Documentary series about American folk music from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Three-part documentary series on American folk music, tracing its history from the recording boom of the 1920s to the folk revival of the 1960s.

In the 1960s a new generation, spearheaded by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, took folk to the top of the charts and made it the voice of youthful protest.

In the depression of the 1930s, John Lomax found convicted murderer Leadbelly in a southern jail. Leadbelly\'s music was never quite as pure and untouched by pop as Lomax believed, but it set a new agenda for folk music, redefining it as the voice of protest, the voice of the outsider and the oppressed.

Michael Palin explores China, staying in the Governor's Castle in Qingdao where Mao slept, meeting the owner of a Chinese vineyard which produces Chardonay and having a street massage. He travels to Shanghai and then by train and boat to the Yangtse Gorge, where a huge engineering project to create a dam is in progress, which will flood the towns and areas in which he is now travelling. Third in the series

Michael Palin travels to Japan, starting at the island of Sado where he meets the famous Kodd Drummers. From there he moves down to Tokyo and is shown around by Mayumi, an early Japanese Monty Python fan.

In 1903, on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas, a syphilitic and alcoholic Frenchman called Paul Gauguin died of a heart attack. At that point nobody realised the incredible impact Gauguin\'s work was to have on modern art.

Gil Scott-Heron was one of the most influential musicians and poets of the last 50 years. In Don Letts\'s documentary, Gil tells his own story for the first time - from being one of the first black children to integrate an all-white Southern state school to becoming the Godfather of Rap.

Virginia Woolf said Homer\'s epic poem the Odyssey was \'alive to every tremor and gleam of existence\'. Following the magical and strange adventures of warrior king Odysseus, inventor of the idea of the Trojan Horse, the poem can claim to be the greatest story ever told.

In the 1950s, English poetry becomes more democratic as poets like Philip Larkin turn away from the obscurity of modernism in favour of language and subject matter that reflect the feel of 50s Britain. American poets develop a raw confessional style, while in Britain poets reach out to new audiences - on television, in pubs, on the streets.

The first episode explores the stylistic shifts in poetry as the 20th century dawned, when poets began to jettison tradition for modern forms of expression. They would reject the sentiment and moralising of Victorian poetry and call for a new directness and economy of language fitting for a postwar generation

Idris Elba reveals the defining moments in street music and culture over the last 35 years, featuring rare archive material, seminal music videos and insight from hip hop stars.

Documentary telling the story of the British world music revolution from the early 1980s to the present. Through a variety of careers, starting with Zimbabwe's Bhundu Boys and culminating with Portugal's Mariza in the new millennium, the film explores what it takes to bring music from 'out there' over here.

A documentary chronicling the story of Stiff Records, a tiny independent that took music out of the boardroom and gave it back to the fans.Stiff\'s successes included Nick Lowe, the Damned, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Madness, Tracey Ullman and the Pogues.

Imagine: Being a Concert Pianist gets under the lid of this extreme form of musicianship. Celebrated pianists, including Yevgeny Kissin, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Chinese wunderkind Lang Lang, talk intimately about their lives, their work and their motivation. The film gives a frank and personal perspective on a profession for which the only real qualification is genius.

A powerful documentary portrait of legendary British war photographer and photojournalist Don McCullin. Told through a series of searingly honest and often graphic interviews, McCullin recounts a life lived in the theatre of war.

Alan Yentob presents the first of a two-part series for Imagine on the art of stand-up comedy. He talks to comedians in Britain and America, exploring their backgrounds and influences and their passion for making people laugh.

The second of a two-part series for Imagine on the art of stand-up comedy. Alan Yentob talks to comedians in Britain and America, exploring the evolution of stand-up and how it transfers to other mediums.

Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond's Orbit sculpture is the most spectacular artistic creation of 2012 - a gravity-defying, breathtakingly dynamic scribble of crimson steel. Standing twice the height of Nelson's Column, it now towers over the Olympic Park.

Programme celebrating the archive of this legendary BBC jazz concert show from the mid 1960s, It features classic performances from legends such as Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie and the Julian Cannonball Adderley Sextet, alongside rarely seen sessions from the likes of Wes Montgomery, Marian McPartland, Chris Barbers Jazz Band and Willie The Lion Smith

Jazz Horns Gold blows its own trumpet (and saxophone and nose flute) with a cool array of BBC archive from the jazz vaults.

A journey into the BBC archives unearthing glorious performances and candid interviews from the golden age of jazz. Featuring some of the greatest names in American music, including the godfather of New Orleans jazz Louis Armstrong, the King of Swing Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald

The definitive documentary record of one of Jimi Hendrixs most celebrated performances, now digitally remastered and featuring footage never seen on television before. It includes such signature songs as Purple Haze, Voodoo Child and his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, as well as interviews with Woodstock promoter Michael Lang and Hendrix band members Mitch Mitchell, Billy Cox, Larry Lee and Juma Sultan among others.

Melvyn Bragg travels from Oklahoma to California to examine the enduring legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck.

Documentary which explores the most important day in the career of the legendary Johnny Cash.

Jonathan Meades takes a quixotic tour of Scotland, a country which has intrigued him since he first encountered lists of towns only known from football coupons

This programme was part of This Is Scotland - a BBC Four season which celebrated and examined aspects of Scottish culture, art, film-making, heritage, landscape and psyche.

On the Isles of Lewis and Harris, Meades discovers Calvinism and peat bog bodies.

Meades celebrates an oil refinery and takes potshots at overpaid footballers.

On June 4 1976, four young men from ruined, post-industrial Manchester went to see a Sex Pistols show at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall. Inspired by the gig that is now credited with igniting the Manchester music scene, they formed what was to become one of the world's most influential bands, Joy Division.