Something Old, Something New

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when your Dad's an African-American soul star and your Mum's a music-loving girl from a Sheffield council estate in the north of England? Are your roots on the terraces at a Sheffield United Football match, or in the stylings of a Spike Lee film? For writer and photographer Johny Pitts, whose parents met in the heyday of Northern Soul on the dance floor of the legendary King Mojo club, how he navigates his black roots has always been an issue.

Not being directly connected to the Caribbean or West African diaspora culture, all he was told at school was that his ancestors were slaves. In this programme, Johny heads off to the USA, to trace his father's musical migration and to tell an alternative story of Black British identity. From Pittsmore in Sheffield, to Bedford Stuyvesant in New York, and all the way down to South Carolina where his grandmother picked cotton, Johny Pitts makes a journey of self-discovery.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:04.0	For details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to BBCWorld
0:09.0	Service.com slash podcasts. Demi derelict car park at the back of some residential property in what's really the traditionally
0:24.6	Caribbean area of Pittsmore in Sheffield in the north of England.
0:29.2	Back in the 60s and 70s though everyone from Stevie Wonder to Benny King and Jimmy Hendrix
0:34.1	performed here in a now demolished building that was Peter Stringfellow's
0:38.2	legendary King Mojo Club. This is also where my dad, an African American musician, met my soul-loving Sheffield mom for the first time.
0:47.0	My name is Johnny Pitts and I'm a Northern Soul baby.
0:51.0	Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
1:00.0	Can I give you now, Mr. President, from the young man that you probably know very well.
1:07.0	He's here with his son tonight.
1:09.0	Give a rousing round of applause for Mr. Ritchie Pitts and his son John.
1:15.0	Hey good, I was looking for your last night,
1:18.0	to my son Johnny.
1:19.0	Hey, how you doing?
1:20.0	Nice to meet you.
1:21.0	This is my dad, Richie Pitts.
1:23.0	In the 50s, you know, do what music, you know,
1:26.0	an a cappella singing on the street corner.
1:29.0	He used to draw the girls.
1:30.0	Yes, that's right.
1:32.0	We used to do that in the cafeteria singing Frankie Lyman's song, a song by a group called
	...

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