i guess we have to start with MIKE RAVEN as the 1st pre eminent soul DJ then

Stuart Coleman 

over to you for your anecdotes ...

Wasn't Stuart Henry one of the first ones?

Around late '67 I was at school and just getting into Soul, Johnnie Walker had a night time programme on Radio Caroline on which he played a lot of Soul.  As well as the usual Motown, Stax and Atlantic, most of which were new to me at the time, I remember 'Tell her' by Dean Parrish, 'Everything's gonna be alright' by Willie Mitchell.

 

A year or two later Emporer Rosko's Saturday show on Radio One was essential listening, with lots of lesser known tracks getting played.

 

After Mike Raven became a vampire, Dave Simmons Radio one show was quite good, although he lacked pedigree, but he played lots of new releases and had a link up with a US disc jockey.

 

Then, as a fully fledged Soulie, in the mid 70s Robbie Vincents Saturday show on Radio London was not to be missed, also Greg Edwards on Capitol radio.

Dave Evison helped turn me onto soul through his signal shows in the mid 8ts, an often witty and insightfull voice showed the breadth of the northern scene at the time from Eddie and Ernie through to the mellow souls, or as it was then the dellarks CU.  

 

Gotta add Richards Searling who's shows on JFM acted as a catalyst to the revival of the scene in the late nineties.

Alexis Korner for me in the very late 70s, early 80s. I'm sure he was on Radio 1 on a Sunday afternoon.

 

He didn't have long left.

 

Edit: Just looked it up Alexis Korner's Blues and Soul Show. Radio 1 on Sunday nights until 1981. Happy days.  

Edited March 4, 201312 yr by Matt Male

Andy Peebles "Soul Train" on Radio Picadilly in Manchester was not to be missed on Sunday nights late 70's early 80's

Remember Alexis Korner playing Paiges - Heartaches and Pain on Sunday evening probably 1980ish when it was still covered up on Northern scene - think it was covered up as Brainstorm - but memory may have failed me.

 

Adam

Robbie Vincent, late 70's, listening on my mum's transistor radio on a Friday night in the kitchen with a couple of mates round. Set me on the journey to listen to stuff other than just  60's Wigan northern.

 

Jordi

Edited March 4, 201312 yr by jordirip

May i nominate Colin Day ( Dayo on here).Around early 1984,'Dancing in the street with Colin Day..what can i say..outasight tonight,baby'!! On Radio Wyvern 97.6fm.Allways a great broadcast between 6-8pm playing the latest soul cuts,and not forgetting the 'A-Z of soul' which after hearing Just a little misunderstanding got me off and running collecting again after having sold my first collection in 1973!! Great voice,great broadcaster and a bloody nice bloke as well.Still got the c120's somewhere.Les Ash.

Lots of DJ's on the pirate stations off the UK coast in the 60's played soul.

Emperor Rosko played loads of obscure stuff & had "I Spy (For the FBI)" as his theme tune for a while. Back then soul was still 'flavour of the day' so loads of soul tracks (from the likes of Edwin Starr, Garnet Mimms, the Impressions, Lee Dorsey, etc) reached high positions of the pirate stn's charts (Radio London & Caroline in particular).

One stn (can think why) even had RLT's "Wade In The Water" as its theme tune.

A link to a typical Radio Caroline Chart from back in the day .......

https://www.radiolondon.co.uk/caroline/stonewashed/carolinecharts/040%20June%204%201966.htm

 

This one is from when the World Cup was first held in the UK; Percy Sledge was No.1 (on this chart), "Stop Her On Sight", "The Drifter" + cuts by Diane Ferraz & Jackie Edwards also figured. 

Although this seems to be thread about UK jocks and kudos to them all but my main admiration goes to the white jocks in the US  playing R&B/Soul through the 50's & 60s.

 

Let's face it, white guys playing black music weren't especially flavour of the month with many, especially in the south going by the handbill below. They sounded black but for a lot listeners it was many years before they realised they were white jocks.

 

WLAC in Nashville had a huge 50,000 watts which on a clear night could be picked up as far away as Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan. With white jocks such as John Richbourg (main man at Sound Stage 7 etc) , Bill "Hoss Allen", Gene Nobles and Herman Grizzard (ie The 50,000 Watt Quartet) perhaps turned more white folks onto R&B/Soul in that period than any other source. Jocks were heavily sponsored by among others large record retailers such as Ernies Record Mart, Randy's Record Mart and Buckley's Record Shop.

