![]() Vance's wife was not pleased with the idea that her husband was going to be with Caroline South, on a ship two weeks out of three, where she would be living in an unfamiliar city on her own. ![]() ![]() Vance released a handful of singles "You Must Be the One", A-covers of Herman's Hermits', 'Silhouettes' and a cover of The Rolling Stones, "Off the Hook". ![]() On 3 January 1966, Vance presented his first show on Caroline South his slogan was "TV on radio" and used Jack Costanzo's version of the "Naked City Theme" as his signature tune. Bill Hearne hired Vance for Radio Caroline South, where his colleagues included Johnnie Walker, Dave Lee Travis, Tony Blackburn and Emperor Rosko. Vance returned to the UK in 1965 just before Christmas with British musician Ian Whitcomb who lent him the fare. For the next several months Vance filed occasional phone-in reports for KHJ covering the British music scene. However, America was then involved in a war in Vietnam and when Tommy got his draft papers for the US Army, he decided it was time to head back to the UK. KHJ was one of the most successful and influential Top 40 stations of the era and California in 1965 was a great place to be. He got into a pay dispute with KOL and quit and went on to voice his displeasure on rival KJR where he co-hosted for a few days with KJR's prime time jock Pat O'Day.įrom there Vance moved to Los Angeles where he was offered a show by programming consultant Bill Drake on KHJ radio (aka Boss Radio), holding the evening 9-midnight airshift at KHJ for a few months in late 1965. I said, for that kind of money you can call me what you like, mate". The programme had originally been intended for another presenter who had pulled out of the deal at the last moment, the jingles and pre-launch publicity could not go to waste continuing under the name "Tommy Vance", "The station asked if I would take the name as they had already made the jingles for him. Moving to Vancouver in pursuit of his first wife, Fern, in 1964, he joined KOL Seattle as its prime drive-time jock. He joined the Ulster Bridge Repertory Company, run by the actor James Ellis, as a stage manager. Unable to find an opening in British radio he enrolled at a Northern Irish college, becoming a part-time actor/stage hand. When Vance returned to the UK, he worked as a mechanic for a jukebox company so that he could hear music for free. He had been brought up on the British broadcasting of the 1950s and, like a number of his contemporaries, fell in love with the brash sound of American commercial radio. It was while docked in New York, listening to US radio, that Vance first toyed with becoming a disc jockey. He joined the merchant navy in 1956, aged 16, as a cabin boy. Early life īorn Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, on 11 July 1940, his grandmother owned a travelling repertory company, his father was an electronics engineer, and his mother a former singer and dancer.Įxpelled from school at 15 for truancy, Vance got his first job as trainee manager at the Hyde Park Hotel, London. His voice was heard by millions around the world announcing the Wembley Stadium acts at Live Aid in 1985. He used a personal tag-line of "TV on the radio". The Friday Rock Show that he hosted gave new bands airtime for their music and fans an opportunity to hear it. Vance was one of the first radio hosts in the United Kingdom to broadcast hard rock and heavy metal in the early 1980s, providing the only national radio forum for both bands and fans. He was an important factor in the rise of the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM), along with London-based disc jockey Neal Kay, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston (11 July 1940 – 6 March 2005), known professionally as Tommy Vance, was an English radio broadcaster. Top of the Pops, Dumber and Dumber, The 11 O'Clock Show, The Nightfly and The Friday Rock Show (VH1)
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