BBC Folk

For a very short time, the BBC runs a ‘listen again’ service for net users. The service is free and some of the material is truly gorgeous. Stuff is often up for only a week after broadcast (the weekly folk programme is broadcast on Wednesdays (I think) so the British Folk Awards listen again, may be taken off today! It’s two hours long and features performances from the Pentangle and Carthy and Swarbrick, among others. It’ll play on Media Player and Realplayer (I think).

Additionally, there’s a welter of Ewan McColl‘s Radio ballads of the 1950s up at the moment, they can be a bit hard going, but yield surprising gems which are often thought of as traditional standards nowadays, but were written for the BEEB back in the 50s.

Far be it from me to tout one radio service on the blog of another, but the BBC’s output is so small compared to FA’s I don’t think they’ll mind all that much.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ should get you to the main page, then follow the prompts to Radio 2. It can be a bit clunky, but we’re British – nothing works properly – we like it that way.