (m00095ky)
The compelling story of the Chins - the Chinese-Jamaican family behind Studio 17 established above Randy’s Records at 17 North Parade in downtown Kingston.

Randy’s Records was founded in the late 1950s by Vincent Chin and his wife Pat, who began by selling used records in a tiny shop. As Jamaican independence approached in 1962, Vincent Chin had the inspired idea of producing a record to capitalise on the excitement of the time. He approached the popular Trinidadian singer Lord Creator and produced Independent Jamaica. Jamaica was in the mood for celebrating its independence, and the song was an instant hit. Creator then went on to record Kingston Town, which became a huge hit for UB40 in the 1980s. The success of Independent Jamaica enabled the Randy’s shop to expand and add a studio of its own, known as Studio 17.

Studio 17 was where Vincent Chin and later his son Clive Chin as well as many other legendary Jamaican producers would create new tracks. Throughout the 60s and 70s many of the world’s most famous reggae artists recorded there, including Bob Marley and the Wailers, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, John Holt, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Horace Andy, Alton Ellis, Carl Malcolm, Jimmy London, Augustus Pablo, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson and many more.

Pat, who became known as Miss Pat, played the test pressings in the shop downstairs to gauge customers’ reactions, which helped her decide which tracks to release. Her instinctive decisions helped Randy’s become the major outlet for homegrown music in Jamaica.

In the late 70s, political turmoil in Jamaica prompted the Chins to leave for New York, abandoning the studio and record shop. They successfully founded VP Records, (V for Vincent, P for Pat), the world’s largest independent reggae label. Now in her 80s, Pat still lives and works in New York: an extraordinary woman who today mentors the latest risqué dancehall acts on the VP label.

When the Chin family left for New York, some 2,000 original session tapes were left behind at Studio 17. It was believed they were all lost in the flooding and looting that followed Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 that left the studio unusable.

However, as part of a major exhibition on Jamaican music at Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project in Seattle, now renamed the Museum of Pop Culture, the tapes were rediscovered and shipped to New York, where they languished for some time in a basement. Tragedy struck in 2011, when Joel Chin, son of Clive Chin and A&R for VP records, was murdered in Kingston, Jamaica. Having encouraged his father to do something with the archive for many years, Clive has finally taken on the task of carefully restoring and digitising the tapes in New York, in memory of his son.

A treasure trove of original studio tapes reveals unique and stunning recordings from the golden age of reggae, many of which were unreleased and have never been heard before. As the tapes are played, they give rise to a myriad of wonderful stories and in a highly poignant conclusion, the teenage voice of the late Dennis Brown is beautifully remixed with the vocals of rising teenage star Hollie Stephenson, who duets with the 'crown prince of reggae' to complete an unfinished Studio 17 session. Back in Jamaica, Clive Chin works with one-time Eurythmics star Dave Stewart and Hollie to create a magical blend of old and new in a contemporary production that sounds as fresh today as it did when the original was first recorded 40 years ago.

Reggae has spread to the four corners of the earth, including the UK, where it blossomed in the 1960s and went on to shape the ska movement as well as punk rockers like The Clash, all the way to pop acts like The Police and the uniquely British Lover’s Rock sound. In more recent times, experimental crews like Massive Attack have reworked the island beat in new and exciting ways, and that process continues with current UK underground sounds like drum and bass, dubstep and grime. All these musical offshoots trace their roots to the pioneering work done at Randy’s Studio 17, where Lee 'Scratch' Perry recorded his earliest albums with Bob Marley and The Wailers, and Clive Chin produced one of the world’s first dub albums with Augustus Pablo.

Shot in Jamaica, New York and London, the film includes interviews with Jimmy Cliff, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Carl Malcolm, Dave Stewart, Sly Dunbar, Ali Campbell, Ernest Ranglin, Lord Creator, Bunny Lee, King Jammy, Jimmy London, Lester Sterling, Rico Rodriguez, Clive Chin, Pat Chin and Maxi Priest.


