RIP Mr Ellery

SINGAPORE – If you mention the name Mike Ellery to anyone under 35, chances are they’ll give you a blank look. But anyone who grew up listening to the radio or Rediffusion in the 1960s and the 1970s, or watched those variety entertainment on TV during the 1980s will have felt a twinge of sadness when the funeral for Ellery was held earlier this week. He had passed away in his home in England from lymphoma. He was 82.

As for myself, I vaguely recall listening to him growing up in my grandmother’s old wooden/attap house, where they had a Rediffusion set in the living room. It was mostly tuned to the Chinese programmes, but on occasion someone would switch it to the English channel, where the latest pop hits would be played.

I do remember seeing him on several TV shows. Although I can’t identify which ones now, I do remember my dad telling, “This guy is good, like Larry Lai.” Indeed.

But so what, you might say? Well, when it comes to the history of Singapore, Ellery had a really big hand in shaping the radio landscape here. He first started as a programme assistant in the 1950s - that’s what DJs were known as back then - and later as programme manager on Rediffusion, Singapore’s first cable-transmitted commercial radio station. By all accounts, one could say that it was his – and, it must be said, his team’s - dogged determination to give listeners something exciting and new that we have radio as it is today.

In order to appreciate why what he did has resonated even after all these years, you’d have to imagine what it was public entertainment was like back in 1950s Singapore. There was no television yet, and apart from attending social events, radio was the only way households could get their dose of entertainment.

Singer Vernon Cornelius, who fronted Singapore’s top pop band, The Quests in the mid-Sixties said: “They had a lot of talk shows, discussion panels (on radio) … music was very scarce. You look at the programme schedule … there wouldn’t even be 12 (music) programmes a week. They did have music … they had Victor Sylvester and his orchestra, which was a ballroom dancey type thing, so it really can’t be considered – unless you like ballroom dancing.

“They had many expat broadcasters. It was very bland … for as long as I can remember,” Cornelius noted in his oral history recordings with the National Archives of Singapore.

“The credo of radio as laid down somewhere was ‘to inform, to educate and to entertain’,” wrote Ellery in an ADAsia column in 2004. “It was radio’s solid aunty image that led to the establishment of Rediffusion and (the latter’s) runaway success.”

Being a paid-service cable station – listeners had to fork out S$5 a month (a huge sum in those days) to have a Rediffusion box installed in their house - the aim of Rediffusion was to give the young listeners, since that was the largest population demographic then, what they wanted. What they wanted was audience engagement and pop music.

Ellery handpicked records for broadcast and subscribed to brand-new American singles weekly (as well as updated and replaced records periodically). He also perused through music publications for latest releases, with a personal preference for American charts to British charts and introduced the American Top 40 countdown and the Dick Clark Record Show to Singapore. These days, we listen to music countdowns without so much as a second thought; 50 years ago, it was a godsend for pop fans.

“(We) created a bit of a pop monster,” wrote Ellery. “Virtually, ‘all the hits all the time’ with a scad of young local music enthusiasts presenting from 6am to midnight, mixed in with imported DJ programmes from the likes of Kasey Kasem, plus ‘live’ shows with local acts and visiting foreigners.

“The phone-in had its start in Singapore on Rediffusion, giving the duty DJ’s heavy experience in handling some pretty weird people.”

The formula worked. As programme manager, Ellery also introduced a lot of local DJ talent to the airwaves. “A programme assistant was at the mercy of his EPO (English Programme Organiser), who was at the mercy of his English Programme Supervisor (EPS), who handed out jobs that in the course of a week might include writing and presenting at least half a dozen music programmes, covering a sports or public event, acting in a Drama Group play and co-producing a quiz show,” Ellery explained in his column.

“At 21, you have the energy to do it and the anxiety to please. Technically, it was wild. At the start, things either went on the air ‘live’ or were cut to acetate-covered aluminium discs – 18-inch for quarter-hour chunks or 12-inch discs for short bits like interviews. If you made a mistake, the disc would probably have to be scrapped and you started again - not a popular idea.”

Ellery hired and mentored the likes of Larry Lai, Tan Hock Lye, Tat Swee Leong, Paul Cheong and Chris Ho. “(He) was partly responsible for making it more Singaporean,” observed Cornelius, who was also one of Ellery’s “hires”.

But it wasn’t all days of wine and roses under Ellery. “He was a really tough guy when it comes to DJing,” said Ho in his oral history recording. “I think he set a really good discipline standard for broadcasting.”

When it came to broadcasting the news, for example, the DJs would have to play the familiar six-second time pips before they could start talking. “You miss one pip and you would get a phone call from Mike Ellery, who would tell you the international standard is six time pips,” said Ho.

