Alan Black; DJ & animator
Hyfler/Rosner
Pirate DJ who joined Radio 1
The Independent
22 March 2007
Spencer Leigh
Alan Black, disc jockey and cartoonist: born Rosyth, Fife 15
January 1943; married (one son); died London 5 March 2007.
When it comes to naming the key disc jockeys at Radio 1,
Alan Black is unlikely to come to mind, but for a few years
he was part of the fabric of the station and the highly
influential In Concert series was his idea. "I thought Alan
Black was a terrifically good DJ," says the broadcaster Bob
Harris, "He had great warmth on air and that is hard to
achieve."
Black was born in Rosyth, on the Firth of Forth, in 1943. He
was educated locally and had plans to go to art school. At
the last minute, he changed his mind and spent six months
with a band of gypsies. He joined a commercial art studio
but became disillusioned with the weekly pay of £1 10s.
Taken again by wanderlust, he took casual labour on coasters
and ocean liners. He developed his talent for drawing
cartoons by working for the D.C. Thomson company in Dundee
and contributing to a wide range of comics and magazines.
In 1963, Black moved to London, working for agencies as a
commercial artist. He was intrigued when offshore pirate
radio stations started, and secured a job with Radio
Scotland, joining the ship in the Firth of Forth for its
launch at Hogmanay 1965. He established himself as a popular
broadcaster but he then moved to Radio England, which soon
went into voluntary liquidation.
He was with Britain Radio when its ship, Laissez Faire,
suffered considerable storm damage - not helped by some of
the crew jumping ship. When the Marine etc Broadcasting
(Offences) Act 1967 became law, the stations were forced to
close down. Meanwhile, the BBC had been shaken from its
lethargy to create the new teenage station Radio 1, and Alan
Black made his début with Midday Spin in July 1968.
Black was one of several animators involved in the highly
innovative film Yellow Submarine (1968) and, during a
holiday in France, he met his wife, Mariepierre, known as
Pierre. One of his producers at Radio 1 was Jeff Griffin,
who remembers,
Alan had heard a programme in France in which bands would
both play live and be interviewed about their music, which
gave them a certain credibility. He thought that this would
work in the UK and we did a pilot with Led Zeppelin, who
chose Liverpool Scene as their special guests. Alan
introduced the programme and it was broadcast in August
1969. It was well received but the station's management
wanted John Peel to present the subsequent concerts. I felt
sorry for Alan Black . . . a few months earlier, they'd all
been criticising John. The programme later had a number of
presenters, each chosen according to the performer, and Alan
did some of those.
Bob Harris recalls,
I started at Radio 1 in August 1970 and slotted into a strip
of programmes called Sounds of the Seventies. I took over
the Monday programme and Alan was doing the equivalent
programme on Friday night. Each of the programmes had a
different musical style to them, and Alan's great musical
interest was jazz-rock. He is the first person to be playing
Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears. We co-presented an album
review programme together for about a year and a half and it
was a good combination because we overlapped very little. I
didn't like a lot of the stuff that Alan liked, and vice
versa. This led to us having some heated discussions on air.
Black also presented the What's New programme with Anne
Nightingale, which was produced by Bernie Andrews. He proved
a delightful companion: a laconic Scotsman who would
entertain his colleagues with sharply observed caricatures.
However, he never attained the popularity of a Dave Lee
Travis or Tony Blackburn. "You have to have a big ego if you
are going to be a big DJ," says Jeff Griffin,
and it's to his credit that he didn't have a big ego. He was
a genuinely lovely man and I don't think I ever heard him
say a bad word about anyone.
In the late 1970s, Black developed new talent for Polydor
Records and did some presenting at Radio 1. In the end, he
decided that he had had enough and took jobs outside the
industry, but he continued to draw cartoons whenever the
opportunity arose.
Spencer Leigh