- Robbie Vincent
Robbie Vincent is an English radio broadcaster and
DJ whose catch phrase for many years was "If it moves, Funk it"He started life as a
journalist although Robbie Vincent's broadcasting career began as one of the pioneers onBBC Radio London in early1974 during the miners' strike andThree-day week hosting a new style of phone-in show calledLate Night London playing "devils advocate" with the telephone callers. People would call in to the station with their problems or comments. The programme was broadcast late in the evening in the London area and was probably one of the first radio 'phone-ins' in the UK.Later hosting a
BBC Radio London soul show on Saturday lunchtimes playing artistes such asEvelyn 'Champagne' King &Crown Heights Affair . Robbie would invite guest DJs, such asChris Hill , Tom Holland, Froggy,Sean French etc. to play their favourite three records that came in 'hot off the press' that week. The shows were considered essential listening to the Capital's soul music fans. He would also be a DJ at the infamous 'Caister Soul Weekender' events (the first event was called '1st National Soul Weekender' in April 1979) in the late 1970s/early 80s with the original DJ line up alongsideChris Hill , Greg Edwards (presenter of Soul Spectrum on Saturday afternoons on London'sCapital Radio ), Chris Brown, Jeff Young, Tom Holland and Froggy. He also presented a 'soul and disco' show onBBC Radio 1 briefly in 1977 between 5.30 and 6.30 pm on Saturday evenings.In the early 80s, he was credited with launching the career of US jazz funk combo, Maze with
Frankie Beverly , in the UK, and was one of the few radio presenters in the UK to have interviewedMarvin Gaye .BBC Radio 1 Soul show
Robbie moved to
BBC Radio 1 in 1983 to present the very popular Sunday evening 'Soul shows' between 9 and 11 pm which were also carried on FM as well as the 275/285 metres medium wave transmitters. He presented these until 1989, playingJazz-Funk with artistes likeRick James ,The Fatback Band ,Brass Construction ,Funkadelic ,The Crusaders ,Ronnie Laws andEddie Henderson (musician) . He would often present the shows with a romantic slant using phrases towards records such as 'this one has a government meltability warning' and 'open the fridge door and make sure it's packed with ice' with additional jingles such as 'jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz' (recorded byAdrian Edmondson ), 'make it saxy' or 'Robbie Vincent play that jazz!!' and 'Hear the Robbie Vincent Show, that's where the Soul sounds best!'.Television work
During the 1980's Robbie Vincent was also seen on British TV screens when he co-hosted BBC TV's 'Hospital Watch' and 'Go for It'.
London Broadcasting (LBC) and Kiss FM
In 1989 he moved to work for
LBC (London Broadcasting) radio. His night-time phone-in show was one of the highest rated programmes on the station. In 1995 Robbie Vincent was voted Independent radio personality of the year at the annualVariety Club awards.After a spell at
Kiss FM , from Feb 1998 he hosted the breakfast show on London'sJazz FM although leftJazz FM when the management changed at the end of 2002.Recent activities
Vincent spent most of 2003 travelling and during late December and early January 2004 presented five daytime shows on 94.9
BBC Radio London . Also broadcasting on this station were formerBBC Radio 1 presentersRanking Miss P andDanny Baker .In 2006 he has occasionally been a guest presenter on Tony Monson's 10am to 1pm weekday show on Solar Radio [ [http://www.solarradio.com/ Solar Radio ] ] in the UK. He has carried out joint presentations of the show on several occasions where he brought in all the music.
More recently he can be seen and heard at London's Clapham Grand soul nightclub. He DJ's there along with other top names such as
Chris Hill and DJ Froggy.Vincent will return to the airwaves on October 12 presenting a three hour show on Sundays for the relaunched Jazz FM service. [cite web|url=http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/News.html|title=Robbie Vincent is back on the airwaves!|accessdate=2008-09-07|publisher=Soulwalking]
ources
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/11_november/28/robbie_vincent.shtml Robbie Vincent returns to BBC London 94.9FM] November 2003
* [http://www.radiorewind.co.uk/robbie_vincent_page.htm Robbie Vincent] biography from Radio RewindReferences
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