In March of 1976, a book was published that was to change my
life 33 years later. In those intervening years, I’d had a yearning to do it,
but the opportunity didn’t arise.
The book: Emperor Rosko’s DJ Book.
As you know, I’ve loved music all my life and by the time
this book came out, I’d accumulated a record collection of at least 3-4000 and
I was only 15.
I’d listened to the radio and like so many, I’d recorded the
chart countdown on a regular basis. After all, in those days, unless a visit to
the record shop happened, this was the only way you were going to get to have
the music. No downloading in those distant days!
But where I was probably different from the other teens
recording the records each week, I wasn’t in a rush to edit out the presenter’s
words.
I loved the DJs. I couldn’t think of a better way to earn
money. To go into a studio and play all the hits sounded ideal to me.
In the book, Emperor Rosko also talked about how to set up a
disco, how to organise the records in order for you to find specific records in short
periods of time. In fact, he covered everything.
With us having an arcade and a bingo that was open every
evening, there was no way Dad was going to let me become a superstar DJ! So it
was to be one of those things that I suppose I put into the ‘bucket list’ in my
mind.
I didn’t realise at the time that 1976 was to be our last at
Burnham in the arcade. By the next summer, we were in Weymouth with side stuff
in my uncle’s Amusement Park.
But 1977 was to be a turning point for me. My uncle used to
have a yard in Charlestown, just outside
Weymouth and that’s where we had our trailer and were living. It was right next door to Charlestown Motors, and just behind that was a nightclub
called ‘Stirrups.’
I didn’t discover it was there until Easter time that year.
All this time, I was still spending all my money on records. I was buying Blues
and Soul magazine and buying many of the records from their charts inside.
We closed at the Park at 10 o’clock and once I found out
about the club, I wanted to go but Mum said I wasn’t old enough so at first,
going was out.
At the time, my Brother was also in Weymouth and he helped
me convince my Mum to let me go to the club and after a while she let me go.
The club used to get a lot of foreign students in and so it
was always busy. The DJ played such great music, I kept gravitating toward him,
asking if he needed a drink, chatting to him and eventually, being allowed into
the DJ booth and even being able to flick through his records.
That year was really when I got the dance music bug
properly. That summer I was hearing songs I’d never heard before, Fat Larry’s
Band’s ‘Center City,’ CJ & Co’s ‘Devil’s Gun,’ Eddie Henderson’s ‘Say You
Will,’ The Philadelphia International All-Stars, ‘Let’s Clean Up The Ghetto’
and Dennis Coffee’s ‘Free Spirit’ amongst so many other great records.
12” singles were starting to arrive on the Dorset coast and
the first one I bought was T Connection’s ‘Do What You Wanna Do.
Within week’s I was getting the DJ to allow me to cover for
him for a few songs while he took a break and by the end of the Summer, I was
going in there and doing a couple of hours each night.
It was stunning, being 17 and playing cracking records to
packed floors. I was totally in my element.
But it wasn’t to last because, by the end of October, we were
on the move again, this time to Farnborough for the Winter.
Fast forward to 2008.
I’m DJing full-time with my own disco. I’ve built a decent
reputation in Weymouth and am getting work all over Dorset with the occasional
booking further afield, as far away as Peterborough and often around London.
I liked to keep in touch with past clients and used to send
out a monthly newsletter detailing what the Disco was up to, talking about how
I’d updated things, adding a video screen and such like, things to keep me in
people’s minds.
My thinking was that if I did a good job, the people who’d
booked me would recommend me to others and it was working well.
I’d stopped listening to UK radio years earlier because to
my mind it had become boring. All the presenters sounded the same, the music
wasn’t as wide-ranging as it had used to be. It was dull.
It’s October. One night I’m sitting in front of my computer
surfing the net as you do, looking for American radio stations when I started
coming across these things called podcasts.
I found one in Micronesia in which the presenter played Latin
music, I found one in America called ‘The Bachelor Pad’ which I really liked –
he played cool, Rat-Pack style music and it was so different to what else I was
hearing. I loved it.
