Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Is there another country that is so alienated from its own music?
NICK MATTHEWS looks back on the continuing legacy of Alan Bush, the Workers Music Association’s Topic Records and BBC Radio 3
LEGENDS: Maddy Prior, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2016 [Bryan Ledgard/Creative Commons]

THE Tories persist with their attacks on the BBC, despite the fundamentally conservative nature of the institution, and its role as a key part of the state’s ideological apparatus. 

This last is what makes the Beeb problematic for the left. However, the sheer range and depth of its coverage means that some amazing stuff does get past the self-censors.

As a great fan of Radio 3, I was recently delighted to hear the late great Norma Waterson and Alan Bush on the same day. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, photographed c1893  / Pic: Author unknown/Public domain
Music / 22 July 2025
22 July 2025

NICK MATTHEWS welcomes the return of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s music to the repertoire of this years’ Three Choirs Festival

Mo Chara and Moglai Bap of Kneecap performing on the West Holts Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset, June 28, 2025
Features / 11 July 2025
11 July 2025

From sexual innuendo about Blackpool Rock to Bob Dylan’s ‘God-almighty world,’ the corporation’s classist moral custodianship of pop music has created a roll call of censored artists anyone would feel honoured to join, writes NICK MATTHEWS

DISTINGUISHED: Portrait of Hans Hess c1962 (photographer unk
Features / 20 June 2025
20 June 2025

NICK MATTHEWS previews a landmark book launch taking place in Leicester next weekend

LEADING THE WAY: Wind power plants in Xinjiang, China. Photo: Chris Lim/Creative Commons
Features / 9 June 2025
9 June 2025

As new wind, solar and nuclear capacity have displaced coal generation, China has been able to drastically lower its CO2 emissions even as demand for power has increased — the world must take note and get ready to follow, writes NICK MATTHEWS

Similar stories
IS
Album reviews / 30 June 2025
30 June 2025

New releases from Toby Hay, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars

Music / 10 March 2025
10 March 2025
Reviews of Ella Fitzgerald, My Morning Jacket, and Toria Wooff
MILITARIST ANTHEM: 
I Vow to Thee, My Country is performed a
Features / 28 September 2024
28 September 2024
MAT COWARD unearths Gustav Holst’s radical roots, from meetings at William Morris’s house to pamphlet-printing and agitation with the Red Vicar of Thaxted — and laments that he is remembered today for the entirely wrong reason
One of the many workshops
Workers’ Music Association / 26 August 2024
26 August 2024
PHIL HARGREAVES sings the praises of a unique annual music encounter