Interview
Full name: John Robert Parker Ravenscroft
Birthplace: Hesswell, Wirral, Cheshire, England
Date of birth: 30th August 1939
How did you become a DJ with Radio 1?
I became a DJ on Radio 1 by writing the station a creepy letter when I was on the pirate ship Radio London back in the summer of 1969 – Radio 1 started at the end of September that year. I had worked on the radioin the USA (Texas, Oklahoma, California) and they took me on, rather reluctantly I felt at the time, on the basis of a six week contract. I was to present a three hour programme on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon – I forget which – as part of an alternative team of DJs, one of whom was Tommy Vance. There’s a rather good photo of Tommy and I staring nervously at each other during nthe first programme. However, the producer, Bernie Andrews, wanted me to do the programme on my own and that is what eventually happended. (Remember these were the first unscripted shows broadcast by the BBC).
Of all the bands you have given airplay to, which ones have given you the greatest pleasure?
Virtually impossible to say. There milestones in each musical generation, I suppose. Going right back to my childhood, the enduring heroes have been Gene Vincent, Duane Eddy, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, Howling Wolf, early Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino – loads of them really, though Gene would probably be number one. Then came the sixties and although for most people the sixties still seems to be the most important decade of all, there’s little from that period that I still listen to – Roy Orbison, Captain Beefheart, loads of rhythm and blues stuff, but save me from the Beatles. I can’t believe that, 24 years after they broke up, their stuff still gets the airplay it does.
In the seventies (early part) Little Feat were my favourites, along with the Faces, and of course, Beefheart again/still. Since then, well, the Undertones of course, the Fall naturally, and Babes in Toyland, Unsane, the Wedding Present. Then there has been all the Reggae, especially early Lee Perry, and the African music especially the Bhundus, Four Brothers, Shalawambe, Amayenge, and all those Zairean guitarists – Dally Kimoko, Diblo Dibala, Bongo Wende, etc. And the dance stuff of the past few years. Too much to list really and I’m bound to have left someone crucial out anyway.
How did you become aware of and interested in bands that sing in Welsh?
Well, I was always aware of Wales, as it were, because we could see it across the Dee where I lived – we were three miles from the frontier. My grandfather lived in Rhosneigr, Ynys Môn (Anglesey). Also, I went to school near Conwy and my brother went to Treaddur, also in Ynys Môn. And I did my national service in Ty Croes which is where Gorwel Owen, a prime mover in Welsh language music now lives. I bought my first iced-lolly I ate in my life from a shop in Rhosneigr!
Rhys from Anhrefn was the first person to bring the music to my attention and, although he no longer calls, he kept me posted for several years. Now Dave Edwards from Datblygu writes to me a lot. Gorwel keeps in touch and I hear intermittently from Y Llwybr Llaethog and others. Although I am not too keen on the wave of nationalism that has destabilised Yugoslavia, and will do the same for other eastern European countries before we are through. I do understand why people feel it is vital to preserve their language and culture against all the odds. Although I am revolted by violence, I can understand, living in a village where a pattern of life is being first distorted and then destroyed by incomers, why Meibion Glyndwr are moved to such extreme measures by the insensitivity of some English incomers. I’d like to find a Welsh holiday home in England by way of comparison though.
Do you think it’s a good thing that such bands do sing in their native tongue?
Yes, I do. I have pointed out to bands overseas – Japan, Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, etc – that they are already too many English speaking (or singing anyway) bands in Britain, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand; so trying to interest the world in yet more English speaking bands from Japan, Spain, etc, seems doomed to failure. I prefer bands to sing in their own language and , without getting silly about it, to have some element in their music that identifies it as being of their culture – this doesn’t mean that Anhrefn should a harpist or anything. Using Welsh is enough in itself, I think.
Do you support any of the Welsh activist groups campaigning to halt the flow of English people buying houses for ‘holiday homes’?
I seem to have answered that above. There are times, on the other hand, when I would like eventually to retire to Anglesey/Môn because so much of my childhood was spent there and I associate it with my Dad a lot. He died in the early 1970′s and. For one reason and another, I never knew him well. However, I miss him terribly and about 5 years ago I went back to Rhosneigr on my own and sat on the bridge over the stream that ran past my grandfather’s house, a bridge on which my Dad and I sat a lot, with our legs dangling over the edge, and cried my eyes out for a very long time. I have a bottle of shells he collected from Anglesey beaches in front of me as I type. Also, the first time I ever saw him was in Treaddur, when he was demobbed from the army in 1946. So it saddens me to think that if I did retire to Rhosneigr, or somewhere, there would be local hostility.