Ellery also witnessed the government’s crackdown on the social ills – perceived and real - of the time: Rock ‘n’ roll music, long hair and drugs. Considering most of what Rediffusion’s was playing was rock ‘n’ roll music, it was a concern for Ellery.

“With that sort of output, perhaps you can imagine the total panic that set in when The Ministry of Culture decided to ban from broadcasting ‘the type of music known as ‘rock and roll’,” wrote Ellery. “I can remember frantically digging through the record library pulling out anything with a beat. It didn’t help that Elvis and Chubby Checker were reigning at that time.

“Long hair also became a taboo. It didn’t affect me personally, being a nice upright English boy, but I can name a DJ or two who had to have a hair-do before their next ‘live’ (appearance). They were so ashamed they went out and bought wigs to wear in their own social circles.”

Although some might consider Ellery a disciplinarian, he was also a bit of a maverick: While other managers would keep a tight rein on their staff, he had a “free policy” with his DJs. As long as they didn’t offend or go against state policies, “you had total freedom, which was really, really wonderful,” said Cornelius.

He allowed them to develop their on-air styles, giving them a personality instead of just being a “faceless voice” on the air. One time, after Cornelius had worked there for several months, he asked Ellery for an appraisal of his work. Ellery told him: “You’re sounding like a cross between Larry Lai and Eric Lim and that’s not what we hired you for.”

“I was being too straight,” said Cornelius. “He wanted a personality.”

Also, even though he was technically working for at Rediffusion, he would also moonlight as a radio DJ with the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, as it was known then, under an alias, Roger Guest. “To people who are familiar (that’s) a very traditional British joke about Roger the Lodger – that’s a play on words,” said Lai in his oral history recordings.

After leaving Rediffusion, Ellery would continue hosting programmes on Radio 1 (as it was called then) throughout the 1980s, most notably the Thursday night programme, Your Host Tonight, spinning “his brand of music … till the strike of 12”.

He also compered at events and hosted shows too, where once again he showcased his wit. For example, when he was a judge for the Male Model of the Year, he commented on their “very good physiques”: “I guess National Service training has a lot to do with it.”

In a way, Ellery also helped shape the music landscape in that he and the “Rediffusion Discovery Team” set up all those Talentime contests all those years ago, which allowed some of Singapore’s talents from the ‘60s platforms to showcase their mettle and – hopefully – secure lucrative recording contracts. Out of all his colleagues, Lai and Ellery would form a close business partnership, when they founded a mobile disco company called Moby Dick, a new concept at the time, and later, Sound Lab, a recording production company. (The pair even hosted a charity dog telematch together a few years ago.)

Ellery eventually moved back to England about two years ago – after spending a majority of his life here, he considered himself more Singaporean than English – and that was where he passed on.

Many tributes have appeared online since, but perhaps Cornelius said it best in a post on Andy Young’s blog (www.Singapore60smusic.blogspot.sg): “Mike Ellery was the greatest broadcaster Singapore has ever known. There was, and still is no one who has such great instantaneous abilities - suddenly picking up records and presenting a most interesting 60 minutes show! He was a great add-libber. He knew his music - always up to date with the latest hits, well-tuned and informed with classic standards, jazz, Broadway, operas, classical music and more!

“Here was an ‘ang moh’ who was very aggressive and very passionate promoting local music. He very much loved The Quests and maybe that’s why I was hired as a Deejay without even an audition, and he’d hope in March 1969, that I could be styled as the first local personality DJ …

“To me he was a very difficult taskmaster, always demanding of me and hard to please! The kicks he gave me were worth it, as it made me the perfectionist I still try to be today. Lucky were the many DJs who went through the ‘Mike Ellery School of Broadcasting’. They were, and are, great and different.

“Mike Ellery was also instrumental – (together) with impresario Donald Moore - to bring scores of international pop acts like The Yardbirds, Walker Brothers, Dave Clarke Five and Herman’s Hermits to name a few (as well as) some of the biggest names in classical music and ballet world.

“Long after he was my boss I still call him ‘Mr Ellery’ because he was my teacher and I had great respect for him. I last spoke to him on the phone a month ago; he was by this time on a wheelchair after a stroke, but he was cheerful as ever, business as usual. To him, The Show Goes On.

Through the years, we’ve seen so many key musicians from Singapore join the choir invisible, including Jap Chong of The Quests, composer Iskandar Ismail, singer Kartina Dahari, The Suns’ drummer Wayne Thunder, Atwell Jansen of Heritage ... But I’d like to think that now, they have the ultimate emcee to host their great gig in the sky.