Tommy Vance

Moving to Vancouver in pursuit of his first wife, Fern, in 1964, he joined KOL Seattle as its prime drive-time jock, contrary to other reporting, under the name Tommy Vance. He got into a pay dispute with KOL and quit and went on to voice his displeasure on rival KJR where he cohosted for a few days with KJR's prime time jock Pat O'Day.

From there Vance moved to Los Angeles where he was offered a show by programming consultant Bill Drake on KHJ radio (aka Boss Radio), holding the evening airshift at KHJ for several months in late 1965. The programme had originally been intended for another presenter who had pulled out of the deal at the last moment, the jingles and pre-launch publicity could not go to waste continuing under the name "Tommy Vance", "The station asked if I would take the name as they had already made the jingles for him. I said, for that kind of money you can call me what you like, mate."

KHJ was one of the most successful and influential Top 40 stations of the era and California in 1965 was a great place to be. However, America was then involved in a war in Vietnam and when Tommy got his draft papers for the US Army, he decided it was time to head back to the UK.[5]

Vance returned to the UK in 1965 just before Christmas with British musician Ian Whitcomb who lent him the fare. Tommy knocked on the door of Caroline House in London, no programme controller was going to pass up on the opportunity to employ a KHJ boss jock and Caroline's Bill Hearne was no exception. He was hired by Radio Caroline South, where his colleagues included Johnnie Walker, Dave Lee Travis, Tony Blackburn and Emperor Rosko. On 3 January 1966 Vance presented his first show on Caroline South, his slogan was "TV on radio" and used Jack Costanzo's version of the "Naked City Theme" as his signature tune.

In 1966, Vance released a handful of singles, "You Must Be the One" a covers of Herman's Hermits', 'Silhouettes' and a cover of The Rolling Stones, "Off the Hook". Vance’s Wife was not best pleased with the idea that her husband was going to be on a ship two weeks out of three and it would mean she would be living in an unfamiliar city on her own, So Vance left Radio Caroline after a few months and moved to Radio Luxembourg. The marriage did not last so when Radio Caroline's Ronan O'Rahilly suggested Tommy should return to the ship there was nothing to stop him, and he rejoined in December 1966.

During the summer of 1967 it became apparent that the government was going to legislate against the offshore stations. Tommy heard a rumour that Philip Birch, boss of Wonderful Radio London, was negotiating to move his station to France and he wanted to be a part of it. In July 1967 he transferred to Radio London. Unfortunately Big L failed to find a base on the continent. Rather than break the new law, it chose to close down on 14 August so Tommy's stay with the station was brief.[6]

After the pirates were closed down in 1967, the BBC's new station, BBC Radio 1, adopted much of their musical philosophy and took on many of their personnel including Caroline colleagues Tony Blackburn and Johnnie Walker, and Radio London's John Peel. Vance co-hosted the "progressive" show Top Gear with John Peel.

When the programme was given to Peel to present solo, Vance moved to the BBC World Service in the late 1960s, launching "Pop Club", a hugely popular radio programme on the BBC World Service. Tommy Vance dubbed "TV on the radio", hosted the show throughout its duration. Each installment of the programme started with a song from Cliff Richard, who was the nominal president of the club. Listeners to the BBC World Service from all over the world would apply to become members of Pop Cub receiving a membership card, special badges and gifts. Every week Tommy Vance would read listeners' letters and played requests with one being chosen as the "letter of the week".

Frustrated with his lack of progress, however, Vance joined Radio Monte Carlo International with Dave Cash and Kenny Everett. In October 1973 all three would join the new London-based Capital Radio, Britain's first legal commercial pop station, initially co-presenting the morning show with Joan Shenton and then playing reggae and soul music on a weekend show. [7]

In 1975 Vance made a film appearance as disc jockey, Ricky Storm, in Richard Loncraine's Slade in Flame, a vehicle for the group Slade.[8] By 1976, Vance was also on the Portsmouth ILR station Radio Victory.

