The series, starring Welsh baritone Ivor Emmanuel and supporting cast, expressed a set of ‘feel-good’ values that were wholesome, folksy, rustic, fun-loving and family-oriented.
Broadcast in Welsh (but with bilingual captions on screen and bilingual voiced-over links), Land of Song was made in Cardiff by Television Wales and the West (TWW) and then distributed or ‘networked’ to ITV stations serving many parts of the country, thus reaching a nationwide audience which, in the early 1960s, peaked at around ten million viewers.
Independent television had been on air in the UK for less than three years when the new TWW company won the franchise to broadcast to Wales and the West of England, beginning its transmissions on 14 January 1958.
[2] TWW formed a commitment to broadcasting some programmes in Welsh, and another of its main aims was to provide popular entertainment that could compete with anything produced by the BBC.
When Land of Song began in 1958, its only direct rival in providing musical variety on TV was the BBC's The Black and White Minstrel Show.
It drew on folk tunes, traditional songs, ballads, and Welsh hymns, performed by a children's choir and an adult chorus, together with a select group of soloists.
Welsh baritone Ivor Emmanuel (1927–2007) was "one of Britain's most popular singing stars of the 1950s and 1960s"[3] and is widely remembered for his role leading the ‘Men of Harlech’ battle hymn on the barricades in the 1964 film Zulu.
Born in Margam but raised in Pontrhydyfen near Port Talbot, he began his singing career in the theatres of South Wales in the late 40s.
in London's West End, and also joined the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company chorus, appearing in a number of Savoy productions.
Bunford had the additional role of training the children's chorus and helping Norman Whitehead choose and arrange music from the range of Welsh songs, hymns and traditional tunes that were to provide the show's main content.
[5] Although the orchestral musicians, dancers and choreographers who worked on the show, were full-time professionals brought in from London, the singers were all local, Welsh, semi-professional performers, most having other regular jobs.
Its screening nationally, on every fourth Sunday throughout the year without a break, gave it a wide currency, and helped to build those audiences approaching ten million in its heyday.
The measure of the popularity of Land of Song and that of its lead singer, was underlined in 1960 by Ivor Emmanuel's appearance, along with members of the children's chorus, on the 31st Royal Variety Performance at London's Victoria Palace Theatre, the first to be televised (by ATV), being broadcast live, nationally, at 8pm on Sunday 22 May 1960.
The star-studded cast which entertained HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip and television viewers around the UK and abroad included Max Bygraves, Alma Cogan, Nat King Cole, Russ Conway, Billy Cotton and his Band, Sammy Davis Jr., Lonnie Donegan, Diana Dors, Charlie Drake, Jimmy Edwards, Adam Faith, Bruce Forsyth, Benny Hill, Frankie Howerd, Hattie Jacques, Teddy Johnson & Pearl Carr, Liberace, Vera Lynn, Millicent Martin, Bob Monkhouse, Cliff Richard, Anne Shelton, the Tiller Girls, Norman Wisdom, Harry Worth, and band-leader Jack Hylton.
[8] In her memoir, Recording My Life (2001), she writes of having become aware of the success of Land of Song and the show's star Ivor Emmanuel whom she recalls as "one of the most popular singers of the day".
[9] Spurred by the popularity of the TV show, the Land of Song EP (Delysé EDP 209) sold well immediately on release.
[10] Aside from a single ten-minute sample opening sequence of VT footage that survives in the TWW archive,[11] the Delysé recordings represent the most significant remnant of Land of Song.
TWW had not regarded the Welsh singers as full-time professional musicians and their rates were therefore much lower, despite the main burden of work falling so heavily upon them.
The show's original star, Ivor Emmanuel, who had initially walked out in sympathy with his fellow Welsh singers, returned once the MU settlement had been reached.
On 3 March 1968, as the Wales and the West of England independent television franchise was about to pass, controversially, to Harlech Television (HTV),[2] the final show broadcast by the outgoing TWW (All Good Things… i.e. come to an end) featured Bernard Braden, Morecambe and Wise, Clifford Evans, Anita Harris, Manfred Mann, Gwyn Thomas, Stan Stennett, Wyn Calvin, Stanley Unwin, the Pendyrus Male Voice Choir and – in homage to the nationwide success that Land of Song had brought to the company between 1958 and 1964 – Ivor Emmanuel.