Radio Ballad - Original Radio Ballads

Original Radio Ballads

The original radio ballads were recorded for the BBC. MacColl wrote a variety of songs especially for them, many of which have become folk classics. The trio together made eight radio ballads between 1958 and 1964. They were:

1. The Ballad of John Axon (1958), about an engine driver who died trying to stop a runaway freight train
2. Song of a Road (1959), about the men who built the London-Yorkshire motorway, the M1
3. Singing the Fishing (1960), about the men and women of the herring fishing fleets of East Anglia and Northeast Scotland
4. The Big Hewer (1961), about the miners of the Northumberland, Durham, South Wales and East Midlands coalfields
5. The Body Blow (1962), about people suffering from polio
6. On the Edge (1963), about teenagers in Britain
7. The Fight Game (1963), about boxers
8. The Travelling People (1964), about the nomadic peoples of Britain.

All eight radio ballads were released on LP, by Argo Records, and later on CD. They are also available via Listen Again on the BBC Radio 2 website.

A book about the making of the radio ballads was published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first broadcast of John Axon. Set into Song: Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker and the Radio Ballads was written and researched by Peter Cox, published by Labatie Books ISBN 978-0-9551877-1-1 and has an extensive website which carries the first two pages of each chapter, the complete transcripts and cast lists for each programme, bibliography, footnotes and reviews.