No Off Switch: of Andy Kershaw and others

  I was sorry to hear of Andy Kershaw's death.  As he presented programmes on BBC Radios 1, 3 and 4 there will almost certainly be a tribute to him on one station or another in the coming days but in the meantime I can recommend his very entertaining, full-throttle autobiography, aptly entitled No Off Switch. It's mentioned in the reposted piece below, written in 2012:

  

 Turn on, tune in, tape dropout ...  

 

There have been various programmes on the radio to commemorate the fact that it's now ninety years since the BBC started broadcasting. This post isn't going to be a digest of them all but one series, Music in the Air, might be of particular interest to readers of this blog. It's a comprehensive history of radio in the US and UK, presented by the Beeb's American import Paul Gambaccini (above); you can find available episodes here and listen to them via BBC iPlayer. [see note at end]

Episode Two, The Moondog Years, presumably concentrates on Alan Freed. It won't be available on iPlayer until after its transmission next Tuesday night, but I have heard Episode One, which takes us from the medium's very beginnings, with lots of archive audio, though the very first radio broadcast didn't survive and it seems we have to take the broadcaster's word that it actually happened. (Only a friend was listening, apparently.)

There's a bit of personal Gambaccini reminiscence thrown in at the beginning of the first programme - the shock of hearing his father swear and rush to turn the set off as rock'n'roll began blasting out, which had the unintended effect of causing the young Gambo to cleave unto the music ever after - but after that it's a more general account which could have been presented equally well by any number of people, so Episode Two, whose title promises a greater emphasis on rock'n'roll and the beginnings of modern disc jockeying, will probably be more interesting. And perhaps in a later episode there will be some insights into the Radio 1 environment which Gambaccini entered.

 

 

On a related note, I have almost finished reading Andy Kershaw's autobiography, No Off Switch. I have to admit I didn't read it in order, darting first to his experience of the wunnerful BBC youth station. Gambaccini was one of the few DJs looked upon kindly by Johns Peel and Walters and their unexpected offspring Kershaw (who sat, Oor Wullie-like, on an unpturned bucket in Room 318, there being no room amid the clutter for a third chair). 
 

In hiring Kershaw Radio 1 bosses may have been looking for a rival to, and maybe even an eventual replacement for, John Peel, but their tactical error in putting him in the same office as Peel and his producer "almost guaranteed we became brothers-in-arms", thus reinforcing Peel's position and creating "a radio station within a radio station."

 In no time at all, we set about erecting the barricades. Few of our Radio 1 colleagues were allowed across the threshold. Fellow DJs given rare access were Paul Gambaccini (whom we considered our intellectual equal and a fellow music obsessive), Annie Nightingale (battle-hardened survivor), Alan Freeman (lovely old cove), Janice Long (our scally mate) and Kid Jensen (nice lad).

No Off Switch is a very enjoyable read and I regret not starting at the beginning. I am now almost at Chapter One: for me, if for no other reader, Kershaw keeps getting younger and younger. 

 

The Peel stuff is fascinating because it's by the sole surviving member of that triumvirate. He is remembered fondly by his protege but not as a latter-day saint: Kershaw writes of occasions when Peel was too frightened about his own position to stick up for the younger DJ, only to find himself similarly dumped on by Radio 1 some years later. It's not particularly bitter: Kershaw notes that Peel had a family to support by that time. But it's Walters who receives more praise, as the man who went in to battle for Peel and Kershaw and enabled them to survive for so long.

When, the bruiser Walters having long retired, Peel finds himself under threat, his programmes pushed further and further into the night - in an effort, Kershaw says, by Radio 1 Controller Andy Parfitt to demoralise him without having "John's broadcasting blood on his hands" - he suggests to Peel that he should speak to Jenny Abramsky, Controller of Network Radio, and threaten to walk out on his job as presenter of Radio 4's Home Truths, by then "a national institution."

 "Oh no," he murmured, "I couldn't possibly do that."
His last words to me, before he shambled away towards Oxford Circus, were, "It's killing me."

Some weeks later he went on the holiday to Peru where he died of a heart attack:

Just minutes before he was struck down, John sighed to Sheila, "I do miss Walters."

The Peel and Walters material is a relatively small part of the book, which also includes details of the painful split with his partner and separation from his children, his obsession with motorcycles, his gradual immersion in music - which I'm only learning about in retrospect, so kids, read this the right round: it's not Betrayal by Harold Pinter, you get me? But it is sparkling and funny throughout. Alright, at times individual sentences do get the tiniest bit convoluted, but that's a negligible price to pay for a fairground ride like this.