 

There's much on the net about coloured "black radio" jocks ie Frankie Crocker, E.Rodney Jones to name but two. Here's just an overview page on WLAC and the white jocks.

 

https://www.yodaslair.com/dumboozle/wlac/wlacdex.html

Edited March 5, 201312 yr by Dave Turner

John R (Richbourg) from around 1969, near the end introduces Syl Johnson's "Take Me Back"

 

Lots of specialist UK DJ's have done a good job on radio down the years but most were just following the example set by (black & white) US DJ's from the 60's.

US radio station plays were reflected in chart positions and some cities / stations were very influencial.

Baltimore had 2 / 3 soul stns through the 60's (1 was pop in the day, soul at night) and the DJ's held quite a lot of power (till they were no longer allowed to select what they could play themselves).

Lots of cuts were 'trialed' on Baltimore Stns by record companies. If they put a 'push' behind a particular track and it took off there, they would instigate a major promotional push behind it across the US.

So DJ's such as Fat Daddy, Hot Rod (both influential in getting Kenny Hamber's recording career started) and the like did a great job and influenced what pirate radio DJ's got up to / sounded like over here back in the day.

dont forget Charlie Gillet he was quite early.

hey a mention of ernies in Nashville , i used to buy a lot from ernies.

i used to send them a wants list ,and a few weeks later a box of 45s appeared with an invoice inside saying, send us X amount of $..

theres trust for you 

trialing  records was done by Guy Stevens at the Scene Club ,he would get a stack of imports ,and then try them out at the Scene Club and if he got a favorable response ,then would arrange to issue them on Sue label.

some were a bit hooky so i believe ....

his record booth had piles of 45s which somehow he was importing quite easily at that time ..

 

during the he week he had record sales at the Scene Club ,but it was mostly rockabilly and not the sought after stuff of the time.

Edited March 5, 201312 yr by sceneman

Around late '67 I was at school and just getting into Soul, Johnnie Walker had a night time programme on Radio Caroline on which he played a lot of Soul.  As well as the usual Motown, Stax and Atlantic, most of which were new to me at the time, I remember 'Tell her' by Dean Parrish, 'Everything's gonna be alright' by Willie Mitchell.

 

A year or two later Emporer Rosko's Saturday show on Radio One was essential listening, with lots of lesser known tracks getting played.

 

After Mike Raven became a vampire, Dave Simmons Radio one show was quite good, although he lacked pedigree, but he played lots of new releases and had a link up with a US disc jockey.

 

Then, as a fully fledged Soulie, in the mid 70s Robbie Vincents Saturday show on Radio London was not to be missed, also Greg Edwards on Capitol radio.

 

Always remember that one of his regular links was with E.Rodney Jones----Never played R&B Time or Peace of Mind ,though

E. Rodney Jones

 

Not to mention

but now you can go back to serious discusion

Dave Simmons Radio one show was quite good, although he lacked pedigree, but he played lots of new releases and had a link up with a US disc jockey.

 

Got to disagree there, about him being quite good I thought he was compulsive listening on RADIO 1 every Saturday evening FIVE O'CLOCK Till SIX THIRTY.

 

STILL LOOKING FOR ANYONE THAT HAS TAPES OF HIS SHOWS. PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE ANY FROM HIS SHOWS. MUCH APPRECIATED

 

fdsoul6345789

 

Dave Simmons Radio one show was quite good, although he lacked pedigree, but he played lots of new releases and had a link up with a US disc jockey.

 

Got to disagree there, about him being quite good I thought he was compulsive listening on RADIO 1 every Saturday evening FIVE O'CLOCK Till SIX THIRTY.

 

STILL LOOKING FOR ANYONE THAT HAS TAPES OF HIS SHOWS. PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE ANY FROM HIS SHOWS. MUCH APPRECIATED

 

fdsoul6345789

 

Hey up Fraser how's it going?

To assist you in your search - and for anybody else that's interested - check this website out which archives old radio shows from Radio 1 & 2  www.radiorewind.co.uk

 

Keep it 45

 

Derek

kenny h.  pirate radio station 1984 to 86...soul, funk,,jazz,,blues...sunday nites..7pm till 9.30pm..RADIO NRG.(ENERGY)..

We all got busted...bloody good times...

Although this seems to be thread about UK jocks and kudos to them all but my main admiration goes to the white jocks in the US  playing R&B/Soul through the 50's & 60s.

