Notable – Details, episodes & analysis

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Notable

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Music

Frequency: 1 episode/12d. Total Eps: 18

Stuart Maconie and Elizabeth Alker meet up to tell each other extra-ordinary tales from 400 years of musical history.

From a murderous 16th Century madrigal composer to Batley Variety Club - Yorkshire's very own Caesar's Palace... and from the espionage-tinted roots of the theremin to the wild weekend that was the Bickershaw pop festival... Notable has the lot. Produced by Geoff Bird, artwork by Rory Clifford.

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Data updated on 04/07/2026

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Score global : 69%

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Notable: Timber Festival

Season 2 · Episode 10

Tuesday, July 6, 2021 • Duration 28:36

Stuart and Elizabeth are on their travels again for the last episode before the summer hols, this time heading to the glorious Timber Festival in the National Forest.

Elizabeth begins her history of music festivals not with Monterey or the Isle of White but the Panhellenic Games in Ancient Greece - while Stuart's horizons are set even further afield. He regales the audience with the story of the most durable object ever created, The Voyager Golden Record, and the music found upon it - sent into outer space for alien life to get a flavour of some of the highpoints of human culture.

Notable will be away for the Summer and return with more extra-ordinary musical tales in the Autumn.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Notable: Wendy Carlos& Norman 'Nobby' Pilcher

Season 2 · Episode 9

Monday, June 28, 2021 • Duration 26:07

In the penultimate episode of the series, Elizabeth and Stuart tackle the stories of two very different figures from the illustrious annals of music history. Elizabeth describes how Wendy Carlos shook the classical world to its well-heeled foundations with her extra-ordinary re-workings of Bach in particular, using cutting-edge electronic equipment that she herself was helping to develop. On the other side of the Atlantic, as Stuart will reveal, Nobby Pilcher was fast becoming the most notorious policeman in the history of British pop culture, with his penchant for nicking high profile musicians including John Lennon and Brian Jones.

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Notable: My Boy Lollipop & Basil Kirchin

Season 2 · Episode 8

Monday, June 21, 2021 • Duration 34:42

Another week, another Notable! This time out Stuart and Elizabeth tell two more stories from the annals of musical history, first up the incredible tale of Millie Small and her hugely influential hit 'My Boy Lollipop', which gave Britain its first taste of Jamaican Ska and gave Island Records its first major success. After that we hear about one of the true mavericks of British music, whose too-often neglected career spanned several decades and numerous genres - Basil Kirchin.

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Notable: Albert Ayler & Cecil Sharp

Season 2 · Episode 7

Monday, June 14, 2021 • Duration 37:29

This week Elizabeth and Stuart tell the stories of two highly influential figures from very different sections of music history. First up is the brilliant saxophonist Albert Ayler, a free jazz pioneer whose influence on John Coltrane alone merits him a much wider audience than ever achieved in his lifetime. Then, after a blessedly brief diversion into the backstory of legendary Lancashire songsmiths the Dandelion Adventure, we hear about Cecil Sharp, whose work collecting thousands of traditional songs in the nineteenth century made him a king of folk music; more recently his reputation has become somewhat more complicated, as Elizabeth and Stuart explain.

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Notable: The Wicker Man/Johan Johannsson

Season 2 · Episode 6

Monday, June 7, 2021 • Duration 41:36

Elizabeth and Stuart embark on a by-now near legendary one-show tour with their visit to the Hinterlands Film Festival in Skipton, which celebrates films set in non-urban locations. Before a screening of 'The Wicker Man' at the town's Plaza Cinema, Stuart tells the audience about movie's soundtrack, which he suggests launched its own musical sub-genre. Elizabeth chooses the work of Jóhan Jóannsson, most famous for his astonishing film soundtracks including 'Arrival' and 'The Theory of Everything', and the amazing musical life of his home country, Iceland.

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Edgard Varèse - David Bowie & 1984

Season 2 · Episode 5

Tuesday, May 25, 2021 • Duration 37:08

Stuart prompts a startling confession from Elizabeth through his recounting of the story of David Bowie's obsession with 1984. Before that she delves into the remarkable tale of composer Edgard Varèse and the huge influence he had on musicians including Charlie Parker and Frank Zappa. All that and a Notable Exception every bit as tangled as a C90 cassette that's been spat out of the tape player.

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Notable: O Superman/Ken Colyer

Season 2 · Episode 4

Monday, May 17, 2021 • Duration 29:41

This week Stuart and Elizabeth are set to beguile you with stories about arguably the oddest pop record to ever make the charts - Laurie Anderson's 'O Superman' - and one of the most influential though little-known figures in British music, Ken Colyer. In between times they're arguing about just how hard it is to get to Tennessee and where exactly 'Sprech' and 'Gesang' go their separate ways. Only on Notable, surely.

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Notable: Wigan Casino/Daphne Oram

Season 2 · Episode 3

Monday, May 10, 2021 • Duration 36:48

Two more tales from the annals of musical history, featuring the nightclub in the ballroom of northern mill town that was voted Billboard's 'Best Disco In The World', and the pioneering genius who did so much to establish electronic music in the UK.

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Notable: Scarbrough Fair/ Stalin

Season 2 · Episode 2

Sunday, May 2, 2021 • Duration 30:43

It's highly unlikely that you'll find another podcast bringing together the fraught folk wrangling over the bucolic Scarbrough Fair with the influence of despotic dictator Josef Stalin on music - but as you'll hear in this new episode, for Elizabeth and Stuart such bold juxtapositions are mere trifles!

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Notable: Lord of the Rings/Josephine Baker

Season 2 · Episode 1

Monday, April 26, 2021 • Duration 31:04

Having spent lockdown three tirelessly researching some of the best stories from four hundred years of musical history, Elizabeth and Stuart return with Series Two of Notable to share them with you. In this first episode, Elizabeth tells the tale of one of the remarkable cultural figures of the last hundred years - Josephine Baker - who broke down barriers in a wide range of different fields throughout her wildly varied life. Stuart, meanwhile, shares the story of The Beatles' thwarted efforts to bring 'The Lord of the Rings' to the big screen decades before Peter Jackson had the same idea.

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Notable – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

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Notable – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify