Music
Until the end of the 1980s, independent radio stations were under two legal constraints regarding the music they played. The first was the dreaded needletime! Most commercial discs fell into a category from which only nine hours a day of music could be played. The second was the IBA rules on station output, which specified that only 50% of a station’s output could be music. A station like West, then, which broadcast for eighteen or nineteen hours a day, couldn’t be a non-stop jukebox like today’s commercial radio: it could only play nine hours a day. Hence 45-minute news programmes, speech features, long jingles and specialist music programmes. And such things as phone testing of music were unknown: stations chose music by gut feeling. If they chose it at all! Read on...
The first (and last) record played on the station was “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” by McFadden and Whitehead. (Incidentally and sadly, both Gene McFadden and John Whitehead are dead. Whitehead was murdered in Philadelphia in 2004, and McFadden died of cancer in 2006.) It was a great song, and playing it frequently was probably as close as the station got to a music policy in its early days!
Mainstream music was featured on the breakfast and mid-morning shows, although, as with many ILR stations at the time, the mid-morning show in particular featured a very strong component of speech. Bryan Chalker in the afternoons made it obvious how much he enjoyed country music, while Dave Glass at drive time featured a great deal of good-quality American AOR. Specialist music was heard in the mid-evening, while Ray Edwards on the late show played pretty exclusively soul music. At the weekend, the mix was similar, with perhaps more of an emphasis on oldies. When he joined the station, Johnnie Walker seemed to embrace this eclecticism with enthusiasm!
The station also played some local music. The station had a large studio which could be used to record local bands: this was done with reggae group Talisman at Easter 1982, and the station planned to make use of local session material to supplement their nine hours of needletime. I didn’t hear much more evidence of this, but records by local artists such as Watch it! by Shag Connors and the Carrot Crunchers and A Man of Bristol by Patrick Small were played. Johnnie Walker also sought out local bands for his shows.
All this must have been great fun for the DJs, but in a situation where listeners were supposed to have only one choice of independent station, it was rather self-indulgent and, more importantly, wasn’t working with the audience. Other early ILR stations, such as the original Metro Radio in Newcastle and Radio Victory in Portsmouth, had also embraced a “non-directed” music policy, and neither were very successful. By February 1983, with audiences slipping, it was clear the situation had to change.
Mike Stewart says in the Venue article: “There was
no real policy before which resulted in absurd situations like coming
out of The Jam’s single and going straight into a sea shanty. The new
format is essentially the policy of all successful stations. The DJs
understand what we are trying to do.”
Roger Day took charge as Head of Music and Presentation, and had responsibility for the new playlist. As well as making the station sound more predictable, there were some anomalies. In Spring 1983 I was working at a tax office in central Bristol. I finished at four, and in those days it was possible to park near the office, so I used to catch the end of the 4 p.m. news. Then of course it was back to the records with Dave Glass. It was a long time ago, but I am prepared to swear that, for a whole week, the first record after the 4 p.m. news was Let’s Dance by David Bowie.
Although the music became safer, the station still sounded distinctive, especially compared to the Radio One of the time. Mike Read and Simon Bates boasted about meeting the stars on a daily basis, while Radio West’s presenters, like us, thought it a big deal when artists like Judie Tzuke or Hall and Oates came to town. There are artists I enjoy today, such as Stephen Bishop and Peter Allen, that were introduced to me by Radio West. And once West went back into the night, we had the marvellous Andy Westgate on the Late Show, and his choice of albums after midnight. Yes, albums! I vividly remember him playing “Well I Wonder” by The Smiths, and sounding genuinely surprised at having discovered it.
Of course, the station had its specialist music shows: many disappeared when the hours were reduced in October 1983, but Rock West, Gospel Scene and Paul Riley’s classical programme survived, and were joined towards the end by All Time Greats, a programme of film music with Bill Sims, and Tooki’s Folk. Rock West became Saturday Night’s Alright with Andy Fox, a magnificent programme featuring rock, soul, disco and reggae. If I was in on a Sunday evening, the whole world of music would come past my ears, on one station. Tooki’s Folk was a marvellous antidote to the hand-on-the-ear school of folk music, while Gospel Scene played artists such as After the Fire (who had come in to West in the early days and recorded a version of Der Kommissar for the station). The Sony award nominated classical music show did more to introduce me to classical music than the whole output of Radio Three. Such things were common in the wonderful world of 1980s independent radio. Too much fun to last!