andy kershaw

I was sad to hear of Andy Kershaw’s death last week. We were away, and for the hours after the news had come through, I was a wee bit quiet and introspective, the way most of us go when a person in the public eye who you’ve admired from a distance passes.

I noticed an immediate spike in the stats for this page, with traffic making its way to a post I’d written about George Michael a few years ago. After George had died, Andy took to Facebook to say he couldn’t work out the level of public outpouring he was reading about a man who was essentially a pop singer and, in Andy’s words, not a ‘real’ singer, or a very good one at that.

No, no, no, Andy, I replied on his feed (to a flurry of thumbs up and further comment); when a popstar of your youth dies, a little bit of you dies too. It doesn’t matter if you liked the music, that’s almost secondary. It’s the records, tied to memories, people and places, that evokes happier, simpler times in your life, when mortgages and bills and adulting were unknown entities on some far-off and hazy horizon. That loss of childhood and innocence is what people are really upset about. And besides, Andy, George Michael was a fucking great writer and singer and, as it turned out, an even greater human being, so choose your pot-shot targets carefully, man.

In the George Michael article. I called him a twonk. Not something Kershaw would have got worked up about, but something that, since last week, has bothered me. People arriving at that article – titled, pointedly, Listen Without Prejudice – might think I had no time for Andy Kershaw, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I volunteer with an Ayrshire-based music promoter called Freckfest. Back in the old days of 2014, when Andy was far more active on social media – especially with a book to sell – I got in touch with him to suggest he bring his one-man ‘No Off Switch’ show to Irvine’s 100-seater Harbour Arts Centre. A date was agreed and the gig was go.

As the date of the gig loomed large, I got a daily text, every morning before 8 o’clock, to ask how sales were doing. In all honesty, they were slow. In fact, they’d stopped. A week out from showtime, we’d sold about half the HAC’s 100 capacity and it looked like we’d sell little more. He phoned me out of the blue one day while I was in the staff room at lunchtime, ‘Andy Kershaw’ appearing on my screen above a picture of him in his standard checked shirt.

‘Shite’, I thought, my heart missing several beats as I navigated my way out of the staffroom conversation I was embroiled in and made my way into the sanctity of the corridor.

‘Andy!’ I answered cheerfully whilst shitting myself. (At this point in my life, no-one mildly famous had ever called me on my phone, let alone unannounced and while I was at work). ‘What’re you saying to it?!’

‘Have we sold any more tickets, Craig? Even one? Because I’m thinking that maybe you ought to get around the town of Irvine with as many posters as you can print, like I told you to do, and pop them every chip shop, hairdressers, corner shop and bakers, like I told you to do, and demand that they display one prominently in each of their windows.’ The voice was exactly that of the radio broadcaster Andy Kershaw, which, obviously it would be, but one that nonetheless was ridiculous in the context of the call. ‘If you put posters all over the town, Craig, THEY WILL COME, mark my words.’

I was midway through suggesting it wasn’t too late to maybe postpone the show, re-evaluate our expectations and maybe put it on at a later date, when the school bell rang for the end of lunchtime.

‘Where the hell are you, Craig? In a blooody schoool?!?’

‘Eh, aye, actually, Andy. That’s exactly where I am.’

‘What the blooody hell are you doing in a schoool?’

‘I work in a school. I’m a teacher.’

‘A teacher!? A teacher?!’ said Andy, with the same incredulity that he’d normally reserve for someone who’d suggested he play Twistin’ By The Pool by Dire Straits on his radio show. ‘You’re a school teacher? You’re not a promoter?’

‘Well, I AM a promoter, but I do that in my spare time. Freckfest is a voluntary organisation. We all have real jobs to work. But we love music and if we weren’t doing this gig, no-one else would be putting it on. We grew up in a town that was soaked in music and culture and in our own way, we’re doing our wee bit to bring music and culture back to a town that’s been starved of it for too long.’

And at that, the ice melted.

