This August, as he returns to the UK to curate Southbank Centre’s Meltdown festival, BBC Radio 6 Music celebrates David Byrne with a series of programmes featuring the musician and songwriter.
He’ll be co-presenting with Lauren Laverne, interviewed by Gilles Peterson and, making his debut as a 6 Music presenter, he will be presenting his own radio show, a two-hour special on Sunday 23 August.
On Friday 21 August (10am-1pm), Lauren Laverne broadcasts her show live from the Southbank Centre during the festival. She’ll be speaking to some of the acts performing and will be joined by a very special co-presenter, David Byrne.
He’ll be chatting about how he brought together the line-up, which includes artists such as Anna Calvi, Matthew Herbert, and Atomic Bomb - the musical celebration of Nigerian musician William Onyeabor. Plus Lauren will take a look at projects taking place across the event, including a visit to David Byrne’s festival library.
Throughout his career, he has compiled a fascinating collection of music books and, for the duration of the festival, the Saison Poetry Library, Royal Festival Hall, is housing all the titles in their reading lounge – a collection of every single book on music that David Byrne owns, over 250 volumes from around the world, for visitors to read and borrow to get an insight into the books on music that have shaped David’s thoughts and approach to music.
On Saturday 22 August, David will be in conversation with Gilles Peterson (3-6pm) who’ll be chatting to him about his vast record collection, his Luaka Bop record label and the role of being a curator. Gilles’ weekly show is one which joins the musical dots between soul, hip-hop, afro, Latin, electronica, jazz and beyond so this is sure to be a fantastic interview which knows no musical bounds.
Later on Sunday 23 August, Stuart Maconie presents a Freak Zone special (8-10pm) devoted to David Byrne’s pioneering album, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.
David Byrne is well known as the musician who co-founded the group Talking Heads (1976–88).