Vance hosted Capital's first reggae show and, at a time when punk was being shunned by the press, he carried out the first in-depth interview with Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols in 1977, in which Rotten talked at length about his love of reggae music, at a time when the group were given very little media exposure elsewhere.[9]

Vance returned to Radio 1 in November 1978 to begin a 15-year stint hosting the show for which he is best remembered — the Friday Rock Show. He was to become associated with heavy metal and rock music; his deep, resonant, booming voice and catch-phrase 'classic cuts' have been much imitated. The first record which he played on the show, and with which he finished on his final programme in 1993, was 'Rock 'n' Roll Damnation' by AC/DC. A 1983 edition was the first radio programme to use only compact discs. His signature music was "Take It Off the Top" by Dixie Dreggs and then he would say in his gravelly voice, "Hi, this is TV on the radio and welcome to the programme that we call the Friday Rock Show." [9]

Vance had a two-year stint (10 January 1982 to 1 January 1984) hosting the Sunday-afternoon Top 40, where he showed knowledge of and enthusiasm for a wide range of music and displayed a similar keenness when he hosted Top of the Pops around the same time. He also deputised on the Top 40 for Richard Skinner (in 1984 and 1985), Bruno Brookes (in 1987) and Mark Goodier (in 1991 and 1992).

Vance was a daily presenter on BFBS from 1976 to 1987 and so he also became known in Germany, where BFBS was popular among a civilian audience despite being aimed officially at British military personnel. He also presented a weekly chart show for BFBS as well as other programmes such as Soul Bowl. As well as presenting the best-selling singles chart of 1982 and 1983, he also presented the equivalent show in 1991 despite not presenting the weekly chart at the time.

From 1984 to 1985, Vance hosted a Thursday night AOR programme on Radio 1, "Into the Music." This was in place for about a year before being taken off in favour of Andy Kershaw. At a similar time, the "Friday Rock Show" gained an extra hour on MW only, during which the rock charts were played.

When the BBC's new radio station for London, Greater London Radio (GLR), was launched in 1988, Vance presented the drivetime show, mixing album-oriented rock and current affairs dubbed "rock and rolling news". He also became the continuity announcer for BBC2 in the early 1970s as well as Sky One in the late 1980s and interviewed for the BBC World Service. Vance was a frequent choice as master of ceremonies at award shows, concerts and festivals; such as Monsters of Rock at Donington Park.[10] Vance departed Radio 1 in March 1993, however, he continued to host Rock Salad for BBC World Service for many years.

Tommy was a key player in the launch of Virgin Radio in March 1993, presenting the Drivetime show, a move he later regretted as the station dropped its adventurous format in favour of an ad-driven playlist.

Vance co-founded the internet radio station Rock Radio Network with his former Radio 1 producer Tony Wilson, music promoter Andy King and journalist Malcolm Dome in 1997, rebranding as TotalRock in 2000.

Vance developed business interests with the Silk Sound studios in Soho, later joined by The Bridge. He revived the Friday Rock Show for the digital channel VH1 which ran for some years until 2002. He featured twice in the Channel 4 comedy series, The 11 O'Clock Show, the spot was called Tommy Vance's News Slam in which he took a minute to read out news headlines. He was presenter and voiceover for the Channel 5 series Dumber and Dumber and had a much quoted appearance on Brass Eye. [11]

Perhaps his most memorable TV appearance came in 2004 when he walked out of ITV's Hell's Kitchen. He decided to leave the show after escaping a scalding from boiling fat and foulmouthed abuse from the celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsey. Vance's agent stated that he felt the environment was "dangerous" and that he was a risk to himself and the other contestants due to his age.[12]

When Vance moved to Spain, it was with the intention of a gentle semi-retirement. It was not long before he was back on the air playing music for the tourists and ex-pats on the Costa del Sol's Spectrum FM. Vance came back to Britain and threw himself into work again, doing commercials, appearing on television and returning to Virgin to present a weekly show on their DAB and internet offshoot, Virgin Classic Rock.