Mike SHAFT :: INTERVIEWS

MIKE SHAFT INTERVIEWS - TONY WILSON

Over the past years I have had the great pleasure of interviewing a number of celebrities. These have included politicians, sports people, musicians and comedians. In this section of mikeshaft.com, I will try to remember some of these people and give you a short resume of my interview with them. Please note these are done in no particular order.

I suppose this is going to all sound a bit far fetched but I promise you every word of it is true.

Obviously, living in and around Manchester every one knew Tony WILSON. He was a television star on Regional station Granada and he was legendary in the Manchester area for discovering punk, introducing it to Manchester and launching the Madchester music scene.

As BBC Radio Manchester presenter Terry CHRISTIAN said recently, "No Tony WILSON no Manchester music scene".

I cannot say I remember when I first met him or when I first interviewed him but I do remember the two most recent interviews that I did with him. The first was on the launch of the film of his life, '24 Hour Party People'. I was working at BBC 2002 Commonwealth Games Radio when he agreed to do that interview, but it is not that encounter that I want to talk about here.

Some years later in 2005 I am now working at BBC GMR, soon to become Radio Manchester once again. As Assistant Editor I did only one regular show - Sunday Breakfast but I was almost always on call if someone was ill or had decided to take some holiday.

Our late night presenter was Michelle MULLANE and on this crucial day she was ill and I was asked to present the programme. The Mr Manchester guest was to be Tony WILSON and we were supposed to talk for about 20 minutes. I told the producer of the programme that our interview would last for an hour, and she reluctantly agreed.

When he came in we got straight into the interview and we spoke about his life growing up, not in Manchester but in Salford, a place he was now proud to call his birth place. We talked about his school as he listed some of the other famous people who attended Manchester Catholic Grammer Schools. This included Martin HANNETT, Peter SAVILLE, Rob GRETTON and Terry EAGLETON.

At this time in his life Tony was out of actual work. I say actual work and I'll explain.

He had previously been employed by Granada but as he said in the interview, "Granada had fallen out of love with him". Of course he continued to do dozens of other things like the music conference 'In the City' and he was again dabbling in the music business with a new label and a new band, but one could tell that he was bitter that he was no longer on the air. I have to admit that I was amazed that he was not broadcasting as I truly believe he was one of our greatest broadcasters. Tony was able to take any story and make it interesting. He was gifted. Mind you I think he knew that.

We spoke about all of his exploits including the Hacienda, the night when the Sex Pistols first came to Manchester, the night he saw his first music heroes at the Free Trade hall in Manchester. Who were they? Peter Paul and Mary you better believe it and we spoke about his love for the Manchester and Salford areas and his delight about how they have been redeveloped in recent years.

We concluded the interview with Tony saying that he was looking for work and banging on about the future which he believed was IDTV or teleivsion via the internet. That interview went out on BBC GMR and as far as I was concerned that was that.

The following morning my big boss Leo DEVINE, the Head of Regional and Local Programmes for the North West calls me up and says he was out of the area last night and was driving back when he caught the end of the interview. He wanted to know if I could cut a copy to cd so he could listen to all of it. I did it sent it to him and thought that was that. By the way, he had also attended Manchester Catholic Grammer School.

A few days later his PA calls me for a contact number for Tony WILSON. I found the number and gave it to her. Within a matter of weeks Tony was working at the BBC. He joined BBC Radio Manchester presenting two programmes. Talk of the Town and Ground Rules and he also began to appear on BBC Regional Television in this area on the Politics Show.

When Tony passed away I thought I'd rerun that interview as a tribute to him. Despite looking everywhere in my extensive archive I could not find it. In desperation I got in touch with the big boss now working in London and although he had lost the cd he still had a copy of the interview on his I-Pod. He was able to cut it back to cd and let me have a copy. I was able to broadcast it on Bank Holiday Monday.

In one of the interviews after he was diagnosed with cancer he talked about been out of work for ages and finally getting loads of work then falling ill.

Tony WILSON may have gone but he has made his mark in Manchester and elsewhere around the world. I know he was planning to take his 'In the City' Music Conference to Perth in Australia, he never told me but I heard that while I was in Australia.

Manchester has an awful lot to thank Tony for and I hope the City will do something to mark a life that was truly well lived .

