Gary Davies (born in
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2007, the population of the city was estimated to be 458,100...
on 13 December 1957) was the UK's most popular
disc jockeyA disc jockey is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, dis
k referred to phonograph records, while dis
c referred to the Compact Disc, and has become the more common spelling...
of the 1980s.
Early career
After working in marketing for a mail order company and managing a Manchester disco, Davies began his broadcasting career at Manchester's Piccadilly Radio in 1979 before joining
BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the BBC which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock or interviews. It is aimed...
in 1982 to present a Saturday late night show. Within weeks he was on the roster to present
Top Of The PopsTop of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. It was traditionally shown every Thursday evening on BBC1, before being moved to Fridays in 1996, and then moved to Sundays on BBC...
on BBC television alongside his Radio 1 colleagues. He initially spoke with strong hints of a Mancunian accent, but by the mid-1980s he had adopted an exaggerated
mid-Atlantic twangFor the region within the United States, see: Mid-Atlantic States. For the English language as it is spoken in the Mid-Atlantic States, see New York dialect, New Jersey English, Philadelphia accent, and Baltimorese....
, which would become the object of much parody by the early 1990s (ironically his lunchtime slot would eventually be taken by the unashamedly Mancunian-sounding
Mark RadcliffeMark Radcliffe is an English broadcaster who has worked in various roles for the BBC since the 1980s and remains one of Britain's most recognised DJs...
and
Marc 'Lard' RileyMarc Riley is a British musician, alternative rock critic and radio DJ on BBC 6 Music. Formerly a member of The Fall, he had his own record label, In-Tape, and also worked as a record plugger. Marc has worked in radio since about 1990 and for 14 years of that he worked with Mark Radcliffe on BBC...
, in an era when northern English voices had become dominant at Radio 1 and mid-Atlantic accents had largely come to be seen as very outmoded).
The Bit in the Middle
In 1984 Davies was given the slot for which he became one of radio's biggest stars when he took over the Radio 1 lunchtime show. He called it
The Bit In The Middle and it consisted of humorous features, such as
The Day-To-Day Challenge, in which the same person would go on air each weekday to answer quiz questions and try to upgrade their prize, and
Willy On The Plonker, which involved a crazed
pianoThe piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
-playing of a well-known hit for listeners to identify.
The show was hugely important in the 1980s as, before the new
UK Top 40The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record industry. The full chart contains the top 200 singles based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 of this list...
was announced on Sundays (its day of compilation), it was always Davies who got the job of revealing the week's chart movements on a Tuesday afternoon.
There was a
marketabilityMarketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities are informed or persuaded that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others....
about Davies as he was arguably alone in being regarded by female listeners as a heart-throb. Though the station was young and trendy and a big favourite with pop-loving kids, the male DJs generally did not come into the "hunk" category and therefore Davies was projected as the eligible
bachelorA bachelor is a man above the age of majority who has never been married , the terms origin in this sense dates from 1385, Middle English....
of the station, complete with catchphrase "Young, Free and Single" and saucy
jingleA jingle is a memorable slogan, set to an engaging melody, mainly broadcast on radio and sometimes on television commercials.- History :The jingle had no definitive debut: its infiltration of the radio was more of an evolutionary process than a sudden innovation...
s which went "Wooh! Gary Davies".
Davies became popular on the Radio 1 roadshows throughout the 1980s but his own show rarely changed until it was rebranded in 1991 as
Let's Do Lunch, with new features, including
Spin & Win (a variation on
Willy On The Plonker, with a cryptic clue replacing the frenetic piano work) and the
Classic Track, which was the one time of the week Radio 1 played a piece of classical music. Previous feature
The Sloppy Bit (a dedication followed by love song) was unchanged but renamed
Lots Of Love.
With updated predictive technology allowing the chart rundown to be moved forward to Sundays from 4 October 1987 onwards, Davies did countdowns of the American chart and the UK album chart instead — curiously the US chart he featured was not the official Billboard one, but an airplay-only chart compiled by Radio and Records magazine, allegedly introduced to suit the tastes of US radio stations who did not want to play rap singles, which at the time were selling very well but receiving little
mainstreamMainstream is, generally, the common current of thought of the majority. However in the reality, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct. It is a term most often applied in the arts...
airplay, in their chart countdowns.
