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In this episode of LITM Jeremy is joined by writer and editor of Tribune magazine Alex Niven to talk about the musical history of England’s North East. Our interest in this subject was piqued by Sam Fender’s victory in last year’s Mercury Music Prize. Fender is himself an artist indebted to our recent subject, Bruce Springsteen. Alex talks us through the particulars of the region, one of Britain’s main post-industrial heartlands, exploring through music various expressions of white working class identity and a particular form of masculinity that artists have variously embodied or pushed against. Jeremy and Alex discuss blues rock, ‘sophsti-pop’ and Sting, the folk club legacy of the North East, Richard Dawson, the smallpipes and the Sultans of Swing.

Alex Niven is the author of Folk Opposition, Definitely Maybe for 33 1/3, New Model Island: How to Build a Radical Culture Beyond the Idea of England and The North Will Rise Again: In Search of the Future in Northern Heartlands.

Tracklist:

Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under

The Animals - House of the Rising Sun

The Animals - We Gotta Get Outta This Place

Eric Burdon and War - Spill the Wine

Lindisfarne - Clear White Light

Alan Hull - I Hate to See You Cry

Lindisfarne - Fog on the Tyne

Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing

Pet Shop Boys - Being Boring

Sting - All This Time

Richard Dawson - The Vile Stuff

Sam Fender - People Watching

Kathryn Tickell - Bone Music