Set into Song: Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker, Peggy Seeger and the Radio Ballads by Peter Cox (9780955187711)

Peter Cox's new book Set Into Song - Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker, Peggy Seeger and the Radio Ballads tells the story of a remarkable collaboration, one which produced a groundbreaking series of eight hour-long radio programmes. The first, The Ballad of John Axon, was originally broadcast on 2 July 1958, so this year is its 50th anniversary.

Uniquely, the programmes took the speech of working people, until then almost always voiced by actors, and allowed to tell their own stories. They told them into the new 'Midget' mobile tape recorder, wherever they lived and worked - in railway yards, on fishing vessels, down pits, on bulldozers, in Traveller encampments. Their stories were woven together by Ewan MacColl with songs that he wrote specially for the programmes after listening intensely to the language and rhythms of the voices, and by the young Peggy Seeger, who designed the musical setting and directed the performers. The programmes were rehearsed and recorded under the overall direction of the visionary Birmingham radio producer Charles Parker, a pioneer of the new painstaking art of tape splicing.

The book tells the story of the making of the programmes, and of the lives of their begetters - three very different people, whose complementary talents created brilliant radio programmes which were hugely influential on subsequent documentary makers - before and after the Radio Ballad period. Begun in 1958, they were ended by the BBC in 1964, as radio lost its popularity and its money to television.

In researching the book, Peter scoured the archives, but above all tracked down every living participant, from singers to jazz musicians to radio engineers, to record their memories. Names that form a roll-call of the early folk revival, such as Ian and Lorna Campbell, Bob Davenport, Ray Fisher, John Faulkner, Stan Kelly, Louis Killen, Gordon McCulloch, Jimmie McGregor, Colin Ross, Elizabeth Stewart and Dave Swarbrick - as well as Peggy herself.

Begun in 1958, they were ended by the BBC in 1964, as radio lost its popularity and its money to television. In researching the book, Peter scoured the archives, but above all tracked down every living participant, from singers to jazz musicians to radio engineers, to record their memories. Names that form a roll-call of the early folk revival, such as Ian and Lorna Campbell, Bob Davenport, Ray Fisher, John Faulkner, Stan Kelly, Louis Killen, Gordon McCulloch, Jimmie McGregor, Colin Ross, Elizabeth Stewart and Dave Swarbrick - as well as Peggy Seeger herself.

Chapter 1 Prologue - Dear Ewan. Chapter 2 The Red Megaphone - Jimmie Miller. Chapter 3 An Officer and a Gentleman - Charles Parker. Chapter 4 Dancing on the Staves - Peggy Seeger. Chapter 5 Man of Many Parts - From Theatre to Folk Song. Chapter 6 Riding the Engine - The Ballad of John Axon.Chapter 7 BBC Voices - Documentaries Before the Radio Ballads. Chapter 8 Muck Shifting - Song of a Road.Chapter 9 From Microphone to Broadcast - Engineering the Programmes.Chapter 10 The Big Catch - Singing the Fishing.Chapter 11 Another Bloody Working-Class Epic - The Big Hewer.Chapter 12 Radio on the Cheap - Birmingham Ballads and The Body Blow.Chapter 13 Growing Pains - Centre 42 and On the Edge.Chapter 14 Boxing Clever - The Fight Game.Chapter 15 Killed at the Crossroads - Travelling People.Chapter 16 The Word Hewers - Finding the Voices.Chapter 17 The Song Smith - Setting Speech into Song.Chapter 18 Trickling Marbles - The Sounds of the Radio Ballads.Chapter 19 Old Hands and Young Voices - The Performers.Chapter 20 From Ballads to Banners - Charles Parker, 1964-80.Chapter 21 Ballads of Accounting - Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.Chapter 22 Different Therefore Equal - Peggy Seeger.Chapter 23 Sound in Vision - Three Radio Ballads on Film.Chapter 24 A New Generation - The 2006 Radio Ballads.