And then I found this show in Canada. It was proper oldies-based,
like the music on my Dad’s old reel to reel tapes. He played such a wide range
of songs, I was hooked.
I hunted the shows out each week, and got in touch with the
presenter, ‘Big Daddy’ Donald Roberts. What a presenter, he Presented his show
with such panache, such style. A booming voice in a style that you don’t hear
in the UK.
I started sending him requests, and as is the way with the
internet, we started chatting. Don is an incredibly modest man. I gave him
praise, he thanked me and changed the subject, talking about music once more.
He asked me what I did for a living and I told him I did
Discos, and over a week or two, I noticed I was talking with him every night.
Now at this time, I was looking for another way of
contacting my clients. The newsletter was fine, but to my mind, becoming ‘samey.’
I was looking for other ideas that might add a bit of pizzazz to my
communication with them.
I didn’t realise it, but as Donald and I were chatting, I
must have been enquiring about how he did a radio show and he was gracious
enough to answer my numerous questions and eventually told me that I should do
one myself, after all, I had all the equipment I needed already.
I mulled over the idea for a few days and decided that it
maybe a way in which I can boost my profile to my clients.
The plan was that I’d put together a radio show that was an
hour-long, featuring many of the songs that were popular whenever I did a
disco. I’d play songs of all genres and across the years to give people an idea
of the width of my collection.
My thinking was that it would show the versatility of what I
was able to play at my disco.
I was pretty confident that there weren’t many DJs in Dorset
who could compete with me music-wise.
I’d been converted my music over to mp3s since the early 2000s
and had been DJing using my computer since 2006, so I already had over 20,000 different tracks available to play, and with my playout system being totally computer
based, I could find any one of those songs in a matter of seconds.
This gave me an advantage over many DJs – in fact, I only knew of
one other who was computer-based alongside me, and we often passed work to each
other if we couldn’t do it ourselves.
And so on 12th January 2009, I did my very first
radio show podcast, ‘People Hold On,’ which was sent out to clients instead of
a newsletter.
I’ve not listened to it for a long time, but I do recall it
making me cringe as it was so poor when I compared it to Don Robert’s
professional production. But it was a start.
I did a show week by week to try and improve and started to
post them on a website called Podomatic and I’d tell my friends that they could
have a listen.
5-6 weeks into doing the shows, I was enjoying myself
tremendously. Don was listening, giving me hints and tips to improve my
technique and encouraging me all the time.
It was around this time, two showmen friends of mine, John
Cogger and John Edwards said that I should start doing a show playing all the
soul and disco records we’d loved in our Disco days of the late 70s and the early
80s.
And on 10th March 2009, Pure Grooves was born. An
hour show comprising of hits such as Shalamar’s ‘There It Is,’ Brothers Johnson’s,
‘Stomp!’ and D Train’s ‘You’re The One For Me’ it was such fun to do.
I sent the show out to people who wanted to have a listen
and they all said they liked it so I started to do a weekly one of that too. I
was now doing two shows a week.
Soon, people started saying that I should try and get my
shows on one of the new Internet Radio stations that were springing up and I
sent a demo of the Pure Grooves show to a few stations, one of whom wanted to
take it.
My first show had 7 listeners! I was elated that 7 people
tuned in and listened. The next week, one of my listeners got in touch to make
a request for a future show and she was a nurse in Germany! I was so excited.
Just two shows in and I was an International radio presenter.
I remember thinking then about my book. I was 15 when I
bought it, and I was now 48 and finally doing it.
However, I have to say that this was probably the start of
the end of my marriage.
I was so happy, I was only interested in doing the radio
shows. At the time, I was doing my discos and we still had fairground
equipment that we were using for fetes, shows and fairs but I was rapidly
losing interest in the fairground side of it.
