Classic Albums

A closer look at how Bob Marley and The Wailers produced and recorded the 1973 reggae album Catch a Fire.

A closer look at the story behind English rock band Def Leppard's 1987 album Hysteria and its hits, including Animal, Pour Some Sugar on Me, and more.

A look at the making of Black Sabbath's second album Paranoid, which has since become a classic. Explore how Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward created their frighteningly dark and heavy sound.

“Wish You Were Here”, released in September 1975, was the follow up album to the globally successful “The Dark Side Of The Moon” and is cited by many fans, as well as band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour, as their favourite Pink Floyd album. On release it went straight to Number One in both the UK and the US and topped the charts in many other countries around the world. This programme tells the story of the making of this landmark release through new interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason and archive interviews with the late Richard Wright. Also featured are sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson, guest vocalist Roy Harper, front cover “burning man” Ronnie Rondell and others involved in the creation of the album. In addition, original recording engineer Brian Humphries revisits the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios to illustrate aspects of the songs’ construction.

“Mr Mojo Risin’” is the story of the making of the Doors’ last album with Jim Morrison “L.A. Woman”. 2011 is the 40th anniversary both of the album’s release and of the death of Jim Morrison and this programme goes into detail of how the album came about, its recording and what was happening to the band at the time. The story is told through new interviews with the three surviving Doors: Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore plus contributions from Jac Holzman, founder of their label Elektra Records, Bill Siddons, who was their manager, Bruce Botnick, engineer and co-producer of the album and others associated with the Doors at this time. The show includes archive footage of the Doors performing both live and in the studio, classic photographs and new musical demonstrations from the Doors.