Andy Kershaw
Encyclopedia
Andy Kershaw is a British broadcaster, known for his interest in world music
.
His shows feature a mix of country
, blues
, reggae
, folk music
, spoken word performance from the likes of Ivor Cutler
, and other music from around the world.
, were born in Rochdale.
The son of a headmistress and headmaster, Kershaw’s parents instilled in him the ethics of education and self-improvement at an early age - as a party trick aged two, he would name the whiskered military men in his father's history books of the Great War - but he never felt the love or pride from them that he did get from his grandparents, who provided a home from home.
Watching the first American space walk on TV in 1965 made a strong impression of adventure, possibility and achievement on the young Kershaw, as did his education at the hands of the German ex-refugee nuns at Rochdale Convent.
He studied Politics at the University of Leeds
, a decision made solely with an eye on the position of Entertainments Secretary for Leeds University Union
. Kershaw was appointed Entertainments Secretary in 1980, midway through his second year. A full-time commitment to a non-sabbatical office, he booked bands including Ian Dury
, Dire Straits
, The Clash
, Elvis Costello
, Iggy Pop
, and Duran Duran
- the latter paid £50 from Kershaw’s own pocket to support Hazel O'Connor
.
Kershaw’s first engagement after Leeds University was to oversee backstage operations of The Rolling Stones’ epic 1982 Roundhay Park
concert in Leeds
.
- to ruthlessly promote the UK’s third-largest town without city status, Northampton
. Unintentionally, at Radio Aire, he also helped to launch the media career of Carol Vorderman
, and made his broadcasting debut, fronting a late night alternative show and a weekly blues programme.
After being made redundant from Radio Aire in 1983, Kershaw was employed as a driver, tour manager and roadie by the singer Billy Bragg
.
Kershaw’s big break came in 1984, when he was asked to present BBC TV’s flagship rock programme, The Old Grey Whistle Test, by its producer Trevor Dann
, who Kershaw had met when filming with Bragg the previous week. He subsequently recorded a television interview with his hero Bob Dylan
, and a loud session from the Ramones
. He co-presented Live Aid
in 1985.
In July 1985, Kershaw began life as a BBC Radio 1
DJ, ear-marked by the station as a possible successor to John Peel
. Room 318 of Egton House
was to house Kershaw, Peel and their mentor, producer John Walters, whose Reithian
motto was, “We’re not here to give the public what it wants. We’re here to give the public what it didn’t know it wanted.”
Kershaw’s weekly Radio 1 shows were characterised by their high levels of enthusiasm and musical eclecticism.
His boredom with Anglo-American rock led him to seek out sounds from further afield, especially Africa. Fellow DJ Charlie Gillett
introduced him to Stern's African Records shop in London, and Lucy Duran
exposed him to musicians like Youssou N’dour and Toumani Diabate
, playing impromptu sessions in her London front room. Peel and Kershaw discovered Zimbabwe’s Bhundu Boys
simultaneously; the band began to feature heavily on their playlists. The Bhundus’ singer Biggie Tembo became Kershaw’s great friend.
This first year of broadcasting won Kershaw his first gold Sony award in 1987. Kershaw was the first to play Ali Farka Toure
on mainstream national radio, and the documentary they made together in Mali
was the first ever to be broadcast simultaneously on Radios 1 and 4.
Kershaw has worked as a journalist for BBC Radio 4
’s From Our Own Correspondent
, the Today programme and The World Tonight
. He reported from Angola
’s civil war in 1996, Sierra Leone
in 2001, and repeatedly from Haiti
.
In 1994 reported on Rwanda’s genocide
, filing a series of pieces for Radio 4’s Today programme.
In his 1998 documentary for Radio 1, Ghosts of Electricity, he tracked down and unmasked, 32 years after the event, the heckler who shouted “Judas!” at Bob Dylan in 1966.
His contract with Radio 1 ended in 2000. His last months on the network featured sessions by Willie Nelson
, Warren Zevon
and Lou Reed
. He worked at BBC Radio 3
the following year, where he soon completed a musical tour of the so-called Axis of Evil
: North Korea
, Iran
and Iraq
.
In July 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of music by the University of East Anglia
, and in 2005 he was similarly honoured by his old university, University of Leeds, having failed to graduate originally.
In June 2005 Kershaw criticised Bob Geldof
over the choice of artists due to play at Live 8
, which included few black performers and even fewer Africans.
In March 2007, he appeared on Desert Island Discs
.
From July 2007 Kershaw was absent from his Radio 3 show for an extended period due to a nervous breakdown
, returning in 2011 with Music Planet, co-hosted with Lucy Duran.