Andy couldn’t do enough for us. Instead of texting me daily to ask about slow ticket sales, he got on his own social media feed and began aggressively selling the show – ‘Get down to Irvine, y’shower of cloth-eared bastards, etc, those Freckfest guys and girls do a brilliant job of bringing interesting things to Irvine – don’t let them – and me – down.’

For the record, we had stuck posters in shop windows throughout the town, like he’d told us to do, but it was Andy’s vociferous and plentiful social media posting that helped sales crawl to a respectable 80+.

Just as he was about to go on, Andy asked me to introduce him on stage. With a gulp, I very quickly put together a spontaneous version of the rolling commentary that announces Bob Dylan every time he takes the stage.

‘Ladies and gentlemen. Our guest tonight appeared wide-eyed and blagging it on Live Aid’s TV coverage. He’s stood above rivers of human bones reporting on the genocide in Rwanda. He was the first white man to shake Nelson Mandela’s hand on his release from prison. He’s worked with the Rolling Stones, Billy Bragg and the Bhundu Boys, to name just three disparate acts. He turned down ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’, but he couldn’t turn down Freckfest’s offer of a show in Irvine. Ladies and gentlemen, please show your wild appreciation for Andy Kershaw!’

And on he went.

And on and on he went.

The show was running way over time…and he still hadn’t got to the bit about his involvement in Live Aid.

Just as the Kershaw radio show packed in everything he could fit and more, it was clear we weren’t going to hear about every aspect of his quite frankly Forrest Gump-ish life before the venue’s 11 oclock curfew. He’d tell a story, shout ‘Hit it, Jim!’ to the engineer in the soundbox and a track would play loudly while Andy grinned and shuffled his way through it, his faithful dog Buster sat at his feet.

‘Route 66 is a crap way to see America,’ he extoled. ‘Unless you’re into grain stores and farming. Hit it, Jim!’
Cue: The Stones’ version of ‘Route 66‘.

‘I once tracked down James Carr to a bedsit in the deep south and let him hear some his own music for the first time. It brought both of us to tears. Hit it, Jim!’
Cue: James Carr’s ‘You’ve Got My Mind Messed Up‘.

‘The first time I heard African guitars, I was ecstatic…giddy with life! Hit it, Jim!’
Cue: Bhundu Boys‘ ‘Hupenyu Hwangu‘.

Suddenly, he writes in ‘No Off Switch’, it was as if the room was being sprayed with a fountain of jewelled guitar notes. Then the whole band kicked in. It bounced. It chimed. It popped. The melodies and harmonies instantly lifted and brightened the spirits. The guitars wound round each other, capturing and tossing back and forth the prettiest of tunes, yet always engaging with sublime simplicity. Peel and I looked at each other, frozen and open-mouthed. For the duration of the first song, neither of us said a word. By the end I was grinning.

That’s Kershaw’s famed and infectious joie de vivre right there.

Afterwards we went for a pint, where Buster farted violently in the corner and he told me stories of hanging out with Neil Young and the Rolling Stones, the sort of stuff that never fails to impress me. For a wee while in the months after, we corresponded. He sent me a BBC video of a WWII thing that I’d seen him present. ‘That’d be great for the kids I teach, Andy,’ I told him…and the next thing, he’d sent me the digital file for classroom use. He’d message unexpectedly, promising to return and finish the rest of his show. It never did happen. Probably, the thought of chastising me daily for not putting posters up in Gregg’s was less appealing to him this time around. I wish I’d held him to his promise though.

Andy Kershaw had a life well-travelled and his show, and the accompanying book, barely scratched the surface.

You’ll read all sorts of stuff about Andy Kershaw, and not all of it flattering, but I was really taken by him and his enthusiasm for life and music. If you haven’t, you should read ‘No Off Switch’. It’s a really great book. Trust me on that.

See ye later, Andy.

The blues had a baby and they called it rock ‘n roll. Standing expectantly with the forceps may have been Ike Turner, and on hand with the hot water and towels was Little Richard, but there, straight outta the womb came a duck walkin’, smart talkin’ Chuck Berry, sly grin on the side of his mouth and holding a cherry red Gibson with a hand span as wide as the Mississippi.

