An audience with Andy Kershaw

Andy Kershaw has led an extraordinary life, in fact his CV reads as if it were a Hollywood film script. It all started when he ran out of his A Level exam halfway through to go to see a Bob Dylan concert. He still managed to get a Grade A, in half the allotted exam time.

Since then his employment history has just got bigger and bigger. By the age of twenty at Leeds Uni he was promoting major rock concerts, booking the likes of Ian Dury, Dire Straits, the Clash, Elvis Costello and Iggy Pop.  He “fell” into a broadcasting career, becoming a BBC Radio 1 DJ for fifteen years and is the only broadcaster, to, at the same time have had a programme transmitted simultaneously on BBC Radio 4. As a foreign correspondent for the BBC he’s reported on three civil wars and one volcanic eruption. He has made four visits to North Korea, the world’s most secretive country and was an eyewitness to the heinous Rwandan genocide. During his lifetime he’s visited 97 of the world’s 194 countries!

And whilst he’s built up this remarkable CV his record collection has also got bigger and bigger – his LP and CD collection now weighs in at an impressive seven tons. In fact his love of music has been the soundtrack to his varied life and also led to other ‘bits’ of work. There’s the time he was Billy Bragg’s driver, roadie and tour manager. He presented BBC2 rock music programme, Whistle Test and was the first to secure a British television interview with Bob Dylan – by giving Bob a jar of jam. Through his love of Motorhead, he once went on a blind date with a then unknown Courtney Love. And… he actually has been immortalised in a Hollywood Film Script, Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity!

You can catch him for a very interesting audio-visual evening on Sunday 18 September at Buxton’s Pavilion Arts Centre, 7.30pm. Tickets are priced at £17.50.