He covered the 2010 Red Shirt Revolution in Bangkok
for The Independent
.
Kershaw has put together two compilations, "Great Moments of Vinyl History" (1988) and "More Great Moments of Vinyl History" (2004) which document his wide musical taste.
His autobiography, No Off Switch, was published in July 2011 by Serpent's Tail
.
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
.
His shows feature a mix of country
Country
A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, spoken word performance from the likes of Ivor Cutler
Ivor Cutler
Ivor Cutler was a Scottish poet, songwriter and humorist. He became known for his regular performances on BBC radio, and in particular his numerous sessions recorded for John Peel's influential radio programme, and later for Andy Kershaw's programme...
, and other music from around the world.
Early Life
Kershaw and his sister, fellow broadcaster Liz KershawLiz Kershaw
Liz Kershaw is a UK radio broadcaster.-Early career:The elder sister of fellow broadcaster and world music exponent Andy Kershaw, she began her career as a pop journalist for the Yorkshire Post before joining Leeds station Radio Aire, where her brother also worked for a time.While in Leeds, she...
, were born in Rochdale.
The son of a headmistress and headmaster, Kershaw’s parents instilled in him the ethics of education and self-improvement at an early age - as a party trick aged two, he would name the whiskered military men in his father's history books of the Great War - but he never felt the love or pride from them that he did get from his grandparents, who provided a home from home.
Watching the first American space walk on TV in 1965 made a strong impression of adventure, possibility and achievement on the young Kershaw, as did his education at the hands of the German ex-refugee nuns at Rochdale Convent.
He studied Politics at the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
, a decision made solely with an eye on the position of Entertainments Secretary for Leeds University Union
Leeds University Union
Leeds University Union is the representative body for the students at the University of Leeds, England. LUU is a charity for over 32,000 students. LUU is led by students, although many of the decisions are made by staff. There are shops, bars and clubs in the Union building...
. Kershaw was appointed Entertainments Secretary in 1980, midway through his second year. A full-time commitment to a non-sabbatical office, he booked bands including Ian Dury
Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...
, Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Dire Straits were a British rock band active from 1977 to 1995, composed of Mark Knopfler , his younger brother David Knopfler , John Illsley , and Pick Withers .Dire Straits' sound drew from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, blues, and came closest...
, The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
, Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
, and Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
- the latter paid £50 from Kershaw’s own pocket to support Hazel O'Connor
Hazel O'Connor
Hazel O'Connor is an English singer-songwriter and actress. She is the daughter of a soldier from Galway who settled in England after World War II to work in a car plant...
.
Kershaw’s first engagement after Leeds University was to oversee backstage operations of The Rolling Stones’ epic 1982 Roundhay Park
Roundhay Park
Roundhay Park in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is one of the biggest city parks in Europe. It has over of parkland, lakes, woodland and gardens which are owned by Leeds City Council. The park is one of the most popular attractions in Leeds, nearly a million people visit each year...
concert in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
.
Broadcasting
Kershaw began work for Radio Aire as Promotions Manager, a position he used - with station presenter Martin KelnerMartin Kelner
Martin B. Kelner is a British journalist, author, comedian and radio presenter, educated at Stand Grammar School, in Whitefield near Manchester....
- to ruthlessly promote the UK’s third-largest town without city status, Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
. Unintentionally, at Radio Aire, he also helped to launch the media career of Carol Vorderman
Carol Vorderman
Carol Jean Vorderman MBE is a British media personality, best known for co-hosting the popular game show Countdown for 26 years from 1982 to 2008. In September 2011 she became a co-anchor of the ITV1 panel show Loose Women....
, and made his broadcasting debut, fronting a late night alternative show and a weekly blues programme.
After being made redundant from Radio Aire in 1983, Kershaw was employed as a driver, tour manager and roadie by the singer Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg
Stephen William Bragg , better known as Billy Bragg, is an English alternative rock musician and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes...
.
Kershaw’s big break came in 1984, when he was asked to present BBC TV’s flagship rock programme, The Old Grey Whistle Test, by its producer Trevor Dann
Trevor Dann
Trevor Dann is a British writer and broadcaster who has been associated with some of the most influential radio and television pop music programmes and events of the last 30 years.-Early career:...
, who Kershaw had met when filming with Bragg the previous week. He subsequently recorded a television interview with his hero Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, and a loud session from the Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
. He co-presented Live Aid
Live Aid
Live Aid was a dual-venue concert that was held on 13 July 1985. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom ...
in 1985.
