Emperor Rosko and
the Pirates of Radio

In the mid-sixties few Americans knew about Britain’s pirate radio stations, so called because they were unlicensed and operated outside the country’s three-mile limit. Their only exposure, had they recognized it, was on The Who Sell Out, the group’s best album, which was released in December 1967. The idea was to format The Who’s songs as though one were listening to Radio London, sans DJs. They initially wanted to sell commercials on the record, but as only Coca-Cola agreed, The Who wrote and recorded their own made-up ones.

When in London in the fall of 1979, I picked up a remainder copy of DJ Jimmy Saville’s book As It Happens to read on the plane back to the States. I was curious about radio in the days before the BBC had its own pop music channel, primarily about Radio Luxembourg and England’s radio pirates. Saville’s book wasn’t well written and there was much less information than I was expecting. It was soon in the discard stack. Other than digging through back copies of British newspapers, where would one find background on this colorful era of radio? I had asked Justin Hayward when I interviewed him, but he had scant knowledge.

With Rhino Films established, I thought a feature about the radio pirates would fill in a bit of history as well as provide a unique setting—a bunch of crazy DJs on a ship in the North Sea—and a sumptuous rock soundtrack.

One of the prominent DJs, Emperor Rosko, broadcasted from the pirate ship Radio Caroline. Unlike most of the pirate DJs, Rosko wasn’t a Brit. Instead, he grew up in Beverly Hills, only a couple of miles from Rhino’s offices. Peter Pasternak, head of Rhino’s international department, was one of the three sons of noted film producer Joe Pasternak. Joe had produced one hundred movies, and was known mostly for guiding a number of MGM’s musicals. Peter’s eldest brother, Michael, is Emperor Rosko. I had him set up a meeting, in May 2000.

Michael, a rowdy underachiever, was sent to military school by his parents to straighten him out. He later joined the US Navy. As a young teen, he wanted to be a disc jockey, and became one on the aircraft carrier on which he was serving. To become a professional, he needed an FCC license, so he moved to San Francisco and enrolled in the only broadcasting school west of the Rockies. He helped to get his pal, Sylvester Stewart—later known as Sly Stone—also enrolled.

Having learned French in boarding school, he found himself in 1965 working as a compere and DJ in Paris for Barclay Records’ Freddy Barclay. Most DJs created their own persona, usually with a DJ name. Michael called himself Emperor Rosko after two of his favorite Los Angeles personalities, KRLA’s Emperor Hudson (Robert Howard Holmes) and KBLA’s Rosko (William Roscoe Mercer).

The primary character in the pirate radio story is Irishman Ronan O’Rahilly. He managed a few rock acts, most notably Georgie Fame (whose only US Top 10 hit was “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde”), and was frustrated that he couldn’t get airplay to build their popularity. At that time in the mid-sixties, the BBC played only three or four hours of pop music a week, preferring classical music and educational programs. Radio Luxembourg’s programming for England and Ireland aired a few hours each night, but its signal was intermittent. The four major UK labels bought the available evening time to get exposure for their records, which meant that small companies were shut out.

Noting the success of ships outfitted with radio transmitters off the coasts of Scandinavia and Holland, O’Rahilly bought a Dutch passenger ferry and retro-fitted it into a sea-going radio station. O’Rahilly was inspired by the idealism and youthfulness of the recently assassinated John F. Kennedy—also of Irish lineage—and considered him a hero. He named his new endeavor Radio Caroline, after JFK’s daughter. He exhibited a bust of JFK in his own office, and when incognito answered only to “Bobby Kennedy.”

Radio Caroline launched on Easter Sunday, March 28, 1964, with The Rolling Stones’ “Not Fade Away,” which became the group’s first big hit. A lot of music was played, from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., but it wasn’t all contemporary rock ’n’ roll. There were segments for big bands, show tunes, and religious shows that bought blocks of time in the evenings. Labels also forked over payola to get play for their records. Later in the year, Georgie Fame had a hit with “Yeh, Yeh,” his first of three number ones.

Henri Henroid, the European tour manager for Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs, was impressed with Rosko’s panache when he emceed their show at the Olympia in Paris. He offered to get an audition tape to Ronan for him. As a result, Rosko became a DJ on Radio Caroline. Having spent four years in the US Navy, it was easier for Rosko to acclimate to the ship than for his fellow DJs. Rosko brought American radio know-how, a Top-40 style with a “have no fear, the emperor is here” rhythmic pattern. Also if he heard a French language record he liked, he included it in his show.