He sang of motorvatin’ in shark-finned Cadillacs, of Coolerators and TV dinners, of a life so technicolour and otherworldly and sci-fi that he couldn’t fail to capture the imagination of anyone with half a feel for the beat. It’s no wonder that future legends like Keith Richards and Eric Clapton embraced him so keenly. Young Keith was still playing with rats on Blitzed-out bomb sites in a post-War Britain living in severely austere times, and here was Chuck, singing quite literally about the promised land.

Chuck Berry – Bye Bye Johnny

I’ve always loved Chuck’s Bye Bye Johnny, a follow-up in sorts to Johnny B. Goode, a story song where the protagonist leaves home in search of fame and fortune. First time I heard it though was on Status Quo’s epic triple box set ‘From the Makers Of‘. For years I assumed it was a denim-clad Quo original. With it’s 3 chord chugga-chugga boogie and heads down, no-nonsense approach it could well have been a mid 70’s Quo classic.

Status Quo – Bye Bye Johnny

Back in the early 80s, (September ’83), around the time I’d have been headbanging myself into stupidity with a tennis racquet and Status Quo blaring in the background, Chuck and a pick-up band played my hometown of Irvine. I never went. Why? Because I was a daft wee boy who was in denial about music from the past. If my parents liked it, I didn’t. It was as simple as that.

Found on t’internet

The promoter of the concert, Willie Freckleton, booked all the bands that came through the town, from Chuck and The Clash to Oasis and Bjork. In later years he told me the story of how Chuck wouldn’t play until he’d been given his fee in a brown paper bag stuffed with good ol’ fashioned American dollars. For a man who’d been ripped off from the moment he’d picked up a guitar, this was probably a smart move, albeit a little cold. After the main set, where Chuck had of course wowed the audience with his 3 minute symphonies and wide-legged stage antics, he left to frenzied applause.

“That was great, Chuck!” cheered Willie to his idol from the side of the stage. “Are you going back on? Give the audience a wee bit more, eh?”

“Sho thing, man,” drawled Chuck, hand out-stretched. “Fo’ anotha’ thousan’ dolla’s…”

The Irvine audience never got an encore.

Chuck Berry – Sweet Little Rock ‘n Roller

You can’t write a piece about him without pointing out the fact that Chuck Berry is, by all accounts, an appalling human being.

Not just for the money-in-the-bag story (that’s so routine in Chuck’s world now, it’s almost as much a signature move as the Johnny B. Goode riff) or the dubious lyrics that reference young girls and carnal acts dressed up in all manner of metaphors.

There is the 3 year jail sentence for transporting a 14 year-old across State lines for ‘prostitution’ and immoral purposes’. You can’t dress that up in metaphor, Chuck. Or maybe you did?

More recently, there is the story of him having a hidden camera in the female toilets in his restaurant. Charges were only dropped after he agreed to pay financial compensation to the 200+ victims who came forward.

Flawed genius? Perhaps. Or just not a nice man.

Broadcaster Andy Kershaw does a really terrific stand-up routine, based around his autobiography ‘No Off Switch‘ – it’s a brilliant read, and part of his show is based around his distaste for Berry as a person alongside the unbridled joy of listening to Promised Land.

“If you want to travel across America, don’t do Route 66. That’s the accepted route, but believe me, unless you’re into farming and grain containment, you won’t find a more boring road in the whole of America. If you want to find out about the real America; the grit, the dirt, the soul of the country, take Uncle Chuck’s advice and follow the lyrics of Promised Land.”

Kershaw then impressively reels off the lyrics. Breathless poetry about a land that captured the imaginations of all those post-War wannabe guitar players. It’s a beautiful thing….

Chuck Berry – Promised Land

I’ve always had a soft spot for the late 70’s Elvis version.

Listen closely and you can hear his lard ass a-wobblin’ out the seams of that ridiculous white jump suit as he breathlessly tries to keep up with the rest of the band. Heck, you can practically see the sweat flying over the top of the gold aviators as The King staves off the heart attack for a few more weeks. Essential listening, of course.

Elvis Presley – Promised Land