Podcast: Desert Island Discs: Fragment Archive 1970-1986 (LS 35 · TOP 5% what is this?)
Episode: Ivy Benson
Pub date: 1971-10-16

Notes from The Audio Browser:

Surviving fragment from a 1971 radio interview with groundbreaking British jazz musician Ivy Benson. Born in Yorkshire in 1913, she initially funded her musical career by simultaneously working in a factory until she could afford her own instruments. During WW2, her all female ensemble became the BBC's house band and were invited to play at the VE Day celebrations in Berlin in 1945. At the start of her career, she says, so called "girl musicians" were seen as freaks — an idea that didn't survive long once she started playing

Roy Plomley's castaway is bandleader Ivy Benson.

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