Mike SHAFT :: DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL pt 3

Piccadilly Radio’s Dance Music Legacy 74-88

By Greg WILSON

Once the drug Ecstasy arrived on the scene and white ravers ‘discovered’ dance music in their droves, the years of groundwork laid by the black scene was, at best, obscured and, at worst, ignored. Soon the music magazines were writing about Ibiza ’87 as the starting point, completely negating what went before, with Stu Allan’s pioneering on air contribution more or less totally omitted from the history.

LEGENDARY MANCHESTER DJ HEWAN CLARKE PHOTOGRAPHED IN 2008

Playing the latest imports during the pre-Rave era at Manchester clubs including The Gallery, Berlin, The Playpen and Legend, DJ’s like Stu Allan, Colin Curtis, Hewan Clarke and Mike Shaft helped sow the seeds from which The Hacienda blossomed, before the E fuelled eruption of ‘88/’89 brought the club to national, then international attention. The city’s long-standing underground dance scene connected to other influential black music nights and All-Dayers, in places like Nottingham, Birmingham and Sheffield, and it was in this environment that House music was introduced to the dancefloors of the North and Midlands.

In 1988 Piccadilly Radio split into two services - Key 103 with a contemporary music format, broadcast on FM, with Piccadilly Gold, an oldies based station, on the AM frequency. Stu Allan’s show switched to Key 103, marking the end of an era on one hand whilst, on the other, announcing the beginning of a new one for the next generation of clubbers, who continued to religiously tune into his Sunday night sessions, writing in for ‘shout out’s’ as the Rave era hit overdrive.

Echoing it’s instantly recognisable ‘Nobody Does It Better’ jingle, Piccadilly Radio was the number one station for so many people, especially the black music enthusiasts who’d tuned in to Andy Peebles, Mike Shaft, Lee Browne and Stu Allan for their Sunday fix between 1974 and 1988 (with the exception of a short period in the early ‘80’s when the show was moved to a Monday night). A whole history of black music, from Soul and Funk to Hip Hop and House, filled the Greater Manchester airwaves between those 14 years.

MIKE SHAFT PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1990 AT SUNSET RADIO

Radio would go through some radical changes following this time, especially where dance music was concerned, with the national BBC station, Radio One increasingly catering towards the ever-growing clubbing community, whilst 100% dance stations like Kiss 102 and its successor, Galaxy, would set up in the city to help satisfy the increasing demand as DJ culture became a major commercial force.

Mike Shaft would be a trailblazer in this direction, fulfilling his long-standing ambition of setting up Sunset Radio in Manchester, a legitimate (as opposed to pirate) station that specialized purely in black and dance music. He was Managing Director and Programme Controller from its launch in 1989, but was ousted from the board the following year as the result of a fundamental difference of opinion with other directors who wanted to take the station in a more orthodox direction.

Having finally parted company with Key 103 in 2000, Stu Allan would present shows on stations including Kiss 100 and Pure Dance.

Lee Browne seemed to completely vanish off the radar following his time at Piccadilly – it’s believed that he moved to London. To the best of my knowledge he never appeared on radio again, at least not in this country.

Mike Shaft has continued to carve a highly successful career in local radio and, to this day, can still be heard (in his inimitable style) on BBC Radio Manchester.

Bringing things full circle, Andy Peebles, following a long association with the BBC, where, apart from Radio One, he presented programmes on Radio Two and Radio Five, finds himself back in Greater Manchester, on Smooth Radio, where, in addition to his evening shows, nostalgia for his Piccadilly roots is evident in a weekly programme he currently presents called - you’ve guessed it - ‘Soul Train’!

PART 1
PART 2