Gary Davies landed himself a career-defining job at BBC Radio 1 completely by chance.
The broadcasting legend – who worked on the station for over a decade, during which time he frequently fronted ‘Top of the Pops’ – began his career DJing in Manchester’s Placemate 7 club, before landing a job at Piccadilly Radio in 1979.
He stayed there for two years before joining Radio 1 – an opportunity he was offered after a chance meeting with the owner of the shop that supplied the DJs with their white satin jackets.
“I went into this shop in Altrincham, where on the back wall they had pictures of the Radio 1 DJs. I thought it was really cool and I said to the girl that worked there, ‘Why have you got these pictures on the wall?’ She said, ‘Well, the guy who owns the shop, John, makes the jackets for all the DJs’,” he tells RETROPOP’s March 2023 issue.
His first suggestion was that they got some made for the DJs at Piccadilly Radio – and when he met the proprietor, he had an even better idea. “He said to me, ‘I know everybody at Radio 1, so if you ever want a tape sending in just give it to me and I’ll happily take it for you.’
“So it was right place, right time – I sent him a tape and they offered me the Saturday night 10-12 pm slot on a three month contract. That was all. But it was my dream and I thought, ‘I’ll do it for three months and hope that it works out’. Three months ended up being 11 years, so it was alright…”
He stayed with the station through 1993 and made a surprise return to the BBC, this time on Radio 2, after more than two decades in 2017 and is not taking his ‘Sounds of the 80s’ show on the road with a tour across the UK.
“It has been my dream since taking over the show four years ago to take the show live,” beams the presenter. “I’d been doing the show for about two weeks and Radio 2 did a weekend in Ibiza; we did the show live at the Hard Rock Hotel and it was just brilliant. Ever since then, I’ve been desperate to take the show live around the UK.”
Celebrating the best the decade has to offer, the immersive show will feature Gary, together with his producer Johnny Kalifornia, and some specially curated Mastermixes – one on eighties icons, the other eighties classic movies – with the ‘Sounds of the 80s’ dancers on hand to recreate classic scenes from films and videos, all within a uniquely designed stage.
On the enduring appeal of the decade’s music, he adds: “You’ve never had such a breadth of music in one decade. And most of them are brilliant songs. Clearly the music is standing the test of time to the extent that whole new generations of kids are loving eighties music; there are a lot of young people that listen to ‘Sounds of the 80s’ because shows like ‘Stranger Things’ are playing eighties music as well. It’s just an incredible decade.”
The ‘Sounds of the 80s’ live tour launches March 10 at Birmingham Symphony Hall. For tickets visit soundsofthe80slive.co.uk.
Read the full interview in the March 2023 edition of RETROPOP, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store, use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist, or get Digital Copies delivered direct to your devices.
