Spencer Leigh (radio presenter)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spencer Leigh | |
|---|---|
 Headshot of Spencer Leigh | |
| Born | 1 February 1945 Waterloo, Lancashire, England |
| Occupations | Radio presenter, author, obituarist |
| Years active | 1972–present |
| Spouse | Anne Leigh |
| Website | Spencerleigh.co.uk |
(Thomas) Spencer Leigh (born 1 February 1945)[1][2] is a BBC Radio presenter and author, with particular expertise in the development of pop and rock music and culture in Britain.
Leigh was born in Waterloo, Merseyside.[3] He attended Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby.[4] He qualified as an actuary, and worked for Royal Insurance.[5] He became Royal Life's chief underwriter.[6]
Broadcaster
Leigh started broadcasting on BBC Radio Merseyside in the early 1970s. In 1975 he did public interviews with Allan Williams, one being in front of Southport Arts Centre.[7]
Leigh wrote that Mike Hart was his preferred performer on the Liverpool poetry circuit.[8] In July 1972 he took part in a poetry event at Freshfield, with the poets Harold and Sylvia Hikins, and the folk duo Rusty of Allen Mayes and Declan McManus.[9] His first radio series, No Holds Bard, of that year, was based around the Mersey poets.[10]
His music programme On the Beat ran continuously from 1985 to 2020 on BBC Radio Merseyside. Over the years, Leigh interviewed thousands of musicians on the show.[11] He has interviewed many people connected to the Liverpool 1960s scene. There have been several one-off series on BBC Radio Merseyside, the best known being Let's Go Down the Cavern (1981), which was also broadcast on local BBC stations throughout the UK.[12]
The entire collection of 2,027 programmes has been donated to Liverpool Central Library, and there is an on-going project to archive them. Some one-off series have been given to the British Library.
Writer
Leigh's first book Paul Simon – Now and Then, published in 1973, was the first biography of the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. He has written the sleeve notes or CD booklets for over 300 albums.[12] He writes obituaries of musicians for The Guardian, The Independent,[11] and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; he has also written extensively for Record Collector, Country Music People and Now Dig This.[12] He has a weekly 'My City' column every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.
His history of British pop before the Beatles, Halfway To Paradise (1996), has been expanded and issued in two volumes as British Pop Before The Beatles (Kindle). For the sixtieth anniversary of the Beatles' first Parlophone single, "Love Me Do", he and Mike Jones wrote The Road to Love Me Do, which was published in September 2022.[13]
Leigh has also published on health insurance ethics.[14]