There was another programme about broadcasting on Radio 2 last night, The Listeners' Archive (details here). It didn't sound all that promising - shows which ordinary listeners had recorded off-air and returned to the Beeb as part of an amnesty for this technically illegal activity. We heard segments of a range of programmes (including Peel and Pete Drummond co-hosting an early Top Gear, and Tony Blackburn's very first BBC broadcast, complete with that signature breakfast theme tune but without Arnold's doggy punctuations).

 

What gave the programme an added interest, however, was that the collectors of these tapes were interviewed and asked why they had made the recordings.  Occasionally a punter simply wanted a record of a show he had taken part in, but more often people were recording more systematically.

I don't think it was said outright, but what came over was that there was a kind of indefinable magic about those voices, wacky or suave, making it up as they went along, for hours at a stretch; the underlying message seemed to be that they had been saved for posterity because their seemingly trivial craft was important and shouldn't be lost. The music the DJs introduced on those archive recordings was quickly faded out, so that you got two or three segments of their linking chat in a wunner, making it more obvious that the best of them were responsible for creating a kind of music themselves, even if it wasn't particularly to your taste.

Yes, even Tony Blackburn. I remember listening to his breakfast show in the early seventies, hearing him introduce the Chi-Lites' Have You Seen Her? as I got dressed by the radiator in my bedroom on a cold winter morning, and doing the same about twenty years later when he was presenting a similar show on London's Capital Gold, playing that same song - and there didn't see  to be much difference between the two versions of Tony. When Steve Jones, later of Radio Clyde, briefly deputised for Blackburn at Radio 1, he seemed to be attempting a carbon copy, as though by way of acknowledging that Tone had got it right, so why change it for a couple of weeks? 

 

Also, unless I'm dreaming, sometimes Tony took you by surprise: I am willing to swear that Fairport Convention's Babbacombe Lee was once his Record of the Week ("PLAYED EVERY DAY! HERE IT IS ...").

I also recall that he was vaguely disturbed by Ray Stephens' Turn Your Radio On, specifically citing the line "Get in touch with God" as one he couldn't understand. Yet there he was (and on some station, doubtless still is), travelling unseen through the ether and whispering intimately into people's ears, like Bruno Ganz in Wings of Desire. Come to think of it, the idea of a DJ as a guardian angel of sorts makes sense: the best of them, we feel, are on our side, guiding us, if only to lighten our mood and direct us towards some music which might offer the illusion, at least, of change in our lives. I recall writing to John Peel - only the once - and receiving a letter in return, which suggests that he took his responsibilities to listeners seriously, however ridiculous their communications: I blush to admit that I ended my missive by saying "I think this is one of the nicest letters I've written" - but Peel obligingly began his reply: "You're right - it was a nice one." 

 

Touchingly, I saw on a recent TV appearance that Tony Blackburn has forsaken the toupee: all seemed the same until he slightly inclined his head and it became obvious that he was no more hirsute that Ian Hislop. I can't find a handy image of this online, but when I first saw it on TV, I paused and rewound to capture the moment he inclined his head and all was revealed. It must have been a conscious decision, or at least a risk he chose to undergo. What next - Macca  Undyed? *

I recorded a lot of radio over the years, but usually for timeshift purposes: again and again I taped over episodes of Radio 4's Weekending which I wish I had now. Yes, I know lots of people have a low opinion of it, but we're talking a whole heap of years, and I remember particular editions which seemed pretty good, unless I simply didn't have the sophistication to know it was already old hat. I suppose I'm talking late seventies - I seem to remember a few editions costarring Martin Jarvis which were better than average.

But when I think back to my years of radio listening it's not John Peel, nor yet Andy Kershaw (I was a bit too late for him) who inspire the fondest memories. I have written already about the music broadcasters who did so much to shape my tastes - Ken Sykora, Hubert Gregg and Benny Green among them - but the programmes which brought the purest, unfettered delight weren't actually musical. Well, one was, but it was within the confines of Radio 2's evening entertainment slot.

I speak of Pop Score (or "POP SCORE!!!" as it was invariably announced). This was way before the days of the supercilious Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The contestants were a mix of dinosaur DJs and 60s pop stars (Helen Shapiro seemed to be on a lot). The genial Pete Murray introduced it and what I remember most fondly about it is the sense of goodheartedness which all the participants brought to it. It may have been essentially trivial and I don't know whether there was a three line whip to make DJs attend (after all, they could have been opening a supermarket - or another branch of Brentford Nylons, in the case of Fluff) but the overall impression was of immense conviviality, and I recall snuggling down in the dark beneath a less than adequate sleeping bag doubling as a quilt on many a freezing winter evening (it was transmitted around seven but bed seemed the place to luxuriate in it), feeling part of the happy crowd watching performers who belonged to them.

