The biggest names from the world of art, film, music, literature and dance. Alan Yentob gets close up with those shaping today's cultural world.
Showing Season 12 of 40
The Story of the Guitar
2008
No overview available.
01. The Story of the Guitar - In The Beginning
2008-10-05
Alan Yentob embarks on a three-part personal journey to discover how the guitar became the world's favourite musical instrument. Beginning with the rise of the acoustic guitar, the series takes him from an ancient Middle Eastern ancestor of the lute, to the iconic guitars draped round the necks of Bill Hailey and Elvis Presley and beyond.
02. The Story of the Guitar - Out of the Frying Pan
2008-10-12
As the guitar turns electric, music is changed for ever. The world's first electric guitar had nothing to do with jazz or blues, but Hawaiian-style music and was known as the 'frying pan'. Yentob continues his investigation from the blues of the Mississippi to the guitar wars of the 1950s, when the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul were battling for supremacy.
03. The Story of the Guitar - This Time it's Personal
2008-10-19
In the final programme of the series the guitarists talk about how they find their own sound, and how the guitar has changed their lives. Since its invention, the electric guitar has unleashed a seemingly inexhaustible sonic invention among guitarists.
04. Let There Be LIght
2008-11-11
Alan Yentob explores the work of artists whose primary medium is light. On his trip down the light fantastic, Alan encounters material from outer space, solid light sculptures, paintings made by the sun and an extinct volcano that has been turned into a temple of perception by the legendary American artist James Turrell.