RIP Tony WILSON

MIKE SHAFT INTERVIEWS - BEULAH

BEULAH - ONE OF THE FINEST VOCALISTS AROUND

A few weeks ago while at BBC GMR, the producer of the ‘Michelle Around Midnight’ programme Hayley CAVILL, game me a new cd to listen to.

The album was the new one from BEULAH, called MABEL AND I. I had never heard of BEULAH but I put the cd in the player and began to listen. It was astonishing. Track after track of sheer brilliance.

I scored every track as I listened and every one was a 5 Star track with the exception of track 3 which was just 3 Stars.

When I returned the cd to HAYLEY she told me that she had arranged an interview and session with BEULAH in about three weeks time. From out of nowhere I told her that I would be doing that interview. What do you mean she replied? I’ll be doing that interview I repeated, and that was that.Now you have to understand that the regular presenter of ‘Michelle Around Midnight’ is the fabulous Michelle MULLANE, and I only get to present the programme when she is ill or on holiday.

With three days to go to the interview senior producer Lawrence MANN calls me to tell me that Michelle was ill and wouldn’t be presenting the programme the evening. Would I do it? YEP!That was Wednesday evening. On Thursday the same conversation and the same result... I presented the show. And so to Friday and guess what. Michelle is still not well and I have to present the show. Hayley could not believe it.

On that evening’s show we had two sessions planned for the final hour in our ‘Live Room’. The first was Jenny K JONES who has a new album My disobedient hair. She was fabulous and her version of Ian Curtis’ ‘Love will tear us apart’ is sensational. Jenny went into the Live Room at 11:30 and was done by 12 midnight. This meant that we had the full hour with BEULAH.BEULAH arrived with a fairly large entourage and we all settled into the studio for our interview and a few live songs.

I cued up my favourite song on the album and we began. I suppose that it wasn’t until we got into that first song that I realized that something special was going on. During the song not one person spoke a word. Everyone listened intently to every word of the song. It is called NEVERMORE and as BEULAH explained, the song was written for a friend of hers who had lost a child. It is a most beautiful, and in my humble opinion, religious song.From there the evening just got more memorable with BEULAH telling me all about her and her life. We spoke about her family and her “wonderful” childhood. In between she sang songs from her awesome album including STAY, SWEET KINDA SOMETHING, the single and the title track MABEL AND I.

As you will see from this feature over the coming months I have interviewed a number of people who have touched me but I say this without fear of contradiction no one has touched me with their personality and music as beautifully as BEULAH has.As I said to her as she eventually went on her way I had a distinct feeling that God was in this album. Even now as I write this review and listen to the track NEVERMORE again, I am more convinced that this is a work of sheer genius.

This interview with BEULAH will always remain one of my favourite interviews ever.

MIKE SHAFT INTERVIEWS - LISA STANSFIELD

I know I say above that these are in no particular order, but if they were this would definately be one of my all time favourite interviews. And boy have I got a story to tell you about this?

It all began some years earlier when I received a new 12 inch single by a group called BLUEZONE which featured a singer called Lisa STANSFIELD. It was a fantastic dance track and one which I featured heavily on my Piccadilly Radio Soul Show, 'TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS'.

Lisa's voice was and is truly wonderful and I knew she was local to Manchester so I was delighted to be able to play it on the show.

After winning the Licence to set up SUNSET RADIO in Manchester, I contacted YELLOW 2 studios in Stockport to get our jingle package done. We agreed on the strap line and we had to find a vocalist. It had to be LISA STANSFIELD. I got in touch with her record company who asked Lisa if she would do it. The message came back a few weeks later and it was no. I was devastated but accepted that that was it.

A couple of weeks later I was at YELLOW 2 studios working on the music. Suddenly, in walks the secretary from the studio round the corner wanting to borrow a roll of fax paper. After a couple of minutes, she said, "You'll never guess who is in our studio? No we all said in unison."Well LISA STANSFIELD is in our studio".

I could not believe it, this was my chance. I wasn't sure what I was going to say to her but I went over to the other studio and there was LISA, sitting on the couch drinking a cup of tea. I introduced myself and asked her why she had refused to do our jingle package. She said that she had been told that it was a pirate radio station, and she had been advised not to do it.