The schedule was two weeks on the boat, one week off. There were usually six or seven DJs who worked four-hour shifts. They slept in bunk beds, two to a cramped cabin. Rosko remembered far too many meals made with potatoes, including potato sandwiches. When not broadcasting, DJs played cards or chess, fished, oogled bikini babes who cruised by in warm weather, and tried to entice them on the boat for a sexual romp. Rosko also spent a lot of time honing his skills in the production studio.

Many listeners felt as though they were members of a secret club. As there were no audits done at the time, it’s estimated that at least eight million people were listening to pirate radio at its peak hours. By far the most-listened to station was Radio London, followed by Caroline. The girlfriend of Caroline DJ Johnnie Walker (Peter Waters Dingley) gave him three spliffs—hash mixed with tobacco—on his return to the ship to alleviate his boredom. As he was a novice, she gave him a code phrase for him to say during his show so she would know that he enjoyed the experience and wanted her to send him more. Johnnie got high with his fellow DJs and found new popularity on the ship. During his broadcast he sent a “good evening” to this girlfriend, followed by “we’ve just run out of tea, love.” Days later he received four more spliffs in the mail from her and, unexpectedly, sacks full of Ty-phoo and Tetley teas from listeners.

During their week off, the DJs stayed at the Bayswater Hotel or the Royal Garden Hotel, and genuine camaraderie developed. “We became like rock stars,” Rosko said, “and in many cases we were making more money than them. We didn’t think about anything except having fun and music.” And when they spent time at the London clubs—Rosko favored the Ad Lib and Marquee—they rubbed shoulders with rock’s elite. “They loved us. We played their records.” Dusty Springfield became his girlfriend. (She later came out as a lesbian.)

Rosko had found the perfect job for himself, one that could accommodate his brash behavior and fondness for pranks. “I took on a pirate look, like Errol Flynn. I had my clothes custom-made.” When new pirate ship Radio England was testing its transmitter by playing station identification jingles, Rosko recorded them off the air and altered them to plug Caroline. Incensed, Radio England threatened to sue until Rosko stopped playing them two days later. He also made a pet mynah bird part of his act and trained it to squawk “sounds fine, it’s Caroline” and “long live rock ’n’ roll” during his shift.

His wild behavior also got him fired. Phil Solomon, the Irish manager of The Bachelors, Them and other acts, invested a considerable amount in Radio Caroline with the expectation that he would get exposure on his acts. Rosko refused to play music he found inferior and thought nothing of sailing records on Solomon’s Major Minor label out the porthole. Solomon fired him. O’Rahilly rehired him. This happened numerous times, almost monthly.

O’Rahilly had a consulting deal with French Radio Luxembourg, which was recently purchased by the owner of Paris Match magazine. The station wanted to create a pirate radio type of show to attract more listeners and needed a real pirate DJ. Rosko was perfect. He had previously been based in Paris, loved the city, and was bilingual. Paris Match raised his weekly salary from £70 to £250, and heavily promoted him. His popularity soared: he did emceeing, made personal appearances, and established one of the first—and best—mobile discothèques, the Rosko International Roadshow.

One reason the British government was lax in responding was that Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Labour government felt it would alienate younger voters in the March 1966 election. In 1964 the party had won with a small margin, but this time it gained a majority of seats. The catalyst for addressing the defiant pirates came from a near, real-life pirate adventure. A group of intimidating characters invaded Radio City and dismantled its transmitter, retaliating for a business deal gone bad between ex-military man Oliver Smedley and promoter Reg Calvert.

Calvert, an old-school manager well liked by his artists, had lowbrow taste and fondness for gimmick promotions. He took note of the surge in sales when a flop record by one of his artists, “Caroline” by The Fortunes, was adopted as a theme by Radio Caroline. One of his singers, lightweight talent Screaming Lord Sutch, shared Calvert’s penchant for stunts and thought he would get press for himself by establishing his own pirate station.

Radio Sutch launched from a fishing boat equipped with a turntable and a weak transmitter powered by car batteries. The boat trawled for fish in the morning and from noon on was a radio station. Two weeks later, Sutch and Calvert reestablished Radio Sutch on a group of abandoned World War II forts in the Thames Estuary. Shivering Sands and other marine forts had been erected to shoot down German planes and guard against submarines and small boats. A writer for the Daily Telegraph described the signal as so weak, it was “broadcasting to an audience of seagulls.” After a few months, Sutch became bored with it, but Calvert saw the possibilities and bought him out. Calvert upgraded the weak transmitter so the station had a fifty-mile radius and renamed it Radio City.