Why do you think that so few bands emerge from Wales, when compared to places such as Manchester and Liverpool?
There are as many reasons as there are bands but essentially it comes down to lack of venues, lack of local radio/TV encouragement or sponsorship and, I’m afraid, the indifference of a majority of Welsh people to their own culture. This is universal really – go to Mongolia, for example, as Andy Kershaw did recently, and the local radio is playing Madonna and they thought he was nuts when he asked about the local music. I get the same reaction wherever I go. In Sierra Leone it took me two weeks to persuade local musicians that I wanted to hear what they did, not what they thought they should do for tourists. Also, to get back to your question, in a city the size of Manchester or Liverpool everything is much more concentrated than it could ever be in a country the size of Wales.
How much did you enjoy being the Reading Festival compare?
Quite a lot. I have to be on stage virtually the whole time so I don’t get much chance to go to the tent, for example, to hear other bands. Also the sound picture I get from
the stage is obviously rather odd – nothing but guitar during Dinosaur Jnr. Also the backstage is filled with terrible posuers that I often wander out in the crowd, knowing
that some of them must listen to the programmes and rather hoping that they’ll speak to me. However, fat, middle-aged men are – you’ll discover this one day – strangely
invisible, even at Reading. This invisibility is, I think the worst thing about growing older, by the way. Also I think that people who do recognise me may, because of the
absurd attitude to DJ’s engendered by Radio 1 and other stations – some of your readers may be able to confirm that few people have a more inflated notion of their own
importance than local radio DJ’s (well some anyway) – people are reluctant to speak. Or they may think it would be uncool. A pity though. On the other hand, I did get to meet
Babes in Toyland and loads of other people so that’s pretty neat.
What was the last festival you went to as a spectator?
The ill-fated Weely, Essex, festival back in the early 1970′s. I volunteered my services and those of my Land Rover as an ambulance man / ambulance. They asked me to compere but I was battling against the notion of celebrity at the time so asked to help out in some capacity. It was fairly grim, in fact. A kindly but short-sighted local farmer had left hundreds of straw bales for the festival goers to use so people built themselves little shelters which they then accidently set on fire, so I was running burn victims to the local hospital most of the time. Very upsetting stuff!
Oh, I went to see The Fall at the Water Pop Festival in Holland a few years ago. Mark E. was wearing the most hideous shirt I have ever seen. Looked as though it was made from material used as utility sofa covering in the 1940′s. Weird man. I’ve met him (only briefly) three times yet about two months ago he told a mate of mine that he’d never met me. Nice to know you’ve made an impression!
Which concerts that you attended have you enjoyed the most?
The Faces in Sunderland on the night Sunderland beat Arsenal in the semi-final of the cup. (They went on to beat Leeds at Wembley, so you can look up the year somewhere.) The Faces were the best live band ever, I think. I ended up dancing on stage with the band, waving a bottle of Blue Nun about – so people claim. I never dance so I must have been in exceptionally high spirits. After that, the Four Brothers in Harare, Cambridge and our garden (the latter, Sheila my wife, sorted out for my 50th); The Fall; Wedding Present and House of Love at my birthday party in London; The Misunderstood in a shopping centre in Riverside, California; Gene Vincent at the Liverpool Empire; Captain Beefheart at Frank Freeman’s Dancing School, Kidderminster – hundreds of others – Undertones in Huddersfield, Roy Orbison in Ipswich, Babes in Bedford.
Who, if anyone, has influenced you in any way?
You’d have to ask a psycho-analyst this. I suppose the most obvious influences have been my nanny – yes, I had a nanny – the wonderful ( and much missed) Florence Horne (known as Trader), my house master at Shrewsbury (the far-sighted R.H.J. Brooke), Sheila/the Pig, John Walters. As far as broadcasting goes, anyone who is the same off-mic as on – people like Peter Clayton (who died a few weeks ago), John Arlott, Humphrey Lyttledon – and, in a different way, Ronnie Fletcher who reads quotations on “Quote/Unquote” because he brought Sheila and I together, something I silently thank him for every day of my life.
What plans do you have for the future?
To put this in the post to you, play a game of tennis with Sheila (we’re both crap but it means I get a bit of exercise) and then spoil it all by going to the pub in Rattlesden for lunch. The I’ll go and pick up the children from school bus before coming back into this room and try to do something about the backlog of unheard CDs and tapes.
Motto?
Do unto others as you would be done by, I suppose. I try not to shaft people, in other words.
Interview by Karl Powell