When I told her it was a legal station and we were going to play SOUL MUSIC on the airwaves of MANCHESTER, she said she would be delighted to sing our jingles. Six weeks later LISA arrived at YELLOW 2 to record the SUNSET jingles. I had been looking forward to this day for months.

Unfortunately, a couple of days before she was due in I came down with Chicken Pox and was not able to attend the recording session.

We did end up with what many believed was the best jingle package ever recorded in this country. Our strap line was 'KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE'. Listen to one of the Sunset Jingles HERE.

In the week that SUNSET went on the air, October 1989, LISA STANSFIELD had her first hit in the UK and she was riding high in the charts with the single 'ALL AROUND THE WORLD'. We were all delighted that LISA'S voice was played all day on SUNSET on our jingle package.

It really could not have been any better had we planned it ourselves.

Some weeks after launching SUNSET, I contacted LISA'S record company to see if she would be available to come in for a live interview with me. The message came back, YES!

We had a LISA STANSFIELD DAY, playing her music all day and she came in and spent a full hour with me. It was a wonderful day and a wonderful interview. It was certainly a day that I would never forget.

MIKE SHAFT INTERVIEWS - JESSE JACKSON

Having been broadcasting for over 30 years now I have to admit I have interviewed most of the people I want to interview. There are still some exceptions however, people like Nelson Mandela and Stevie Wonder to name a couple. However in 2007 I had the great pleasure of interviewing one of the true legends of our time The Rev Jesse Jackson.

One of the biggest problems with getting great interviews is the planning, and this was no exception. During the 3 months of summer 2007 I was not working at the BBC, however I received an e-mail to my private address asking me if I wanted to interview Jesse Jackson as he was due to arrive in the UK in August.

I did not answer this e-mail as I considered this to be work related and I did not want to do anything BBC related while I was officially not working there.

Some months later and I am now back at the BBC and Sunday Breakfast producer Rebecca Kelly tells me that there is a chance of an interview with The Rev Jesse Jackson. She then began the long process of trying to arrange it.

This was an interview that I had wanted to do for years. Jesse Jackson is a legend. He was there with Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. He later ran for President of the United States. His Push Coalition still works for and with communities in the US. I had to have that interview.

As the weeks passed by it was beginning to look less and less likely that I would get the interview. People like Jesse Jackson are in great demand on a trip like this with national newspapers, national radio and television all taking precedent. But, in my mind, I was convinced that it would happen.

As we got closer and closer to his visit the e-mails were flying to and fro. In the end it was decided that he would come into the BBC studios at 09:00 am on the Sunday morning. This was interesting as the Sunday breakfast programme actually finishes at 09:00 but that was the agreed time and I'd have to be happy with that. It did mean that we could have a longer interview and that I would be able to do a Mike Shaft production on it.

And so it is that we are all waiting at the studios on the Sunday Morning cameras at the ready. Our senior producer was on duty that morning and even he was getting nervous. Eventually at about 09:25 we get the message from reception thet Jesse Jackson was in the building. He had a huge entourage with him. After what seemed like ages they arrived at the BBC Radio Manchester studios. We begam the interview and he was truly awesome.

The big story in the UK at that time was the shooting of 10 year old Rees Jones in Liverpool. Jesse Jackson spoke about this and about the murder of Jesse James in Manchester some time earlier. He made a number of suggestions as to how we could lessen the gang violence which was now very prevelant in parts of the UK. He suggested that one way forward was to lessen the access to guns on the streets.

Mike Shaft interviews Rev Jesse Jackson
listen here at bbc.co.uk

I asked him about Martin Luther King and he spoke about what a great man he was and how the church could still be used today as a focus to clearing up many of the problems on the streets of the UK. Our interview lasted some 20 minutes and he answered everything that was asked. He was very critical about the UK and USA policy in Iraq and suggested that the way forward was to involve the other countries in the area like Iran and Syria in discussions on the future.

Eventually time was up and Rev Jackson and his entourage left the building. This had been a truly amazing experience for me. To meet someone who had achieved what Jesse Jackson had was quite unbelievable. To meet someone who knew Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks was sensational.

I am delighted that the BBC has made the interview available on-line on their web site please try and listen to it. I hope you like it.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the individuals who have taken the time to come onto my shows over the years and who have given me some truly wonderful memories.