Clarke Peters
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Michael Berkeley talks to the actor Clarke Peters about his passion for breaking down barriers between musical traditions.
Best known for his television roles as Detective Lester Freeman in The Wire and Albert Lambreaux in Treme, Clarke has also appeared in films such as Notting Hill, Mona Lisa and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
And he has a rich career in music too \\u2013 from busking in France in his youth to working as a backing singer for David Essex and for Joan Armatrading \\u2013 if you listen carefully you can hear him on her iconic song Love and Affection. And he\\u2019s appeared in Chicago, Chess, and Porgy and Bess to name but a few musicals. In 1990 he created the award winning revue Five Guys Named Moe, based on the music of Louis Jordan.
Clarke\\u2019s choices of music reflect the trans-Atlantic nature of his life: a piece written in France by the New Orleans composer Gottschalk, which he heard when filming Treme; music by Ravel and by Debussy; and Gershwin\\u2019s Rhapsody in Blue, which always takes him straight back to his birthplace, New York. And his final piece \\u2013 Nat King Cole playing Rachmaninoff - illustrates perfectly his desire to open people\\u2019s ears to the cultural breadth of classical music.
Producer: Jane Greenwood\\nA Loftus production for BBC Radio 3
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