Cast your mind back to the 1980s: a time of flamboyant fashions, big hair and massive shoulder pads. It also marked a major change in our listening habits, with the rise of the New Romantic movement, electronic music and hip hop. One man was at the centre of it all: Gary Davies.

Four decades later the former Radio 1 trailblazer will be spinning the hits at this year’s Darley Park Weekender. He’ll be appearing alongside “the most successful female band worldwide” Bananarama and platinum-selling band Haircut 100 at 80s Mix Tape 2025 on Friday 29 August.

Gary joined me on the phone from his London home to talk about how his passion for music was ignited by his cousins; how he nearly gave up on the business; why he’s got the best job in the world; and why he’ll never forget a Radio 1 Roadshow at Markeaton Park in Derby.

Gary is still pinching himself because his childhood dream to work for BBC Radio not only came true but started a 40-year career in music which has come full circle. He now presents his Sounds of the 80s show on Radio 2 on Saturday evenings as well as standing in for Vernon Kay on the station’s morning show.

“I can’t think of a better job in the world,” Gary tells me. “I’m just very lucky still to be able to do it. It was never in my plans. The fact that it’s come back around is superb.”

“They had these amazing, iconic acts especially from America coming over to play, acts like Junior Walker and the All Stars and Booker T and the MGs.”

Gary was born on 13 December 1957 in Manchester. When his family were buying him socks and handkerchiefs for his birthday, his two cousins were buying him the top 20 singles.

“They also had this legendary club in the ‘60s and ‘70s called Twisted Wheel which was probably one of the first clubs in the UK to do all-nighters.

“They had these amazing, iconic acts especially from America coming over to play, acts like Junior Walker and the All Stars and Booker T and the MGs. I remember seeing Rod Stewart there in the very early days.

“They would sneak me in as a 13-  or 14-year-old kid backstage to watch all these amazing artists. After Twisted Wheel ran its time, they changed it to a discotheque called Placemate.”

Gary started working there when he was 17, collecting money on the door. One night a DJ called in sick. Gary volunteered to step in.

“I loved it,” he recalls. “I sat down one day and I thought, out of everything that I’m doing, what do I love the most? It was DJing. So I asked myself how I could take it to the next level and try to get a job in radio which wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

“At the time independent local radio stations were opening up all over the place – it wasn’t just the BBC. I applied to all of them for three years and got rejected by everybody.”

Gary was on the verge of giving up because he found it so frustrating not getting anywhere. His late father changed his mind.

“He said ‘if you give up you’re never going to get it. Clearly you don’t want it badly enough.’ That really struck a chord with me. It made me quite angry. He was supposed to say ‘poor Gary’ but he wasn’t like that. Obviously he was right.”

When Placemate was closed during the day, Gary used the equipment to make demo tapes. He sent one to Tony Prince at Radio Luxembourg who were offering one-hour shows to club DJs. His first break came when Luxembourg gave him a slot. He recorded the show which he sent to his local commercial station, Piccadilly Radio.

“They gave me my first show with about three hours’ notice! In the middle of the night. Nobody tells you what to do. You just go in, do five hours on the air and that’s it.”

That was in 1979. Three years later he joined Radio 1. Everybody knew his “Woo Gary Davies” jingle. Within weeks he was presenting Top of the Pops on BBC TV.

In 1984 he took over the lunchtime show which he called The Bit in the Middle before hosting the weekend breakfast and a late-night Sunday show until he left the BBC in 1993.

Stints at Virgin Radio and Century Radio followed before he took a break from DJing, running his own music publishing company which managed songwriters. One of his company’s songs, Black Coffee, was recorded by All Saints and Gary discovered soul singer Corinne Bailey Rae.

After a gap of 23 years Gary returned to BBC Radio, providing holiday cover and becoming the new host of Sounds of the 80s. So what does he enjoy about that decade?

“When you get a nice crowd and you can whoop ‘em up and have a bit of fun, there’s no better feeling.”

“It was the decade that changed my life forever. It was the decade that I got my dream job working for Radio 1 and it was the decade that I got to host my favourite TV show, Top of the Pops. My life changed dramatically during those ten years.

“Add to that a decade of unbelievably creative music, so many new genres that had never been heard before, so many legends that were born in those ten years that are still relevant today and still mean so much to people today. It was just a remarkable decade.”

Although Gary loves ‘70s music which led to the birth of disco and the emergence of some legendary soul singers, he prefers the ‘80s: “As good as ‘70s music is, it was nowhere near as groundbreaking as ‘80s music. You had iconic rock bands like Def Leppard and Bon Jovi. Madonna, Prince, Queen – they were around in the ‘70s but had massive success in the ‘80s. It was special.”

Gary gets a kick out of performing live on stage and is relishing the opportunity to be on the bill at the Darley Park Weekender.

“I was a club DJ before I moved into radio, so I’ve always loved going in front of a live audience. It’s in my blood. When you get a nice crowd and you can whoop ‘em up and have a bit of fun, there’s no better feeling.”

He explains he loves both live gigs and being in a studio: “They’re totally different. When you’re doing radio you very much focus on one person, it’s a one-to-one medium. It’s very personal – people can’t see you so you’re painting pictures whereas when you’re doing a live show everyone can see you. So it’s a completely different approach for a live audience show to one that I would have on the radio.”

Gary takes great credit for the surge in popularity of dance music from the end of the 1980s into the ‘90s: “I was the guy playing it on daytime radio. I played (house music producer and DJ) L’il Louis’ track French Kiss before it got censored (because it features orgasmic moaning). I’ve always loved dance music, right from the club days.

“Back then in the ‘80s at Radio 1 I had phenomenal free choice. For the first four or five years I never even had a playlist. The top 40 was rotated so that you didn’t play a top 40 record too often. But the rest was free choice.

“I’d go into the office just before my show and listen through to the 50 or 60 new singles that had been deposited in my box that day and if I found something I liked, I’d play it. It was great to be able to play stuff that you thought was going to do well, that you loved and that you thought the listeners would like.”

So onto the Radio 1 Roadshow, the annual summer event broadcast for a quarter of a century from 1973. Gary has fond recollections of Derby.

“There were a few venues where we did roadshows over the years that I remember. Markeaton Park will always be top of that list. We did it twice, in 1991 and again in 1993.

“On both occasions I remember it for being absolutely massive and having the most incredible crowd, and because the travel news person was giving out bulletins saying something to the effect that ‘the motorways around Derby are absolutely clogged. If you’re trying to get to the Radio 1 Roadshow, don’t bother because you’re never going to get there.’ There were 80,000 people there. I’ll never forget Derby.”

Gary Davies has come a long way since the days when he had a mullet and wouldn’t go anywhere without a hairdryer and his curling tongs. Now he commands respect wherever he goes for his passion for music and his influence.

No doubt Gary’s appearance at the 80s Mixtape at the Darley Park Weekender will attract younger people who are getting into ‘80s music as well as those who experienced the decade first hand.

* This article originally appeared in Country Images magazine