One year Andy Kershaw was Billy Bragg's roadie, the next he was presenting Live Aid on TV to 400 million people: the new voice of youth. A passionate enthusiast for music, he is a man with an obsessive curiosity about the world. Over a twenty-five year career, he has worked for the Rolling Stones, shared an office with John Peel, and introduced world and roots Music to Radio 1 (and later Radio 3). He has won more Sony Radio awards than any other broadcaster. He has visited 97 countries and as a foreign correspondent filed numerous reports for Radio 4, in particular from the 'axis of evil' countries and from Africa. He was one of the very few journalists present during the Rwanda genocide.
In 2007, he separated from his partner, had a breakdown, and spent time in prison on the Isle of Man for his non-violent breaking of a restraining order. But he has put this behind him, writing this book, and returning to the airwaves fronting the BBC's Music Planet series. Andy Kershaw writes about his life with candour, insight, immediacy and humour. This is a real book by a man who has no truck with celebrity nonsense.
Andy Kershaw has led an extraordinary life. His unrivalled role in bringing World Music to the ears of the west is just part of the story of this man whose zest for life, music, people, experience and travel made him the finest British broadcaster bar none. That his life has had its ups and downs is to say that the Alps have snowy peaks, but throughout this dizzyingly paced and often wildly hilarious book he brings alive his matchless career, and the cultural life of a Britain that seems to be vanishing. Forget Media Studies and a life of student debt: read NO OFF SWITCH and learn what it is to be a real broadcast journalist, a real achiever. A real someone. (Stephen Fry)
Without you we wouldn't know nothin'! (Joe Strummer)
Andy Kershaw's memoir zooms along with the high-velocity recklessness of a TT racer. It's impossible not to cheer him on as he accelerates round the hairpin bends of his life, yelling hilarious defiance at anyone who tries to stop him. (Francis Wheen)
It's his ability to convey a sense of moment-by-moment aliveness that makes Andy Kershaw, in my opinion, the greatest living English-language broadcaster... With his unerring instinct for what will bring the story to life for the listener, he's done both jobs [Radio 1 DJ and foreign correspondent] better than anyone else. (Toby Litt New Statesman 2011-07-14)
Fabulously well-written...the wit, the brimming enthusiasm and the outrage all come direct from the broadcasting voice, but there are wonderful turns of phrase too. (James Medd Word Magazine 2011-08-01)
The excellent Radio 3 series Music Planet earlier this year showed that he's still got his broadcasting chops... he's clearly a talented bloke...hilariously opinionated... There are some terrific passages... For the past 25 years he has been one of the best things on radio - partly responsible for the "birth" of world music. Without him, artists of the stature of the Bhundu Boys and Ali Farka Toure would probably never have impacted on the wider world. I hope the Music Planet gig is only the start of a triumphant second half of his career. Whatever he broadcasts in future, I'm likely to be listening. (Chris Maume Independent 2011-07-08)
A groundbreaking DJ... Kershaw has had one hell of a life... strange and comic (Fiona Sturges Independent on Sunday 2011-07-10)
This sparky autobiography captures with exuberance his pioneering career as a music broadcaster who opened our ears, and still does. (I (mini-Independent) 2011-07-11)
It's his ability to convey a sense of moment-by-moment aliveness that makes Andy Kershaw, in my opinion, the greatest living broadcaster in the English language... His radio appearances have become rare. He's an intermittent eruption, making everything before and after sound as if it were made by zombies. (Toby Litt New Statesman 2011-07-18)
Kershaw has had fascinating life, most of which is considerably more interesting than his troubled later years. (Andrzej Lukowski Metro 2011-07-13)
