Thomas James Dalglish Ravenscroft (born 6 February 1980) is a British
radio presenter
A radio personality (American English) or radio presenter (British English) is a person who has an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality who hosts a radio show is also known as a radio host, and in India and Pakistan as a ra ...
and
disc jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile ...
. He currently hosts a
BBC Radio 6 Music
BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available onl ...
show featuring new and unsigned music. He is the son of DJ
John Peel.
Career
Working initially in TV as a production assistant, Ravenscroft also developed as a journalist researching new music.
Following the death of his father,
John Peel, in 2004, Ravenscroft was involved as researcher with the
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
television documentary ''
John Peel's Record Box
''John Peel's Record Box'' is a documentary film made by Elaine Shepherd, released on 14 November 2005 on Channel 4. It was nominated for Primetime Emmy Award.
__TOC__
Contents
The box contains a small private collection of the British radio ...
'' and, with his mother Sheila and other members of the family, in the completion of his father's autobiography ''Margrave of the Marshes'', unfinished at his death.
In November 2005, to coincide with John Peel's posthumous induction into the
UK Music Hall of Fame
The UK Music Hall of Fame was an awards ceremony to honour musicians, of any nationality, for their lifetime contributions to music in the United Kingdom. The hall of fame started in 2004 with the induction of five founder members and five mor ...
, Ravenscroft organised the production and release of a tribute single to him, a cover version of one of Peel's favourite songs,
Buzzcocks's ''
Ever Fallen in Love''. Alongside the song's original vocalist,
Pete Shelley
Pete Shelley (born Peter Campbell McNeish; 17 April 1955 – 6 December 2018) was an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. He formed early punk band Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto in 1976, and became the lead singer and guitarist in 1977 wh ...
, the record featured an eclectic line-up of musicians
hand-picked by Ravenscroft, all of whom his father had played prior to their success and in some cases for the first time on radio.
This line-up included
Robert Plant of
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...
,
Roger Daltrey
Roger Harry Daltrey (born 1 March 1944) is an English singer, musician and actor. He is a co-founder and the lead singer of the rock band The Who.
Daltrey's hit songs with The Who include " My Generation", " Pinball Wizard", " Won't Get Fooled ...
of
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
,
David Gilmour of
Pink Floyd,
Peter Hook from
New Order,
Andy Gill
Andrew James Dalrymple Gill (1 January 1956 – 1 February 2020) was a British musician and record producer. He was the lead guitarist for the rock band Gang of Four, which he co-founded in 1976. Gill was known for his angular, jagged style of g ...
of
Gang of Four,
Elton John and
Jeff Beck alongside newer artists including
The Futureheads
The Futureheads are an English post-punk band from Sunderland, formed in 2000. The band consists of Ross Millard (vocals and guitar), David "Jaff" Craig (vocals and bass guitar) and brothers Barry Hyde (vocals and guitar) and Dave Hyde (drums ...
, the
Soledad Brothers
The Soledad Brothers were three inmates charged with the murder of a prison guard, John Vincent Mills, at California's Soledad Prison on January 16, 1970. George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette were alleged to have murdered Mills in ...
,
El Presidente and
The Datsuns
The Datsuns are a hard rock band from Cambridge, New Zealand, formed in 1998. Founding mainstays are Rudolf "Dolf" de Borst on vocals and bass guitar, and Christian Livingstone and Phil Somervell, both on guitar. They have released seven album ...
.
Peel had once described the majority of music radio output in Britain as "predictable porridge", and from 2005 Ravenscroft was involved with his brother William in developing a service for unsigned acts. By 2007 it had become a web portal, ''Unpredictable Porridge'' (now defunct but partially archived), whose partnership arrangement with
Universal Music
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...
allowed new acts to submit their material online directly to
A&R managers at the record label.
In August 2006, Channel 4 signed Ravenscroft to present a weekly show, ''SlashMusic'', on its short-lived digital station
4Radio. The show, interacting with a website hosting music uploaded by unsigned bands, involved Ravenscroft in research but, as media consultant Paul Robinson noted in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', the show's scripted format stilted his developing presentation style ensuring that "he delivers his lines at breakneck speed, obviously reading, which rather loses the sense of personal recommendation and intimacy". Ravenscroft also presented the ''New Music Download'' podcast for the station's website.
After the closure of 4Radio in 2007, Ravenscroft was commissioned by Five Culture, a partnership of
Channel Five and
Arts Council England, to narrate four episodes in Channel 5's ''My Music'' strand devoted to folk musicians
Seth Lakeman
Seth,; el, Σήθ ''Sḗth''; ; "placed", "appointed") in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mandaeism, and Sethianism, was the third son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, their only other child mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible. Ac ...
,
Kate Rusby
Kate Anna Rusby (born 4 December 1973) is an English folk singer-songwriter from Penistone, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Sometimes called the "Barnsley Nightingale", she has headlined various British folk festivals, and is one of the be ...
,
Eliza Carthy
Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE (born 23 August 1975) is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson.
Life and ca ...
and
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded ...
.
In June 2010, having previously appeared as a fill-in presenter for absent hosts including
Tom Robinson
Thomas Giles Robinson (born 1 June 1950) is a British singer, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson ...
, Ravenscroft took over the Friday night slot on
BBC Radio 6 Music
BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available onl ...
vacated
by musician
Bruce Dickinson. Paul Rodgers, then 6 Music's editor at the BBC, greeted Ravenscroft's appointment, describing him as "a great young broadcaster with all the knowledge, passion and articulacy that you might expect from someone of his lineage".
Ravenscroft joined the station during a threat of closure, but an audience surge, alongside a campaign website hosted by the
British Phonographic Industry
British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is the British recorded music industry's Trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards, National Album Day, is home to the Mercury Prize, and co-owns the Official Charts Company with ...
, ultimately secured its survival. Since 2014 Ravenscroft has also hosted a weekly midnight slot as part of the nightly ''6 Music Recommends'' show, which features new music edited by several of the station's DJs.
In 2011, Ravenscroft introduced the inaugural "John Peel Lecture" given by
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s.
Townsh ...
. He also became presenter for Channel 4's ''Abbey Road Debuts'' series featuring hotly tipped new acts performing at the fabled London studios.
In September 2013, Ravenscroft curated a week-long series of new music events, ''In the Court of Tom Ravenscroft'', at the MAC centre in Belfast. In October 2017, Ravenscroft DJ'd alongside
Underworld's Rick Smith at a preshow event for an Underworld concert in the Passage of the
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Personal life
Ravenscroft is the son of
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
disc jockey John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, better known as
John Peel, and his wife Sheila Gilhooly.
He is married to Australian fashion designer Louise Markey and they have two children.
References
External links
Ravenscroft's New Music blog at The New Statesman''Tom Ravenscroft''(BBC Radio 6 Music)
Global Soundtracks- Download previous shows and track listings (updated until 2010)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravenscroft, Tom
British radio DJs
1980 births
Living people
BBC Radio 6 Music presenters
Place of birth missing (living people)