In July 1985, Kershaw began life as a BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
DJ, ear-marked by the station as a possible successor to John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
. Room 318 of Egton House
Egton House
Egton House in Langham Street in Central London was home to BBC Radio 1 for many years until 1996.Radio 1 moved to Yalding House on Great Portland Street in 1996, and Egton House was demolished in 2003 to make way for the new Egton Wing of BBC Broadcasting House.Jo Whiley was the last presenter to...
was to house Kershaw, Peel and their mentor, producer John Walters, whose Reithian
John Reith, 1st Baron Reith
John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom...
motto was, “We’re not here to give the public what it wants. We’re here to give the public what it didn’t know it wanted.”
Kershaw’s weekly Radio 1 shows were characterised by their high levels of enthusiasm and musical eclecticism.
His boredom with Anglo-American rock led him to seek out sounds from further afield, especially Africa. Fellow DJ Charlie Gillett
Charlie Gillett
Charlie Gillett , was a British radio presenter, musicologist and writer, mainly on rock and roll and other forms of popular music...
introduced him to Stern's African Records shop in London, and Lucy Duran
Lucy Duran
Lucy Durán is a ethnomusicologist, record producer and radio presenter. In the 1980s, Durán worked as a curator at the National Sound Archive. She is now a lecturer in African music, an undergraduate tutor and an undergraduate admissions tutor in the Department of Music School of Oriental and...
exposed him to musicians like Youssou N’dour and Toumani Diabate
Toumani Diabaté
Toumani Diabaté is a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he has also been involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styles.-Biography:...
, playing impromptu sessions in her London front room. Peel and Kershaw discovered Zimbabwe’s Bhundu Boys
Bhundu Boys
The Bhundu Boys were a Zimbabwean band that played a mixture of chimurenga music with American rock and roll, disco, country, and pop influences...
simultaneously; the band began to feature heavily on their playlists. The Bhundus’ singer Biggie Tembo became Kershaw’s great friend.
This first year of broadcasting won Kershaw his first gold Sony award in 1987. Kershaw was the first to play Ali Farka Toure
Ali Farka Touré
Ali Ibrahim “Farka” Touré was a Malian singer and guitarist, and one of the African continent’s most internationally renowned musicians. His music is widely regarded as representing a point of intersection of traditional Malian music and its North American cousin, the blues...
on mainstream national radio, and the documentary they made together in Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
was the first ever to be broadcast simultaneously on Radios 1 and 4.
Kershaw has worked as a journalist for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
’s From Our Own Correspondent
From our own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent is a BBC radio programme in which BBC correspondents broadcast monologues on topical current events from countries outside the UK...
, the Today programme and The World Tonight
The World Tonight
The World Tonight is a British current affairs radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4, every weekday evening, which started out as an extension of the 10pm news. It features news, analysis and comment on domestic and world issues...
. He reported from Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
’s civil war in 1996, Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
in 2001, and repeatedly from Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
.
In 1994 reported on Rwanda’s genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
, filing a series of pieces for Radio 4’s Today programme.
In his 1998 documentary for Radio 1, Ghosts of Electricity, he tracked down and unmasked, 32 years after the event, the heckler who shouted “Judas!” at Bob Dylan in 1966.
His contract with Radio 1 ended in 2000. His last months on the network featured sessions by Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
, Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
and Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
. He worked at BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
the following year, where he soon completed a musical tour of the so-called Axis of Evil
Axis of evil
"Axis of evil" is a term initially used by the former United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 and often repeated throughout his presidency, describing governments that he accused of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction...
: North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
In July 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of music by the University of East Anglia
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...
, and in 2005 he was similarly honoured by his old university, University of Leeds, having failed to graduate originally.
In June 2005 Kershaw criticised Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...
over the choice of artists due to play at Live 8
Live 8
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid...
, which included few black performers and even fewer Africans.
In March 2007, he appeared on Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
.
From July 2007 Kershaw was absent from his Radio 3 show for an extended period due to a nervous breakdown
Nervous breakdown
Mental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
, returning in 2011 with Music Planet, co-hosted with Lucy Duran.
He covered the 2010 Red Shirt Revolution in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
for The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
.
Kershaw has put together two compilations, "Great Moments of Vinyl History" (1988) and "More Great Moments of Vinyl History" (2004) which document his wide musical taste.
His autobiography, No Off Switch, was published in July 2011 by Serpent's Tail
Serpent's Tail
Serpent's Tail is a British independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It is notable for its translated works, particularly European crime fiction, and is the British publisher of Elfriede Jelinek and Lionel Shriver...
.