Paul Robeson: Desert Island Disc

Further Info

This story was made as part of the “Recalling Robeson” project, celebrating the life and work of black actor, singer and campaigner, Paul Robeson. Led by Anna Farthing of Harvest Heritage Arts and Media, supported by Bristol Old Vic, Colston Hall, Watershed, Pervasive Media Studio, ABLAZE, Aim Higher, Festival of Idea, The Paul Robeson Wales Trust, The South Wales
Miners Library,  and numerous volunteers.

Transcript

We had a big old radiogram, obviously we used to put records on and I couldn’t make up my mind whether I wanted to be Mario Lanza or Paul Robeson in terms of singing. I ended up being more bass than tenor. Quite often a Paul Robeson record would go on and I’d lay underneath the radiogram and sing away pretending to be Paul Robeson.

So, yes I’ve got a few records. Some are records that were produced in their hundreds and thousands and one or two that are a bit different. There’s one record that means most to me and that’s this one. Well, it cuts me up a bit even talking about it now and that’s partly because of Paul Robeson and his family, but partly because of the connection with the mineworkers. I used to be a coal miner myself so the miners were a really important part of the campaign in support of Robeson. This is a record of Paul Robeson and his family in a studio in New York and it’s a transatlantic telephone link with the South Wales minors Esteddfod. It’s fantastic, really moving! But it’s an important political milestone as well.

Well, I only met Paul Robeson once, which was fantastic, but I met his son Paul Robeson Jr several times and on one occasion in fact, my family and I lived in North Wales and I was working as Trade Union Official. He used to go to Wales for the UO conference, Paul Robeson Jr was invited to the Wales TUC conference again on several occasions and on this particular occasion in 1985 I met with him and had a chance to talk to him about his Dad and took the record along so that he could sign it. And there it is (laughs). Do people do this now in Desert Island Discs? “Which record would you grab?” This is the record I would grab, definitely, fantastic!

Credits