My life feels complete now. A significant part of my day is spent listening to the radio and it always has been, except for the annoying 39 years when I was in full-time work. I started with Radio 1, worked my way briefly through commercial radio (Radio West, when Johnnie Walker was on), Radios 2 and Five Live and latterly BBC 6 Music. I love BBC 6 Music because, in old age, I found myself yearning to hear more and more new music, as well as still enjoying the old music of my childhood right through to adulthood. This morning, the circle seemed to square itself.
The death of David Sanborn was a sad moment for many of us. One of great saxophonists of all time, it would be easier to compile a list of who he hasn’t played with rather than those he has. 6 Music is very good at remembering the recently departed and so it came to pass that yesterday breakfast DJ Lauren Laverne asked listeners to choose some of the songs Sanborn had played on for a special tribute. I messaged in to say I’d like to hear Time Out Of Mind by Steely Dan from their epic Gaucho album and to my amazement, Lauren, as I like to call her, read it out as a possible, giving me a namecheck in the process. The tribute went out this morning, just after 9.00 am and mine was one of two songs played, together with two name checks, no less, along with Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side, another Sanborn masterclass. I was driving through Downend at the time, excitedly punching the air.
Lauren played a series of saxophone-related tracks, in addition to the Sanborn ones, including Nightboat to Cairo by Madness, Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty and Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen. (If Lauren’s producer had thought about it, they could have played Tenth Avenue Freeze Out from the Born To Run album because Sanborn actually played on it. Oh to be an anorak.) It was all rather lovely, not least because these great oldies, which you would doubtless find on the majority of commercial oldies stations, which is most of them, were mixed up with music by Kamasi Washington, Steve Lacy, Ezra Collective, Fontaines DC and beabadoobee. I know I was still reeling after being namechecked by Lauren, my old age crush, but this was a morning close to perfection when it came to music and I paid a small part in making it so.
There is nothing like BBC 6 Music on the British airways and certainly not on the stations owned by the commercial behemoths Bauer and Global. Their stations are, understandably, tightly run for commercial reasons, giving listeners exactly what they want. A look at the recent songs played by one of the big commercial rock stations, Absolute Radio, shows that: Coldplay, Green Day, Snow Patrol, the Lemonheads (Mrs Robinson, obviously) and the Foo Fighters proves it. And that is perfectly fine. Not everyone wants to listen to the new singles by Arooj Aftab, St Vincent and Jordan Rakei, but I do!
The reason BBC 6 Music exists is because it is funded by the TV licence fee. The station can take a chance on new artists and play records you would never hear anywhere else. Indeed, from your point of you they may well play songs you would never want to hear! For the music industry, it is vital.
There are around 2.6 million of us who listen regularly to 6 Music, the biggest digital only station in the country. I can honestly say that it has changed my music life, introduced me to artists and genres I would never otherwise have heard and subsequently it has cost me a fortune. Put simply, 6 Music has made my life better and I now listen to a broader range of music than I ever have.
Having said all that, the first request I ever get played on 6 Music is a track from an album, Gaucho, that came out in 1980, an unbelievable 44 years ago. The old and the new, eh? It’s coming up to 50 years since I first saw Steely Dan at the Bristol Hippodrome and they remain my favourite band of all time. Maybe one day they will be replaced at the top of the hill. From my point of view, the only way to do that is to listen to 6 Music. And now that Lauren Laverne is all but my best friend, who knows where that might end?
