The Kershaw Tapes

During the 1980s and 1990s, DJ Andy Kershaw travelled around Africa and the Americas searching out great music and taping it on his Walkman Pro, a new broadcast-quality cassette recorder that was bringing about a revolution in mobile recording. He also used it to capture his celebrated Kitchen Sessions, held in his small flat in Crouch End.

In this episode, Andy meets Kenyan harpist Ayub Ogada on a beach in Cornwall, the Antioch Gospel group in a car park in New Orleans, Cuarteto Iglesias on a roof top in Cuba and a young Ballake Sissoko next to the railway tracks in Bamako, Mali. On his very first day recording with his Walkman Pro, Andy visits the Edale Bluegrass Festival then travels to Leeds to record a rare performance from guitarist Mark Knopfler in a pub with his early group The Duolian String Pickers. Back in Andy's kitchen Louisiana comes to Crouch End with sessions from blues man Lazy Lester and Cajun stars DL Menard, Eddie LeJeune and Ken Smith. Plus we pay another visit to Wilkinson's HiFi in Nelson to find out just why the compact cassette format is so enduring and well loved.

Producer: Martin Webb

Andy Kershaw introduces more rare recordings from his personal archive.