The British Masters

John Doran meets The Reggae Connoisseur, David Rodigan. They discuss how he fell in love with Jamaican music, how he realised smoking weed wasn’t for him and the time a member of the crowd liked his DJ set so much they let off a gunshot.

Shirley Collins MBE is the most important living voice in English folk music. She travelled across the southern States of the USA in 1959 recording traditional songs with Alan Lomax, she was a key figure in the folk revival of the late 60s and now, after a lengthy absence she is back making music. She is 81 years young and only just reaching the peak of her powers.

Goldie, overcame a trouble-filled childhood and young adulthood to revolutionise UK dance music, not once but several times over as one of the most prominent innovators in drum and bass. I’m speaking to him today about his return to making music, hanging out with David Bowie and his belief in reincarnation

After Bryan Ferry, Dizzee Rascal, Richard Ashcroft and his brother Noel, it’s Liam’s turn for the British Masters treatment as he tells journalist John Doran about nights out with Maradona, Steve Coogan and John McEnroe as well as his forthcoming debut solo album ‘As You Were.'

In John's own words, "Cosey's work has continually innovated, challenged and outraged since the start of the 1970s, Whether as a member of the transgressive art collective Coum Transmissions or the boundary destroying industrial group Throbbing Gristle, or as an electronic musical with her partner Chris Carter. Since the 70's, her work has brought her into direct conflict with the police, the tabloid press, the British government, the music industry and the art establishment, and despite this, she remains to this day a uniquely progressive artist."

Music is an entirely subjective thing. However we will fight anyone who denies that Liverpool’s Michael Head is one of the finest songwriters that the UK has ever produced. In host John Doran’s own words, “He has a discography recorded with The Pale Fountains, Shack and more recently The Red Elastic Band, that most songwriters would kill for. A lifetime of poor luck with record labels, the shifting tastes of the record buying public and long standing issues with drink and drugs means that he has never found the audience he deserves. Even if it’s by accident however, Mick has ended up playing the long game and future generations will come to regard him as some kind of genius, even if it’s currently a view only shared by his small but rabidly loyal fanbase."