Andy Kershaw

Kershaw began work for Radio Aire as Promotions Manager, a position he used - with station presenter Martin Kelner - to ruthlessly promote the UK's third-largest town without city status, Northampton. Unintentionally, at Radio Aire, he 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.

His 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, whom 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 BBC television coverage of 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.[4]

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." His weekly Radio 1 shows were characterised by their high levels of enthusiasm and musical eclecticism.[4]

Kershaw's "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 Durán exposed him to musicians like Youssou N'Dour and Toumani Diabaté, 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 Touré 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.[5]

Kershaw's contract with Radio 1 ended in 2000. His last months on the network featured sessions by Willie Nelson, Warren Zevon and Lou Reed. He then worked at BBC Radio 3 the following year, where he soon completed a musical tour of the so-called Axis of Evil: Iraq, North Korea and Iran.[6]

From July 2007 Kershaw was absent from his BBC Radio 3 show for an extended period, returning in 2011 with Music Planet, co-hosted with Lucy Durán.[7]

In September 2020 Kershaw returned on air on BBC Radio 3 presenting a two episode sunday feature, The Kershaw Tapes.

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 the 1994 Rwanda's genocide,[8] Angola's civil war in 1996, Sierra Leone in 2001 and repeatedly from Haiti. Kershaw covered the 2010 Red Shirt Revolution in Bangkok for The Independent.[9]

In his 1998 documentary for Radio 1, Ghosts of Electricity, Kershaw tracked down and unmasked, 32 years after the event, the heckler who shouted "Judas!" at Bob Dylan in 1966.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]

Kershaw's autobiography, No Off Switch, was published in July 2011 by Serpent's Tail and was praised by Stephen Fry among others.[13][14] It received a negative review from Rachel Cooke in The Guardian, who says "He is always right, and those who disagree are always stupid".[15]