Joe Boyd is a man about music, record producer, a film producer and author.

He arrived in London in 1964 with Muddy Waters and a host of blues musicians who played to sold out UK audiences when they were unappreciated in their US homeland.

In this conversation he talks about Nick Drake, Paul Simon, The Incredible String Band, Paul Butterfield, MIke Bloomfield and the enduring power of real music.

Joe is currently on tour in North America launching the American paperback.

A thought provoking podcast.

Billie Holiday, Eleanora Fagan was born on April 7th 1915.

Bitter Crop is a superb biography of Billie Holiday who was probably the very best jazz singer there has ever been. The book title is takes from one of Billie's signature songs, 'Strange Fruit'.

There have been films and many books about Billie's career but not all of them came close to telling the whole truth of a remarkable life.

True there were drugs and alcohol but there was so mucah more than that. There was huge musical success and adulation - Billie considered her life to be a triumph.

The conversation took place in July 2024 ..... 65 years after Billie died.

Ruth Werner was born Ursula Kuczynski in Berlin.

She was appalled by Hitler and became a lifelong communist and a spy. During the 1940s she lived around Oxford and radioed secrets to Russia.

Her spy codename was Sonja and her memoir was published as Sonja's Report. Ben MacIntyre wrote a best-selling biography of her ...Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy.

David Freeman spoke to her in Oxford.