All Those Radio Stations And Places To Download Music From...

And still I often find it difficult to find what I want to hear. I have a broad appreciation of music and will try just about anything. You have to support new artists and composers but why do we have to neglect or ignore some of the great music and performers of the past?

We still have classical music being played and though perhaps the listening figures may suggest otherwise it really sells.

And therefore, I feel the same about music that is neglected and practically unheard anywhere in the UK. Many songs and pieces of music are covered by today's artists and they often admit to liking these older songs and growing up in a household where they heard all different types of music and perhaps that's the problem these days.

I still believe that one national station could survive and draw enough listeners playing this type of music. BBC Radio 2 does play a little at certain times but I would reckon we are talking no more 5 hours per week. Equally, to make matters worse, Radio 2 will often broadcast documentaries acknowledging certain artists and their place in musical culture and don't play it.

In this country main television and radio stations and those awarded licences from the broadcasting regulator mainly stick to chart music and the kind of material represented by the X Factor. So its interesting that one heat recently had their contestants singing swing numbers/standards. An example of how different things are...Matt Monroe Jr can sell out concerts in the Philippines with audiences of 50,000 at venues and will be invited onto television shows. And does very well in the States, Australia etc...here virtually little or no publicity.

Yet he is doing an extensive nationwide tour in the UK. Where did I hear him interviewed? Around 3am on a Monday morning by accident on a station I have not listened to regularly for years which is a talk station and I admit to mistakingly thinking concentrated on Sport because its previous owner changed its format from talk to mainly a sports talk station but it appears to offer some general chat.

Its still not readily available via download sites on the internet so as much of this material is hard to come across, this perhaps shows why those file sharing sites were so popular not so long ago. The material seems far more accessible in the States and across Europe. I'm not sure why.

There are specialist labels managing to market this material with enough sales to make it worth their while and these same companies often clean up the recordings making them sound as good or better than they did when issued.

There is a great swathe of material that is being totally ignored.