I’d only restarted the fairground side of things to give my
boys who’d been settled down since birth, a look at their heritage. I wanted
them to learn about where we came from as a family and the work we had to do. I’d
even come close to buying an adult ride and starting travelling full time to
get them out and about with showmen but they weren’t too interested.
My eldest son was at college and my youngest was doing an
apprenticeship at a local engineering firm and I realised I was trying to make them do
what I wanted them to do which wasn’t fair.
Once I’d worked that out in my head, I was no longer
interested in the fairground side of things and wanted to focus on the radio
alongside my discos.
However, me being me, I dove in headfirst and worked my
heart out, trying to learn more. I’d waited so long to do this. It had been
waiting patiently for me to decide to have a go and now I was all in.
The owner of the station, after a couple of weeks, told me
that she thought my show was too good for her station and that I should apply
to another station, Morpher Radio, which was a dedicated soul station.
I sent a demo to the owner, Dave Marley and he got in touch
with me to invite me to do a show, but it would need to be two hours long.
I wasn’t sure at first, but in the end, I decided to go for
it, and on the 23rd of May, I did my debut show on Morpher Radio.
Within a few weeks, I was getting requests from the station's
listeners and I was loving it. The station had its own chatroom and people from
all over the world were in there chatting.
It was around this time that one of the listeners got in
touch with me and asked me if I would be interested in interviewing Shakatak
member Bill Sharpe, as he was a friend of hers.
Being new to the station as well as still new to doing
radio, I thought it would be liberty-taking to do the Interview when there were
others including the owner, who could do it so much better than I would be able
to. And as the listener was already a station listener before I joined, I didn’t
want to appear as if I was muscling my way in.
I decided to speak to someone about it. As well as that, I
was new to this and didn’t have too much of an idea about how to go about
promoting myself.
The station had someone who did promotion for it. I’d
seen her in the chatroom but hadn’t spoken to her properly but maybe this was
the time to call her and not only talk about this interview and whether I should
offer it to the owner, but also ask her if she would be interested in promoting
my shows. Her name on the chatroom was debzpromo.
I called her and during our first phone call, she told me
she wasn’t really a promotions person, but she did try to get the station more
coverage. She agreed with me that I should probably pass the interview over,
which I did, and she then said that although she wouldn’t become my promotions
person, she would give me any ideas she had. That was the start of my friendship
with Debz Green.
I could spend the next two hours telling you about the play
by play of my radio career, as well as how my marriage fell apart but I won’t.
For starters, I haven’t got all day and secondly, in regard
to my marriage, that’s personal. I hurt a lot of people and I’m not about to talk
about one of the most painful parts of my life.
Nor will I talk about my ongoing friendship with Debz and
our getting together – suffice it to say, my marriage ended when I moved out in
February 2010. The fact is, we drifted apart and I take the blame for that. I
wanted to move away from Weymouth, I wanted to follow this route into radio, I
wanted to pursue a different life as a soul DJ. My family were on a different
road. It’s most definitely my fault for it ending the way it did. It can be
said that I was selfish and I won’t argue with it. I wanted to take this
opportunity. And I did.
Without going into a long play by play of the next few
years, I ended up leaving Morpher Radio and striking out on my own applying to
many stations in order to syndicate my Pure Grooves show amongst others I was developing.
In March 2010, by which time I was living in Longstanton, near Cambridge, I received a phone call
from one of the owners of Solar Radio, at the time, the best Soul Radio station
in the UK.
Earlier in the year, I’d sent a demo to one of the Solar
presenters, known as ‘Ginger Tony.’ I’d asked him if he wouldn’t mind listening
to it and letting me know what areas I needed to improve and what I was doing
OK. He said he’d be happy to and once he’d listened properly, he’d let me know
what I needed to improve on.
When he phoned me back, he told me there was nothing wrong
with my demo and that he’d passed it on to Tony Monson as he thought I might be
a good fit for Solar. That hadn’t been the reason I’d sent him a demo. I wasn’t
looking to be part of Solar as I didn’t think I was anywhere near close to
being in their league. I just wanted some advice.
