BBC RADIO 2 COMMISSIONS [December
2003]
Smooth Operations achieved an excellent seven successful programme
commissions from BBC Radio 2 in the last bidding round. Among the
programmes we are producing for Radio 2 for 2004 (additional to
our regular output) are:
A View From A Broad: The Bette Midler Story (2-part series)
Across The Great Divide: The Story of The Band (one-hour
documentary)
50th Sidmouth International Folk Festival (one-hour documentary)
Don't Look Back In Anger: The Story of Britpop (4-part series)
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (4-part series)
Cambridge Folk Festival 40th Anniversary (4-part series)
Walking With The Wind (3-part series on the Civil Rights
Movement in America)
BBC FOUR TV COMMISSIONS [December 2003]
In 2004, for the third year running, Smooth Operations will be
producing programmes on Cambridge Folk Festival for BBC Four TV.
TELEVISION: BBC RADIO 2 FOLK AWARDS 2004 [October
2003]
BBC Four have announced they will be filming the most anticipated
event in the coming year's folk calendar - the 2004 BBC Radio
2 Folk Awards. The event will be held in Central London on 9th
Feb 2004. Look out for more information nearer the time!
KATE RUSBY DVD [Sept 2003]
Smooth Operations and Pure Records are currently putting the finishing
touches to a new Kate Rusby DVD, recorded live at Kate's Leeds City
Varieties gig in September. Highlights of the performance will also
be broadcast on BBC4 TV towards the end of 2003.
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III FOR MIKE HARDING LIVE SHOW [Sept
2003]
The acclaimed American singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III
will top the bill for the special Mike Harding Show coming live
from Newcastle on 8th October 2003. Joining Loudon on stage will
be the fantasic North East band The Hush and Newcastle's own John
Dickinson. To get tickets for this event, call the Radio 2 Ticket
line on 08700 100 200.
COMINGS AND GOINGS [08/03]
OK, just goings! After six very happy and productive years with
the company Sue Keogh left in August to go freelance as a music
writer/researcher for the BBC.
PRESS PRAISE: MIKE HARDING AND NICK BARRACLOUGH [March
2003]
Sue Arnold, The Guardian, 15th March 2003
"Three programmes last week demonstrated not only Radio 2's
musical scope but its talent in persuading a blinkered listener
like me that folk music, country and quasi punk can actually be
interesting. Let's start with folk singing. Until I tuned in to
Mike Harding, I had it only one notch above morris dancing
on my Most Despised Activities list. Harding was interviewing a
young woman whose voice suggested she'd been up all night, smoking,
drinking, boogying and partying, as indeed she had, having just
won three awards - Best Album, Best Song and Best Singer at the
BBC Folk Music Awards.
Now, I thought all folk singers were like Joan Baez, which is to
say deeply serious, committed, worthy and not exactly a barrel of
laughs. Eliza Carthy has blue hair (it used to be green) and says,
reasonably enough, that if you want to sing as if you're sitting
round a fire getting drunk then the way to do it is to sit round
a fire, get drunk and sing. Her award-winning song Worcester
City is pleasantly sinister and, thank heavens, shorn of the
jolly accordion lilt that accompanies so many folk songs.
All I knew about the country singer Lyle Lovett was that he used
to be married to Julia Roberts. Having heard him chat to Nick
Barraclough, I now know that he was once gored by a bull and
that against all the odds - voice, fame, fortune - he is agreeably
modest. "What exactly was the thinking behind that song? Something
very heavy must have happened," said Barraclough, to which
Lovett replied that most of his songs were rooted in pure silliness.
I like that, and I also like his version of the Ray Charles classic
Tell Me What I Say, which, against even more impossible odds
turned out to be pretty damned sensational."
|
