The UK’s first black-owned music studio

The UK’s first black-owned music studio

Sonny Roberts, a Jamaican carpenter, arrived in Britain in the 1950s. It was a time of racial disharmony, including the Notting Hill riots and the murder of Kelso Cochrane. In this tense atmosphere, black musicians struggled to make a name for themselves. Then in 1961, Roberts set up the UK’s first black-owned music studio, Planetone, in a basement in Kilburn.

The studio gave the Caribbean community a musical platform. In later years, Roberts produced Nigerian band Nkengas’ album, Destruction - one of the earliest examples of Afrobeat in the UK. His 1987 production of Judy Boucher's Can't Be with You Tonight reached number two in the UK Singles Chart, beaten only by Madonna.

Roberts laid the foundations for black British music. Ben Henderson speaks to his daughter, Cleon Roberts.

This programme contains outdated and offensive language.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Sonny Roberts in 1982. Credit: David Corio/Redferns via Getty Images)

Avsnitt(2000)

South Korea's Summer Of Terror

South Korea's Summer Of Terror

At the start of the Korean war in 1950, tens of thousands of suspected communist sympathisers were executed by the South Korean military. The regime feared they might support the North Korean invaders. Many of them were political prisoners, who were taken from their cells and shot dead. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from Gaeseong Lee, whose father was a prisoner at Daejeon jail when he was killed.Photo:Gaeseong Lee as a small child with his parents. Copyright: Gaeseong Lee.

23 Juli 20188min

A Vet Remembers The Hyde Park Bombing

A Vet Remembers The Hyde Park Bombing

Two IRA bombs were detonated in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in London on 20th July 1982. They left 11 military personnel dead, and injured around 50 people. Seven horses were also killed as the Hyde Park bomb was detonated during the Changing of the Guard procession. Karen Gregor has been speaking to former Army vet, Paddy Davison, who was called to the scene.Photo: The covered bodies of horses lying in the road after the Hyde Park bombing. Credit: BBC

20 Juli 20188min

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

In July 1968 one of the most significant international treaties of the 20th-century was signed. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, obliging signatories not to pass nuclear technology on to others, and was the result of rare cooperation between Cold War adversaries, the United States and the Soviet Union. Louise Hidalgo talks to former Soviet diplomat, Roland Timerbaev, who helped draft the treaty.Picture: the mushroom cloud created by the explosion of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 (credit: Press Association)

19 Juli 20189min

The Bombing of the King David Hotel

The Bombing of the King David Hotel

On July 22 1946 an armed Jewish group opposed to British rule in Palestine, attacked the iconic hotel in Jerusalem where the British had their headquarters. 91 people were killed in the bombing, dozens of others were injured. Shoshana Levy Kampos was a 21-year-old Jewish woman who worked for the British as a secretary. She tells Mike Lanchin about her lucky escape. Photo: Scene of wrecked King David Hotel in Jerusalem after bombing (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

18 Juli 20188min

The Virgin Lands Campaign

The Virgin Lands Campaign

To fight food shortages in the 1950s the USSR embarked on a major agricultural project to develop vast areas of previously uncultivated land in northern Kazakhstan. The project attracted hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic volunteers, but decades later it led to environmental problems. Dina Newman spoke to an agricultural volunteer, Rimma Busurova. Photo: Rimma Busurova and her classmates outside their dormitory in northern Kazakhstan; credit: Rimma Busurova family archive.

17 Juli 20189min

The Killing of the Russian Tsar

The Killing of the Russian Tsar

The Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, four daughters and young son, were shot in the cellar of a house in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. Olga Romanoff is his great niece. She spoke to Olga Smirnova about his death and eventual reburial in St Petersburg. (Photo: Nicholas II, Tsar and his family. From left to right - Olga, Maria,Tsar Nicholas II,Tsarina Alexandra, Anastasia, Tsarevitch Alexei and Tatiana. Credit: Press Association

16 Juli 20188min

Italy's 'Ghost Shipwreck'

Italy's 'Ghost Shipwreck'

In the summer of 2001, an Italian journalist used an underwater robot to find the remains of a shipwreck off the coast of Sicily which had killed nearly 300 migrants from South Asia. At the time this was the worst disaster of its kind in the Mediterranean but the few survivors had been ignored by officials and dismissed as fantasists. The discovery of the so-called “Phantom Shipwreck” caused an outrage in Italy. Simon Watts talks to Italian journalist Giovanni Maria Bellu and the former Observer correspondent in Rome, John Hooper, who also investigated the tragedy.(Photo: The remains of the "Ghost Shipwreck" filmed off the Sicilian coast. Credti: EPA/ANSA/La Repubblica)

13 Juli 20188min

The Spiegel Affair

The Spiegel Affair

In the early 1960s a magazine article about West Germany's defence capabilities led to the imprisonment of seven journalists, a vehement debate about press freedom and a full-blown government crisis. Tim Mansel has been speaking to Franziska Augstein about her father Rudolf Augstein's part in the Spiegel Affair.Photo: Rudolf Augstein, the publisher of the magazine 'Spiegel' is escorted by the police. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images

12 Juli 20188min

Populärt inom Samhälle & Kultur

mardromsgasten
podme-dokumentar
en-mork-historia
rattsfallen
aftonbladet-krim
p3-dokumentar
creepypodden-med-jack-werner
skaringer-nessvold
nemo-moter-en-van
killradet
badfluence
p1-dokumentar
flashback-forever
kod-katastrof
hor-har
rss-brottsutredarna
vad-blir-det-for-mord
svenska-fall
rysarpodden
historiska-brott