Radio Ballads 2006: The Songs Of Steel

The songs tell the stories of ordinary people in what was, in fact, an extraordinary industry in the Don Valley. The voices of those people are interspersed with music and the sounds of the steel mills themselves, like the great thundering hammers which deafened half of Sheffield. The music is a fabulous mixture: John Tams swaggering off to get a job at Steelos, or the plaintive voice of Kate Rusby trying to keep her home clean in the filthy atmosphere of the valley. Every track is a delight.