Andy Kershaw obituary | Music radio

Andy Kershaw, who died at the age of 66 after receiving treatment for cancerhe made his name as a DJ on BBC Radio 1 bringing world music to the masses, and made a name for himself as a journalist reporting on war and terror in remote areas.

“I think initially Radio 1 wanted someone (John) Peel,” he said he told the Independent in 2012, “but I got really tired of the bad, lackluster tapes I was getting from Liverpudlian indie acts, especially when I started getting great, amazing music from Malawi, Congo, South Africa.”

Kershaw had begun his career as a national broadcaster. In 1984, he joined Mark Ellen and David Hepworth on the Whistle Test (formerly The Old Gray Whistle Test, with Richard Williams, Bob Harris and Annie Nightingale in a sequence of individual presenters). The BBC Two program focused on the songs from the album rather than the songs featured on BBC One’s Top of the Pops.

The next year, the three got together Janice LongPaul Gambaccini and others host the Wembley Live Aid concert on television and radio. At the same time, Kershaw began to show evenings every week on Radio 1, briefly on Saturdays, then on Thursdays until 1989. Along with the songs that pleased him on disc were live events in the studio.

He and Peel, both dedicated to introducing audiences to new artists, shared an office in Room 318 at Egton House, the former Radio 1 building next to Broadcasting House, with their producer. John Walterswhom Kershaw described as “my confidant, my mentor and my inspiration”.

But both DJs were unhappy with the idea that Kershaw was being groomed as Peel’s successor, and in his 2011 record, No Off SwitchKershaw downplayed his late friend’s reputation as a “rebel”, like himself, writing unkindly: “He had no stomach for a fight.” On the air, Kershaw moved around the schedule, with his show starting on the weekend, then Monday, then Friday, until he was dropped by Radio 1 in 2000.

Throughout his 15 years at the station, he also traveled the world to perform special music shows, from joining Elvis Presley’s faithful on a tour to mark the 10th anniversary of their idol’s death, to learning more about Zimbabwean music that he had previously featured on his shows.

The DJ was described by the Times as “the BBC’s most famous music expert” and he added politics during his trip to South Africa in 1995, meeting some of the most famous musicians and discovering how the country was set up in the year after the end of apartheid.

Eventually, he produced shows for five of the BBC’s major radio stations. He broadcast Radio 4 from 1987, went on a three-song tour through Mali (1989), took the political heat in unstable Haiti (1991), and reported on the Today program on the genocide in Rwanda (1994) and the civil wars in Angola (1996) and Sierra Leone (2001).

Get started Radio 3He contributed to the magazine show World Travel with Lucy Duran from 2000 to 2006. Highlights include a return to Haiti during the presidential election to hear Caribbean music, rap and Pentecostal music, and a trip to Iraq shortly after 9/11 to discover the culture of Gy country music.

After his show was crushed by Radio 1, he found a new home at Radio 3 hosting a weekly show featuring international, folk, country and blues music (2001-07), making him the sole DJ to seamlessly transition between the two stations. He also recorded the Radio 3 Songs of the Hermit Kingdom (2003) in North Korea; Iran – Axis of Evil (2004), with underground heavy metal and illegal rave; and Christmas in Ashgabat (2005) in Turkmenistan.

But Kershaw’s career has stuttered — and always has Radio Show 3 ended – after he broke up with his 17-year-old girlfriend, Juliette Banner, in 2006. When the court issued a restraining order against him, he turned to alcohol and was imprisoned three times for violation, saying that he wanted to see his children. Doing this again in 2008, he ran away and became homeless for a while, moving from friend to friend.

He later returned to Radio 3, with Duran again, for a magazine show Music Planet (2011) and became a journalist on BBC’s The One Show (2012-2019).

Kershaw was born in Littleborough, Lancashire, the youngest son of Eileen (nee Acton) and Jack Kershaw, who were teachers. Later Jack became head of Rochdale comprehensive and Eileen head of nursery school. Andy’s sister, Liz, who was born a year earlier, had a long career as a DJ in BBC country radio.

Aged 14 and studying at Hulme Grammar School, Oldham, Kershaw began his “tempestuous and enduring love affair” with Bob Dylan’s music after hearing the star’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, specifically the song Like a Rolling Stone.

While studying politics at Leeds University (1978-82), he was the secretary of student welfare organisations. He spent so much time memorizing things, such as Ian Dury, Iggy Pop, Elvis Costello, Dire Straits and the Clash, that he failed his degree.

After working as a “backstage labor coordinator” at the last concert of the Rolling Stones’ 1982 European Tour, in Leeds, Kershaw’s first job was at the city’s commercial station Radio Aire as a marketing manager (1982-83). Within a few months, he was also showing “other music” nights, then a blues program.

He moved to London in 1984 and became a driver for singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, a tour manager and roadie for gigs in Britain and mainland Europe. Kershaw was invited to be the host of the Whistle Test after meeting television producer Trevor Dann.

On television, he also presented episodes of the Channel 4 Series Travelog (1990-98), while his newspaper reporting included a recent report for the Independent on Thailand’s Red Shirt anti-government protests in 2010.

Kershaw is survived by Sonny and Dolly, his children Banner, and his sister.