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Post by AlanB on Jul 30, 2014 8:17:22 GMT -5
Found these BBC press sheets so have attempted to scan not sure how they'll turn out but hopefully clicking on images will zoom in. Here the first (front and reverse. The other will follow in new window due to system only allows 3 attachments per post. Attachments:
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Post by AlanB on Jul 30, 2014 8:18:27 GMT -5
Second one Attachments:
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Post by Admin on Jul 30, 2014 8:30:11 GMT -5
I love it Alan...thanks
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Post by AlanB on Jul 30, 2014 9:41:21 GMT -5
Here's the Guardian obituary of the remarkable BBC producer responsible for that TV series and much else on BBC. Giles Oakley's accompanying book of the same name is still in print today.
Obituary: Maddalena Fagandini - BBC Producer on The Devil's Music Maddalena Fagandini, the producer of two series of The Devil's Music for BBC TV in the 1970s, died in December at the age of 83, after a prolonged illness. Much of her long and distinguished career in broadcasting was devoted to her pioneering work in teaching foreign languages but she was proud of her connection to the blues, the fruits of which are still largely available on CD, DVD, You Tube and BBC i-Player. She had a wonderful ability to get on with people from very different backgrounds, from the most eminent of academics to a semi-literate blues singer living in a trailer in rural Mississippi, all stemming from her intense curiosity about individuals and a love of culture in the broadest sense. She was passionately committed to the BBC's public service mission as a way of fostering greater understanding between people of all kinds. Maddalena, or Madeleine as she was known in the family, was born in Hendon in North London to Italian immigrant parents, Ferruccio and Maria Fagandini on August 30, 1929. Her father was a dressmaker and semi-pro singer, performing under the name 'Ferruccio Dini' in clubs and restaurants around London such as Quaglino's in the 1920s and 1930s.To the end of her life she treasured a selection of his old theatre bills and press cuttings. As war approached in 1939, the Fagandinis returned to Italy for fear of the family being split up with the parents facing internment as 'enemy aliens'. They had no liking for Mussolini and opposed everything fascism stood for and after the war Maddalena returned to London, where she gained secretarial qualifications. In 1953 she joined the Italian section of the BBC's World Sevice as a studio manager, relishing the task of creating 'spot' sound effects to play into live broadcasts. In 1959 she moved across to the BBC's famous Radiophonic Workshop where she helped create theme music, jingles and all sorts of electronic effects. In 1962 Maddalena collaborated with George Martin, just before his rise to 'legendary' status as the Beatles' producer, and they produced a single for Parlophone. The two sides were instrumentals based on her own compositions, Time Beat b/w Waltz in Orbit, both somewhat in the Telstar mode, issued under the pseudonym 'Ray Cathode'. Having worked on the BBC's television coverage of the Rome Olympics in 1960 and assisted on an early Italian language series in 1963 she joined the Further Education department as a TV producer in 1966, remaining there until her retirement in 1987. She worked across a wide range of subjects, making filmed documentaries and studio-based shows, always with great dedication and attention to detail. Many of her pathfinding language series are still regarded as leaders in the field, based on the mixed-media 'kits' of materials to back up the TV programmes which she devised. Some are still best sellers, decades later. When I had a series proposal on the history of the blues accepted for BBC1 as an inexperienced assistant producer/ director in 1975, I was delighted when Maddalena accepted the role of producer because she had a reputation for nurturing and mentoring younger programme-makers.She had no great prior knowledge of the blues but plunged in with tremendous enthusiasm, reading up the subject and listening to records by everyone from Bessie Smith to Charley Patton. I will always be grateful for her support and encouragement throughout, not least in her persuading BBC Publications that I should write a full-length book on the subject, not merely a little booklet as originally planned. It's thanks to her that The Devil's Music-A History of the Blues remains in print (in effectively its third edition) some 37 years later. We filmed on location in Memphis, rural Mississippi and Arkansas, St Louis and Chicago in January 1976, completing our trip with 'Queen' Victoria Spivey in New York early the following month. We recorded as wide a range of performers as possible, encompassing the older styles of the South though to modern urban blues in the North, covering guitarists, pianists and harmonica players, with room for Gus Cannon's banjo and Laura 'Little Bit' Dukes on ukelele. Many singers not only played their music for the cameras but were also interviewed, a role Maddalena assigned to me.Our cast-list included some of the greatest names in blues, and some of the most obscure, a strategy Maddalena fully endorsed and 'sold' to our German funding partners. They helped pay for the trip at a time in those pre-digital days when 16mm film stock was extremely expensive. We filmed Sam Chatmon at home, Big Joe Williams in a field, Booker White in a tenement building,and the others in a range of different locations, including the 'unknown' James DeShay in his own Santa Fe Lounge in St Louis. We covered Sonny Blake, Mose Vinson, Houston Stackhouse, Joe Willie Wilkins and LT Lewis in the Memphis Public Library, Henry Townsend and Henry Brown together in St Louis, and then The Aces with Billy Boy Arnold,Joe Carter and Good Rockin' Charles plus Fenton Robinson & His Band in Eddie Shaw's 1815 Club on Chicago's West Side. Little Brother Montgomery and Edith Wilson were filmed in his apartment while the ageing Thomas A Dorsey (aka 'Georgia Tom') was interviewed in comfort at home, all in Chicago. In each case Maddalena's enormous experience as a film-maker and her warmth and kindliness created a relaxed and purposeful atmosphere, with vital contributions from the hand-picked film crew. She took trouble to make everyone feel valued, including wives and families or local children dancing to Big Joe's booming 9-string guitar in Crawford ,Mississippi. Everywhere we went there was tremendous appreciation that the BBC had sent over a team from London to record for posterity so many black singers and musicians, something Maddalena was very conscious of in an almost ambassadorial role. It had been an early decision to include only black performers and interviewees. After the success of the first 5-part documentary series of The Devil's Music on BBC1 in late 1976, a further series was commissioned in 1979. This was a 4-part studio show with the 'Godfather of British Blues', Alexis Korner presenting complete performances from our film trip. This series is currently available on BBC i-Player, although most of the individual numbers have long been accessible on You-Tube (albeit usually uncredited). The sound track recordings have also been available on LP and now CD for around three decades, with individual tracks regularly appearing on anthologies, arguably all part of Maddalena's lasting blues legacy. Maddalena was wonderful to work with and we remained friends long after our collaboration on the Devil's Music. Like many others I learned a great deal from her and will always remember with pleasure days on the road sharing a bottle or two of fine Italian wine. As Booker White put it with real affection, ' You know Maddalena, you're a real blues lady!' Giles Oakley
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