Major Oliver Smedley, sensing that the pirate stations would lead the British government to accept commercial radio, was one of the backers of Radio Atlanta, which followed Caroline into the market. A few months later Atlanta entered into a merger type of arrangement with O’Rahilly to become Caroline North. Smedley never made any money from Atlanta and thought that involvement in Radio City—which didn’t have the vast expense of maintaining a ship—had real possibilities.

Smedley promised Calvert a new transmitter and then cheaped-out on a used one that barely functioned. This soured their relationship, and when Calvert was in talks with Radio London about a sale, Smedley sent a group of seventeen men to Shivering Sands to protect his property, namely the antiquated transmitter that Calvert hadn’t paid for. Calvert went to the police, who, flummoxed, said it was out of their jurisdiction. A very agitated Calvert learned that the elusive Smedley was at home, and visited him on the evening of June 21, 1966. During a heated exchange with Smedley’s secretary/mistress, he threatened her with a statuette. Was Calvert’s anger genuine, or was he acting out for effect? No one will ever know. Smedley stepped out from hiding and blasted Calvert with his shotgun.

Smedley was arrested and charged with murder, then revised to manslaughter. He testified that he feared for his life, though Calvert’s only weapon had been a tear gas pen in his pocket. Smedley was acquitted on grounds of self-defense. (Calvert’s wife recommenced operations, and ran the station until February 1967. Smedley, who died in 1989, never did claim his “valuable” transmitter, which rusts on the abandoned fort.) It was this nefarious act that led the government to realize that the pirates—at this point there were ten stations—had gotten out of hand and needed to be shut down. In addition, a number of European countries complained to the British government that the frequencies used by the errant pirates were interfering with their broadcasting.

Parliament passed the Marine Broadcasting Offenses Act, which decreed “prohibition of broadcasting from ships and aircraft … marine structures.” All but one of the pirate ships went off the air at midnight August 14, 1967. Radio Caroline restructured, relocated, and attempted to cultivate international advertising—British ads were prohibited—but the new business model didn’t work.

Seeing an obvious need, the BBC created its own pop music channel, Radio 1. A majority of the initial DJs came from the pirate ships but few lasted because they lacked polish. John Peel, Kenny Everett, and Tony Blackburn, all from Radio London, were among the more popular. Blackburn kicked off the channel on September 30, 1967, with The Move’s “Flowers in the Rain.”

The BBC wanted to hire Rosko, but he was making too much money—$5,000 a week, according to him—in France. He made an arrangement where he produced his show and sent them the tapes. In May 1968, when the violent student riots and labor strikes gravely affected his business, Rosko drove his mobile DJ truck to London to physically join Radio 1. Throughout the 1970s, Rosko was the most popular DJ throughout Europe.

When I heard that Richard Curtis—the writer of Bridget Jones’s Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Love Actually—planned to write and direct a movie about pirate radio, I was delighted because I felt that Rhino Films lacked the clout to get such a movie made. In the publicity leading up to the release, I became concerned. Curtis grew up listening to the pirate stations on a transistor radio hidden under his pillow. He wrote his script in a burst of inspiration, making a totally fictional story. Only later did he introduce some factual references.

The UK release of The Boat That Rocked garnered poor reviews. In an effort to shore it up for the US, it was shortened and retitled Pirate Radio, but it didn’t help. When I saw the movie, I was dismayed that there was little plot, dramatic structure, or reality. Among the many things wrong with this movie was the use of music outside the 1966–67 timeframe, and actors much older than the young-twenties DJs they were portraying. Philip Seymour Hoffman, at forty, played “The Count,” a character loosely based on Emperor Rosko, who was then twenty-four. Nick Frost, at thirty-six, also played a DJ. The movie’s climax comes when a boat sinks, which happened much later, in 1980.

The true story was so rich, I felt Curtis squandered an opportunity. There wasn’t going to be another pirate radio movie—especially as this one lost around $40 million (my estimate).

A lot of the wonderful—and not so wonderful—obscurities that the pirate radio stations programmed in the sixties can be heard on http://www.radiolondon.co.uk and the associated http://www.oldiesproject.com. Weekly playlists for Radio London have been reconstructed, interspersed with station jingles. I’ve found scores of worthwhile records that I had never heard before. But like anything that involves personal taste, one has to separate the wheat from the chaff.