BBC Archives

The BBC Archives are collections documenting the BBC's broadcasting history, including copies of television and radio broadcasts, internal documents, photographs, online content, sheet music, commercially available music, press cuttings and historic equipment. The original copies of these collections are permanently retained but are now in the process of being digitised. Some collections are now being uploaded onto the BBC Archives website on BBC Online for viewers to see. The archive is one of the largest broadcast archives in the world with over 12 million items.

Links To Peel
Peel's Night Ride show grew out of an idea by producer John Muir for a "non-needletime" programme drawing on the BBC's store of archive recordings from around the world. This meant that not only were the shows cheaper to produce, but that they also reflected the hippy era's growing interest in exotic cultures. Many of the archive material were from unknown artists, who would get played on Peel's Night Ride show in the late 60's. After Night Ride finished in September 1969, there was a positive audience response to some of the "Archive Things", as Peel would call the World Music archive material, so a selection of the most popular pieces appeared on the John Peel's Archive Things LP a year later.

Shows Played
1968 1969 1970
 * 06 March 1968: North Vietnamese music by unknown artists: 'A Joyful Northern Air'
 * 06 March 1968: Unknown Indian Artist: Thillana Jinjote Ragam (played on veena, mridangam and tambura)
 * 01 May 1968: Unknown Japanese Folk Artist: The Priest Who Committed Suicide
 * 08 May 1968: Unknown Indian Artist: South Indian music played on the Gotuwadiam
 * 26 June 1968: Monks Of Kume Tarsang Monastery: The Eternal Voice
 * 26 June 1968: Aboriginal Children: Traditional Song
 * 26 June 1968: Quartet Improvisation for Kwang-go
 * 03 July 1968: North Vietnamese Peasant Song
 * 03 July 1968: Pir Sultan Abdal - Bektashi Song
 * 10 July 1968: Music for an Auspicious Occasion
 * 24 July 1968: Waltz, played on the kantele, a 5-stringed instrument from Finland
 * 24 July 1968: Untitled music from the Khyber Pass
 * 31 July 1968: Thing from Russia
 * 21 August 1968: Fire Walking Music
 * 04 September 1968: "Raga Kamast"
 * 04 September 1968: "Malayan magical-medical music"
 * 09 October 1968: "Cymbalom dance" (Slovakia)
 * 11 December 1968: Azerbaijani Music: Air
 * 07 May 1969: Finnish Kantele Music
 * 07 May 1969: The Shepherd Song from Sweden
 * 07 May 1969: Modernised Folk Song from Ceylon
 * 28 May 1969: Indian classical music - Whistled and played on a bowed string instrument and accompanied on drum and drone
 * 28 May 1969: Radio Ceylon Orchestra: Wind, String Instruments and Percussion
 * 28 May 1969: Romanian Radio And Television Folk Orchestra: The Hora
 * 04 July 1970: Malaysian Girls - Hydro Percussion (LP: John Peel's Archive Things) BBC REC 68M (JP: And there's one for Jimmy Savile. Sounds like a communal shower actually)