 

Let's face it, white guys playing black music weren't especially flavour of the month with many, especially in the south going by the handbill below. They sounded black but for a lot listeners it was many years before they realised they were white jocks.

 

WLAC in Nashville had a huge 50,000 watts which on a clear night could be picked up as far away as Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan. With white jocks such as John Richbourg (main man at Sound Stage 7 etc) , Bill "Hoss Allen", Gene Nobles and Herman Grizzard (ie The 50,000 Watt Quartet) perhaps turned more white folks onto R&B/Soul in that period than any other source. Jocks were heavily sponsored by among others large record retailers such as Ernies Record Mart, Randy's Record Mart and Buckley's Record Shop.

 

There's much on the net about coloured "black radio" jocks ie Frankie Crocker, E.Rodney Jones to name but two. Here's just an overview page on WLAC and the white jocks.

 

https://www.yodaslair.com/dumboozle/wlac/wlacdex.html

Alan Freed, Dewey Phillips and Wolfman Jack must have been the main guys in this category. The latter was a particularly fascinating character, as was the station he broadcast from.  Based just over the border in Mexico to avoid US broadcasting laws, the station used a very high powered transmitter to get maximum coverage.  It was said that the signal was so strong that birds flying close to the ariel would drop dead, and people nearby would get the signal through their teeth fillings.  True or not, it's a great story.  Emporer Rosko obviously based his style on him.

Rosko guested at the civic centre whitchurch saturday night disco and when i spoke to him he was passionate about his soul music, Tony blackburn also loved the music and wrote many a sleeve note for the british motown albums.

I also remember diddy david hamilton having broken many a soul tune on his diddy davids hot spot.

Ester Phillips What a difference a day makes was one i remember.this was around 73 to 77 when i worked  (paid in beer) for Steve Obertelli Right track Disco and we were resident dj's

 

And not forgetting KKJ Beacon radio Wolverhampton, His late show was good, Also in the vein of Wolfman Jack & Rosko

Edited March 7, 201312 yr by Garry Huxley

and i guess Peter Young on Jazz FM can be added to the list ,he has had the soul cellar running for yonks ,even played my list when i asked him too 

Hi Derek, long time no see my mate. Hope you are well sir Keep in touch and thanks for the info on here

respect.                 FD

To assist you in your search - and for anybody else that's interested - check this website out which archives old radio shows from Radio 1 & 2  www.radiorewind.co.uk

 

Keep it 45

 

Derek

Mike Shaft's TCOB shows on Piccadilly in the early 80's kept a young Soulies ears open to new releases.

Mike Shaft's TCOB shows on Piccadilly in the early 80's kept a young Soulies ears open to new releases.

 

Forgot all about Mike Shaft......think I saw him DJ'ing at a club or two as well but all a bit hazy now

Back to the US ........... if you wanna hear what one of the 'originators' sounded like 'on air' then ........

... click on the link below & listen to around 21 mins of Fat Daddy's WWIN radio show (Baltimore) back in July 1966 ...........

 

 .......... Going Back, Way Back ............ "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um" ......

there's even an ad for a WINN "Golden Oldie Album," (a joint venture release with Roulette Records) ......

..... there's also an ad for Salem Cigarettes .... sung by Chuck Jackson .....

 

https://archive.org/details/PaulfatDaddyJohnson-WwinBaltimore-July1966

Edited March 19, 201312 yr by Roburt

Back to the US ........... if you wanna hear what one of the 'originators' sounded like 'on air' then ........

... click on the link below & listen to around 21 mins of Fat Daddy's WWIN radio show (Baltimore) back in July 1966 ...........

 

 .......... Going Back, Way Back ............ "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um" ......

there's even an ad for a WINN "Golden Oldie Album," (a joint venture release with Roulette Records) ......

..... there's also an ad for Salem Cigarettes .... sung by Chuck Jackson .....

 

https://archive.org/details/PaulfatDaddyJohnson-WwinBaltimore-July1966

 

Enjoyed that immensely thank you........................wouldn't want to hear Fat Daddy's patter on the drive to work on a grumpy Monday morning mind you....despite the quality tunes!!

An article about a US documentary on radio DJ's and the influence they had back in the day .... in Richmond, Va ....

 

https://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/i-know-you-got-soul/Content?oid=1590226

Edited March 24, 201312 yr by Roburt