The New Radio Ballads - In the Footsteps of Ewan MacColl

Jez Lowe, Bob Fox and Julie Matthews present The New Radio Ballads - In the Footsteps of Ewan MacColl.

In the 50s and 60s Ewan MacColl, along with Charles Parker and Peggy Seeger, created the groundbreaking Radio Ballads broadcasts for the BBC Home Service. These used an audio documentary format to highlight the experiences of real people, weaving the voices of rarely-heard communities with songs written from and about their recorded interviews.

Almost half a century later, in 2006, a new set of Radio Ballads were commissioned by BBC Radio 2 using the same format but this time involving a whole team of stellar musicians, singers and songwriters from the folk/acoustic/roots scene. Now three members of that team, Bob Fox, Jez Lowe and Julie Matthews, have put together a selection of songs from the 2006 new Radio Ballads for a concert performance ‘In the Footsteps of Ewan MacColl.'

Expect to be entertained and enlightened by songs of joy, love, hardship and humour.