{"id":1482,"date":"2015-03-17T13:39:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T13:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/?page_id=1482"},"modified":"2016-02-10T08:53:32","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T08:53:32","slug":"stewart-cruikshank-radio-producer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/stewart-cruikshank-radio-producer\/","title":{"rendered":"Stewart Cruickshank, radio producer 1951 – 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"StewartCruickshank\"<\/a>ONE morning back in 1980, a 29-year-old rock musician with an honours degree in economics, economic history and \u2013 most pertinently \u2013 librarianship, turned up at BBC Scotland\u2019s former Queen Margaret Drive headquarters in Glasgow\u2019s West End. Scheduled to spend a trial week as a \u201cgramophone librarian\u201d; Stewart Cruickshank ended up working as a radio producer for the BBC for the best part of 35 years, during which he has done much to heighten the profile of folk and related music on the airwaves.<\/p>\n

Over the past couple of decades, he has been behind the scenes of such long-running staples as Travelling Folk and Iain Anderson\u2019s show, in the process introducing such well-known figures as Ricky Ross, Roddy Hart and Karine Polwart to the niceties of radio presenting.<\/p>\n

Outside the folk scene, however, he also produced BBC Radio 2 series on such celebrities as Ray Davies, the Sex Pistols and The Who, and spent time in California and New York interviewing Jackson Browne and Lou Reed respectively for shows which were networked globally. In 1999 the album Deserters\u2019 Songs, which he produced for UK radio for the US rock band Mercury Rev, won a Gold Disc, while the following year he was awarded an FRSA (Fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts) for his contribution to UK music radio.<\/p>\n

Stewart has never allowed himself to be compartmentalised genre-wise. Having left Trinity Academy in Edinburgh with a useful clutch of A-levels, the young Cruickshank deferred university education for seven years. Instead, under the engaging pseudonym of Gilmore Wines (yes, after a local off-licence) he and his pal Wilf Smarties (who has maintained that moniker ever since as a respected record producer and songwriter) were the core of the rock band Mowgli and the Donuts. They may not have hit the big time, but, he agrees, it was great fun. \u201cWe lived in East Anglia and we were never famous,\u201d he laughs, \u201cbut we did loads of gigs, large and small. Silly Wizard used to support us at Tiffany\u2019s in Edinburgh.\u201d<\/p>\n

His parallel enthusiasms of music and radio both go back to his formative years. His mother won medals competing in the Co-operative singing competitions and, from an early age, like so many of his generation, he would listen to his radio under the bedclothes at night, absorbing the Sixties sounds of Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline, when reception permitted, while what he regards as \u201ca big defining moment\u201d was catching John Peel\u2019s short-running but fondly remembered series The Perfumed Garden, broadcast during the last weeks of the offshore pirate station Radio London, until the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act closed it down in August 1967. The cult programme\u2019s eclectic mix \u2013 everything from Pink Floyd and Grateful Dead to Marc Bolan and Bert Jansch \u2013 left their mark.<\/p>\n

So when he turned up at Queen Margaret drive a decade and a half later, he was well primed, in terms of both music and librarianship. \u201cAs ever in life,\u201d he recalls, \u201cthere was a certain element of coincidence. It was just after I\u2019d graduated and I was there initially for one week and it led to me working in broadcasting for the best part of 35 years. You work your way to becoming a producer then a senior producer and the way you do it is to learn and learn and I\u2019ve never stopped learning, not just about music but about how radio can be put together.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Cruickshank, \u201clearning the ropes\u201d involved producing Radio Scotland\u2019s Top 40 and researching for the Ken Bruce Show while also working as a recorded music librarian. The mid-Eighties saw him producing Beatstalking, a history of Scottish rock music presented by Muriel Gray, then founding and co-producing the long-running indie rock show Beat Patrol with Sandy Semeonoff and Peter Easton.<\/p>\n

Broadening out, he was a contributing editor for John Purser\u2019s ground-breaking series Scotland\u2019s Music in 1990 and went on, with Rab Noakes and Donald MacInnes, to create Radio Scotland\u2019s Be-Bop to Hip-Hop jazz programme, Original Masters with John Cavanagh, and pilot the series Celtic Connections, from which Glasgow\u2019s now mammoth winter festival took its name.<\/p>\n

Having handled such diverse challenges as broadcasting T in the Park and producing series covering everything from bluegrass to the Incredible String Band (also recording his old hero John Peel\u2019s first radio sessions in Scotland), Stewart became increasingly involved with the long-running Travelling Folk, with Archie Fisher and the late Danny Kyle, and Iain Anderson\u2019s show.<\/p>\n

Outside his regular programme work, he was senior producer for Music Live 2000 from Shetland and for the 2005 G8 Summit rally at Murrayfield, with 65,000 people and James Brown topping the bill \u2013 \u201cQuite a night!\u201d. He has sat vocationally on the boards of the Scottish Music Centre and the Burnsong scheme.<\/p>\n

Stewart left BBC Scotland nine years ago but continued to co-produce the Iain Anderson show, in association with the production company Bees Nees, until he finally decided to retire last October. In recent years, the advent of the internet has given such programmes, and the music he loves, a worldwide audience. \u201cI\u2019ve been very lucky,\u201d he reflects. \u201cI’ve been honoured to showcase tens of thousands of hours of dazzling musical talent on radio, from Scotland and way, way beyond. It began and will continue with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written by Jim Gilchrist, 2015<\/p>\n

Stewart passed away in November 2015.<\/p>\n

Stewart was awarded Services to Broadcasting in 2015. View the photos from our Services to Broadcasting dinner<\/a> for Stewart.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ONE morning back in 1980, a 29-year-old rock musician with an honours degree in economics, economic history and \u2013 most pertinently \u2013 librarianship, turned up at BBC Scotland\u2019s former Queen Margaret Drive headquarters in Glasgow\u2019s West End. Scheduled to spend a trial week as a \u201cgramophone librarian\u201d; Stewart Cruickshank ended up working as a radio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2002,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-1482","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2030,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1482\/revisions\/2030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/hall-of-fame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}