Floorboards and the Blues

The music writer Laura Barton visits four corners of Britain and listens closely to the music found in different landscapes.

Long ago, the city of Birmingham was dubbed "the home of heavy metal", suggesting a connection between the manufacturing industries of the Black Country and the music of Black Sabbath and others. Now James and Jibs of 'metalcore' group Oceans Ate Alaska have inherited - and trumped - their own fathers' heavy tastes.

And in a programme as much about community as cults, Laura talks with Birmingham's celebrated R&B singer Jaki Graham and traces the story of music in the clubs and on the streets of city.

Then, Laura heads west to South Wales to experience how another musical tradition associated with established industrial communities has been reinvented for modern times. During a rehearsal, conductor Richard Vaughan explains how Côr y Gleision - the Cardiff Blues Choir - has found a new home for famed Welsh singing.

Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.