Andy Kershaw

Related article: Andy Kershaw: Show And Session List

Andy Kershaw (1959- ) is a broadcaster on BBC Radios 1 and 3 from Rochdale in Lancashire. His interest in music encompasses folk in all its forms, and this has led him to advocate world music in particular on his shows, which began on Radio 1. Originally, they were broadcast from Manchester from 06 July to 27 September 1985, when the show moved to London and Kershaw became a colleague of Peel's. Their overlapping interests led them to become close friends and their shows usually followed one another in the Radio 1 schedules. However, the sense of narrative in Peel's programmes was missing from Kershaw's: John interwove his family life and history with the music, whereas Andy was so disinterested in the cult of being a DJ that his shows concentrate on the tracks themselves, with two or three continually segued together and uninterrupted by his comments. The pair went together on annual trips to the TT Races in the Isle Of Man until Sheila's near-fatal brain haemorrhage in 1996, while John was away with Andy.

Another common feature was the presence of specially commissioned sessions: these have seen limited releases, and, while lacking the kudos of Peel's, encompass a wide variety of artists from many different countries, mainly African. However, it could be said that he scooped Peel in being the first to broadcast, among others, the Wedding Present in session, and admitting a number of artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits that John disliked. After he lost his Radio 1 slot in 2000, the following year saw him on Radio 3, which he came to regard as his spiritual home. He presented a tribute show shortly after John's death, and disappeared from the airwaves for some time following a traumatic and convoluted personal life and nervous breakdown, but reappeared in 2011 with a series of world music documentaries with Lucy Duran, Music Planet, again on Radio 3.