First Time Ever by Peggy Seeger

Author:Peggy Seeger [Peggy Seeger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571336814
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2017-10-14T23:00:00+00:00

We give the script to Charles – Charles, who later will be the one to whom journalists talk, who will give the impression that he was responsible for the whole shebang. Our joint work will become Charles Parker’s Radio Ballads. He apologises on page 17 of the newspaper in which the original article appeared the day before on page 2. He sends us a letter apologising for having strutted for a pretty journalist. But – he’s a friend, a great producer, director and editor. We’re all fallible sometimes. He isolates the spoken passages and sound effects that we’ve designated and places them in order on a master tape. I choose musicians, then start on the musical score which will join the strands together, weaving in and out, complementing or contrasting with the speech or sound that it follows or accompanies. We take great pains to keep changing pace, content and focus so that you will not get bored and turn off. The rehearsal sessions require patience and diplomacy. Bruce Turner, superb jazz clarinettist: I can’t read music very well, Dad. Bruce called everyone Dad. Sometimes I doubted whether he could read music at all, so I would make simple chord charts for him. We’d run through a unit and he’d be standing there with his clarinet held well away from his mouth, gazing into space. Bruce, are you with us? Yes, Dad. Let’s take it again; tell us where you’re having trouble, Bruce. The whole thing, Dad. He was hopeless at rehearsals but produced diamond-sharp improvisation on the recorded takes.

In the later Radio Ballads, we would invite one of the actuality-speakers into the studio. Norma Smith came in her wheelchair during the recording of The Body Blow. A boxing trainer turned up during the recording of The Fight Game. Belle, Elizabeth and Jane Stewart sang in The Travelling People. After prolonged rehearsal with singers and musicians, we go into the studio. The floor manager has put all the microphones and screens where we’ll get the best separation of sound. We can’t always see each other but we all wear headphones. The ingredients that have to be mixed together are: (1) the singers, (2) the instrumentalists, (3) the actuality on the master tape, and (4) sound effects, which are on large vinyl discs up in the studio. Gillian Ford, radio engineer, is in charge of five or six huge turntables that run continually. She can drop a needle on any groove on any disc, on any cue, any time. The master tape of the actuality is situated on a TR-90 tape machine, placed in the midst of the musicians. A microsecond delay can mean that the rhythm of the actuality is out of sync with the background music – but Alan Ward can start and stop the massive machine on a farthing. I am the conductor and music director, placed where everyone can see me. Charles, the puppet master, sits up in the gods, behind a huge glass window, directing and producing.

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