FRI 22:55 imagine... (b061y4qk)
Summer 2015

Beware of Mr Baker

imagine... presents Beware of Mr Baker. In this award-winning documentary, Cream drummer Ginger Baker reflects on his sixty-year career. It began in the jazz clubs of Soho and led to sellout stadium concerts, via the back streets of Lagos. The film's director Jay Bulger catches up with the irascible instrumentalist at his ranch in South Africa to talk drums, drugs and everything in-between. Has the young director bitten off more than he can chew?


FRI 00:25 Reggae Fever: David Rodigan (b0brzpsb)
David Rodigan's unlikely career as a reggae broadcaster and DJ has developed in parallel with the evolution of Jamaican music in the UK. His passion and his profession have given him a privileged, insiders' view of the UK's love affair with Jamaican music that began in the 1950s. His constant championing of it has afforded him national treasure status with generations of British Jamaicans and all lovers of reggae music.

This is a film about the career of David Rodigan but it's also a window through which to see a wider human story about social change in the UK: a story of immigration and integration, and music's role within it.

The beginning of his career conjures up a forgotten era when reggae was reviled by liberal, hippyish music fans because of its association with skinheads. At one point, his fellow students agreed to share a house with him only if Rodigan agreed not to play reggae. Instead, he would haunt London's specialist record shops and sneak out to Jamaican clubs alone.

His break first came on BBC Radio London, where his knowledge and infectious enthusiasm won him the gig. Since that first break, he's had shows on Capital, Kiss and now BBC Radio 1Xtra and BBC Radio 2. In the 80s, his radio show became such a Sunday lunchtime fixture in London's West Indian households that it was colloquially known as 'rice 'n' peas'. Bob Marley personally chose Rodigan's show to play out the world exclusive of Could You Be Loved.

As well as being a DJ, Rodigan also began to 'soundclash' on a global stage. This musical competition where crew members from opposing sound systems pit their skills against each other involves the playing of records in turn, with the crowd ultimately deciding who has 'killed' the other crew, by playing the better chosen track. But standard versions of tracks don't cut it in a clash, where the true currency is 'dubplates' - versions of tracks recut, often by the original artist, with lyrics changed to praise the playing crew or diss the opposing one.

In Jamaica, after he began clashing live on national radio with DJ Barry G, he became so famous that his name was even adopted by a Kingston gangster. He began competing on the World Soundclash stage alongside the likes of Jamaica's Stone Love and Japan's Mighty Crown as the soundclash became a global phenomenon. David is probably the only person ever to have been awarded an MBE and the title of World Clash Champion.

In recent years, Rodigan's live DJ appearances have started attracting a far younger audience. It can be seen as a reflection of the way different forms of music from the different cultures that have arrived in Britain over the last 70 years have integrated, taken root and spawned new scenes, attitudes and tastes.

As well as appearing at student unions across the country and continuing to clash by himself, he's also now a part of clash crew Rebel Sound, first assembled for Red Bull Culture Clash in 2014. In this environment, David found himself amidst a melting pot of beats, loops and popping, infectious bass-driven riddims - playing to the kids who are discovering him and therefore reggae music through other artists.

Now in his 40th professional year, David is quite rightly celebrating, his passion for the music he loves burning as brightly as ever. This film is a testament to this most unlikely of reggae aficionados - a celebration of a man whose story is strangely intertwined with not only the evolution of music in this country but also the evolution of the culture.


FRI 01:25 Top of the Pops (m00095kw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


FRI 01:55 Rock 'n' Roll America (b0615nmw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


FRI 02:55 How to Make a Number One Record (b05r6q4r)
Great pop records are the soundtrack to our lives, and that is why number one hits hold a totemic place in our culture. This film goes in search of what it takes to get a number one hit single, uncovering how people have done it and the effect it had on their lives. As the exploration moves through the decades, the goal is to trace the various routes that lead to the top of the singles chart and discover the role played by art, science, chance and manipulation in reaching the pinnacle of pop.