Alan Black

Alan Black (15 January 1943 – 5 March 2007) was known as one of the presenters of BBC's Sounds of the Seventies.
He worked in various commercial art studios and became interested in the offshore radio stations: so he joined the new Scottish pirate station Radio Scotland, in time for its launch at Hogmanay 1965. After having worked as a disc jockey for a series of commercial radio stations in the mid-1960's, he joined the BBC in July 1968. 
== Links to Peel ==
Alan Black was not just a DJ but also a cartoonist and commercial artist, and in 1968 was one of the team who worked on the cartoon film based on the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine". But between 1970 and 1975, Black was best known as one of the regular presenters of the Sounds Of The Seventies shows. The late-night shows were presented by a variety of D.J.'s, including David Symonds, Bob Harris, Mike Harding (the sound engineer and rock enthusiast, not the folk singer of the same name who became presenter of Folk on 2), Stuart Henry, Pete Drummond, Annie Nightingale (then known as Anne), John Peel himself - and even actor Vincent Price in 1973. Among other shows, Black presented the SOTS record review, What's New, together with Anne Nightingale. 
Alan Black also sat in on Peel's Top Gear show whilst JP was away in Kenya and Tanzania in 1973, and hosted some In Concert shows, In an obituary in the Independent newspaper, published in 2007, producer Jeff Griffin was quoted as saying that the original idea for the In Concert series came from Alan Black, inspired by hearing a programme on French radio with bands playing live. Black hosted the pilot programme, featuring Led Zeppelin and Liverpool Scene, but was replaced by Peel as the series's main presenter. He continued to broadcast on Radio One but, like all the other SOTS DJs apart from Peel, he lost his slot in 1975 when cutbacks at the BBC forced the station to end its late-night programming. After that, Alan Black did more presenting for Radio One and worked for a time for Polydor Records, but eventually left the music industry.
== See Also ==
* Sounds
== External Links ==
* Wikipedia
* Discogs
* Deejay
* Alan Black; DJ & animator - Independent obituary 
Category:People