There were also other programmes which felt like the audio equivalent of hot water bottles: Shaw Taylor's The Law Game and interviews with variety era comedians which always seemed to crop up in the Radio 2 schedules but Pop Score, perhaps because I could simultaneously engage with the questions and bask in the chummy warmth engendered by the DJs, is the one I most wish was still around. It was an early validation of my compendious interest in music, suggesting a skill which might somehow, at some point, pay dividends.

And it has, in a way. At least, my day job is involved with, among other things, a wide range of music: buying it, cataloguing it, adding notes. It's like a great big Pop Score every day, sort of.

 But I can't end on a downbeat. So finally, HERE IT IS, PLAYED EVERY DAY ... THE TONY BLACKBURN SHOW RECORD OF THE WEEK. Honest ...

 

 

 Postscript:

 At the time of this repost the programmes mentioned above aren't available to hear on the BBC website though the links provided still work and will take you to more detailed information about them. If they are ever repeated the audio will become available again via those same links for 30 days after broadcast; in the meantime, for the busy executive in a hurry, that Paul Gambaccini series can be found on youtube here. 

With six one-hour programmes the series amounts to a comprehensive survey, featuring many interviews with historically important DJs and others,and split fairly equally between America and Britain. Alan Freed is indeed  discussed in that second episode, The Moondog Years, but isn't the sole subject. Listening again to all six programmes in the series, what comes over most strongly is the business side of broadcasting: however we may lament the closure of a favourite station in the end it's all about market forces. We might have tolerated the Luxembourg signal fading in and out in the sixties when there were fewer options for pop and rock fans, but the advent of local commercial radio in the early seventies began to give us more alternatives to Auntie Beeb. Growing up in the West of Scotland, I remember that the opening of Radio Clyde, and hearing local accents on the air, was a big deal.

Richard Park, who is among those interviewed in the series, was a major figure in the early days of Clyde, as mentioned in my tribute to Ken Sykora, here. I don't know what the situation is now but in its early days Clyde was very exciting, playing a wide range of music. And Ken Sykora's style of presentation exemplified what several contributors to the Gambaccini series said they always tried to bear in mind: in the end, broadcasting is about one person speaking intimately to an audience of one.

A further note about Tony Blackburn: I recently shared on social media my unlikely but persistent memory of the Fairports' far-from-poptastic ditty being chosen as his Record of the Week; Rob Chapman replied that Locomotive's Mr Armageddon had also been one of Mr B's chosen discs way back in 1968: "He was always more open-minded than some of his detractors." 

I recall my eldest brother greeting Mr Armageddon with approval when it was on some TV pop show of the time; he hadn't liked the group's earlier (moderate) hit, the ska-style Rudi's in Love, which he considered rather soppy, if I remember correctly, whereas Mr Armageddon was properly progressive, underground, psychedelic or what have you - in a word, heavy.

I was gearing up (or topgearing up?) to write something disparaging about that record; listening to it again, however, it has to be admitted that no matter whether or not the lyrics make much sense it sounds great. 

 

 Earlier today, just before I learnt about Andy Kershaw's death, I happening to be listening to Paul Gambaccini on an old edition of the Rock's Backpages podcast, talking about his first meeting with Peel and Walters, and about Tony Blackburn's genuine love for soul music. You can find out more on the Rock's Backpages website here. 

Andy Kershaw's Guardian obituary can be found here. 

Martin Kelner on Andy Kershaw, including the first of several conversations with him, is on his substack here. 

Liz Kershaw shares her memories of her brother ("some of the stuff that didn't make the obits") with Martin here.

I wrote about some of the radio broadcasters who helped shape my musical tastes - click on individual names to read about them.

They Turned Me On - Part One: Ian Whitcomb
They Turned Me On - Part Two: Ken Sykora
They Turned Me On - Part Three: Hubert Gregg
They Turned Me On - Part Four: Benny Green & Robert Cushman 
They Turned Me On - Part Five: Russell Davies
They Turned Me On - Part Six: Those Unheard  or There is a Balm in Islington 

See also a late addition to this series, about Dilly Barlow, here.

 

* Tony Blackburn's toupeeless days were shortlived - at least, I never saw another such display on TV - but as the world knows Macca is now happily Undyed. And, at the time of this note, Undead - as, in a sense, he has been since October 1969: