Songs of struggle

Singing is the most human and straightforward form of musical expression. Everyone has a voice and can sing, it is free and it is easy.

Sadly, songs and singing are no longer central to our communities, schools and workplaces. Unlike in other countries, Britain lost much of its rich song tradition largely as a result of the brutal industrialisation in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

It survived on a spider's thread, kept tenuously alive in recent decades by such gigantic figures as Cecil Sharp, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, Charles Parker, the Carthy and Waterson families, Dick Gaughan and several others.

This is a song book with a difference, illustrated with evocative black-and-white photos of the struggles and campaigns that the music celebrates or commemorates.

They are also annotated with short texts and interview excerpts with those involved, providing vital information for those unaware of the background events.

These songs were written between 1973 and 2002 by Dave Rogers, chief songwriter and artistic director of Banner Theatre. They are accompanied here by full musical notation and guitar chords.

Banner Theatre, based in Birmingham, has an unbroken record of involvement in almost every major industrial dispute in Britain and with progressive campaigns and struggles.

The company's work grew out of a meticulous process of involvement, research and interviewing those at the core of the relevant struggles and based on ordinary people's direct experiences.

It's approach finds its roots and inspiration in the famous BBC documentary Ballads, pioneered by the late Charles Parker and Ewan MacColl, which combined music, song and dialogue to create powerful and moving epics.

Parker was, indeed, much involved in Banner's work and was a close colleague of Rogers.

Banner Theatre has no fixed stage or prestigious theatre building. The players take their dramas to where people live and work - working men's clubs, trade union halls and local pubs.

Rogers has spent a lifetime trying to make the world a better and fairer place for the majority. His songs are about burning issues that affect or have affected all of us, from the miners' Saltley Gates victory in 1972, and the fight for the release of the Shrewsbury Three, to his anthem for the Liverpool dockers' strike in the 1990s and the cancer of racism, to name but a few.

Each Banner show created around 10 new songs. The ones in this volume remain relevant - even if the struggles that inspired their composition are over - not just as historical documents,

but as powerful testimonies to the daily experiences of working people here and everywhere.

As Peggy Seeger says in her foreword, "This kind of music is rooted in the lives and struggles of those commonly described as 'the salt of the earth,' is part of a tradition of political songwriting that has become largely invisible - but it is a tradition that needs to be sustained and nurtured."

If this book helps do that and passes on something of this rich and valuable legacy to a younger generation, then it will have been worthwhile.

It is essential to demonstrate to younger people that there is another musical world alongside the commercial mainstream. These songs are singable, powerful and true. They deserve to survive not just on these pages but in the hearts and mouths of all of us.

They are composed in a variety of styles, but Rogers draws his tunes largely from oral traditions and transmits them almost entirely by ear to the musicians working with him.

They remain an organic part of the struggles of which they sing, reflecting the warmth, creativity, internationalism and passion of working people through difficult and troubled times.

•This book is available from Bread Books. Telephone: 0845 6066571.