When Tony phoned me, he said he’d heard my show, liked it
but didn’t have any gaps on the station and that down the road, he might call
me and we could talk then if I was interested. To say I was, was an understatement.
Anyway, at the end of April, I received another phone call
from Tony, telling me he’d been at Kiss FM’s 25th birthday party the
night before and 2 different people he was acquainted within the business had
mentioned my name and told him that he should get me on the station.
You could have knocked me down with a feather. ‘Johnny
Nobody’ in radio being talked about. And
that was how I found my way on to Solar Radio which was an 18-month stay whilst
I pursued my plan for syndication of my shows because, by that time, I’d
developed some ideas for new shows and started them.
I’m going to jump forward to 2017 now, but before I do I
just want to share some stats that I’m quite proud of.
Starting my radio career with 7 listeners, by the time I
called it a day in September 2017, I developed a listenership in excess of 95
countries and territories around the world.
In China alone, I was getting in excess of 800,000 listeners
to my weekly shows and getting over 25% of the listenership of the areas in
which the show went out. When you put
that in perspective, that’s a quarter of an estimated 2 or 3 million people in
a couple of towns and the adjoining main highway who were available to listen. Not only that, but I was told
that 25% was more than the combined totals of the 3 competing station’s
listeners.
And one night, after I started playing The Doors, ‘Light My
Fire,’ the listeners to my show crashed the Chinese equivalent of Google trying
to find it online to see if they could buy it.
There were three English speaking presenters on that station
and my mentor in radio, ‘Big Daddy’ Donald Roberts (real name McEachern) was
another, and was indeed the man responsible for getting me on that station.
I did a breakfast show in Spain on Power FM for 6 months
which even got me asked to write a column in the local Lanzarote Grapevine magazine. You never
know what comes from an idea.
I also owned and ran two online radio stations, Smile 101
and Rewind Central. I tried owning stations twice, but in the end, decided that
being a station owner wasn’t for me. I have total respect for someone who takes
on a radio station. It’s a huge task. Expensive to run and also a time-consuming role, that in the end I decided wasn’t what I wanted to be doing.
Not forgetting the 'Pure Grooves magazine that myself and Debz ran for just over a year until we realised how much hard work it was to put it together on a weekly basis.
I didn’t get into mainstream radio. I applied for a few
positions but was told that although my presenting style was good, I needed to
change my technique so that I fit the station's style.
I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to sound exactly like any other presenter
on any other station in the country. I wanted to do my shows my way – and syndicating
worked best for me.
I’ve had shows on stations all across Europe, many in small-town America, my
shows are still being replayed even now in New Zealand and I guested on Don’s
podcast for over 5 years.
In March 2017, after taking three months out of radio to
recover from my kidney operation, I resumed the shows, but as soon as I started back, I realised
that my enthusiasm had gone. It started to become a grind for me.
I carried on for three months but was no longer enjoying the
research, the time spent choosing playlists, the preparation required to do the
show and not enjoying doing the shows.
In June I decided that it was time to call it a day. I gave
notice that I would be finishing in September and continued giving it my very
best to the last show.
I’m so happy I had the chance, finally, to do something I’d
longed to since I was a kid.
In the 8 years, I was doing shows, I did in excess of 1000. I
met some fantastic people I’d never have met had I’d not done it.
I met people like Don who literally, gave me the support and
encouragement from the start and continued with valuable advice along the way. Had it
not been for him those amazing years would never have happened.
I accomplished a dream and had so much fun along the way.
You talk about turning points in your life.
Had I not bought that book as a 15-year-old, none of this
might ever have happened. The childhood dream of having my own radio show may
have withered alongside so many of my others.
And let’s not forget that at the end of the day, had I not bought that book, not
one of those tenuous links may have happened and I’d have never have met Debz
who I’ve been happy to be partners with having moved in together back in 2013.
So all in all, although I don’t miss it and I wouldn’t want
to go back to it – it was great while it lasted and just goes to show you what
can happen if you have a dream.