Weekends
In 1992, Davies quit the lunchtime show and moved to weekend breakfast, keeping a selection of the features. He also started a Sunday late night "no frills" slot, with the music taking over, and this was regarded as easily his best radio work. The
Lots of Love feature moved to this show, with dedications being read out over the music to
Dances With WolvesDances with Wolves is a 1990 epic film based on the book of the same name which tells the story of a Civil War-era United States Army lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post...
.
Leaving Radio 1
In 1993, with a new regime at Radio 1 wishing to squeeze out the older presenters representing a past era, Davies was sacked. His last record was
Layla by
Derek and the DominoesEric Patrick Clapton, CBE is an English blues-rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer. Clapton has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Yardbirds, of Cream, and as a solo performer, being the only person ever to be inducted three times...
— which had also been his first record on the station eleven years earlier. The next show on Sunday mornings was by then presented by
Danny BakerDanny Baker is an English comedy writer, journalist, radio DJ and screenwriter. Since the late 1970s, he has worked for a wide range of publications and broadcasters including NME, LWT, the BBC, and Talk Radio...
, who began his show by saying sarcastically that if you wanted to hear
Layla over and over again you could always listen to Virgin.
The last two years of Davies' Radio 1 career allowed him the opportunity to display his love of music; higher-profile shows often negated the need for DJs to be heard caring for the songs they were playing, concentrating instead on the personality side of the programming. Davies got his opportunity to display his musical knowledge - he was, for example, the first DJ to play
RadioheadRadiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their first single, "Creep", in 1992...
on Radio 1, when a copy of their
Drill EPDrill was the first commercial release of English alternative rock group Radiohead, still known then as "On A Friday". The EP was released on 5 May 1992, debuting on the UK charts at number 101.-Background and recording:...
was sent to him.
Virgin Radio
In January 1994, Davies moved to
Virgin RadioAbsolute Radio is one of the UK's three Independent National Radio stations. The station rebranded to its current name at 7.45am on 29 September 2008.The station is based in London and plays popular rock music...
, presenting their Sunday morning
Classic Tracks slot from 10am-2pm. The show later went out from 9am-1pm & he remained there until early 1995.
After a brief sabbatical, Davies then rejoined
Virgin RadioAbsolute Radio is one of the UK's three Independent National Radio stations. The station rebranded to its current name at 7.45am on 29 September 2008.The station is based in London and plays popular rock music...
in November 1995, taking over a Sunday late night show from 10pm-2am. This gave him the chance to revive his Sunday night format. Davies then went on to present the Weekday late night slot in January 1999, where he remained until December 2000.
Recent work
He was most recently heard on the
Real RadioReal Radio is a brand of independent local radio stations in the United Kingdom owned by GMG Radio. The brand was developed by John Myers in 2000. Myers was also responsible for the similar early format of the Century FM radio stations, which were rebranded as Real Radio in March 2009...
and the
Century RadioCentury Radio, also marketed as Century 100 and later Century FM, was an early short-lived national commercial radio station in Ireland .-Transmission:...
network, presenting a CD chart show every Sunday originally from 1-4pm but from 2006 the show went out from 4:00pm-7:00pm. However, this finished in mid-2008.
Very recently he has become the manager of Alex Roots, the pop singer of 2009.
Jingles
The
"Ooh Gary Davies on your radio" jingle, was by the 1980s band
Kane GangKane Gang were a blue-eyed soul trio from North East England that had a few UK hits and one U.S. hit in the 1980s. Named after the movie, Citizen Kane, the trio recorded for the indie record label, Kitchenware, that was also home to Prefab Sprout....
, and was developed into the
Byker GroveByker Grove is a British television series which first aired between 1989 and 2006 and was created by Adele Rose. The show was broadcast at 5.10pm after Newsround on CBBC on BBC One.- Creation :...
theme tuneTheme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...
for
BBC TelevisionBBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which began in 1932. The British Broadcasting Corporation has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927.-History of BBC Television:...
.