Month: January 2026

Making world music’s first international star : 1985-1988 : Ofra Haza, Tel Aviv & London

 In January 1985, I had arrived in Israel to work as a DJ on a radio station, but this was no ordinary radio. The studios of ‘The Voice of Peace’ were on a ship anchored permanently in the Mediterranean Sea [see blog]. Aware of my interest in cutting edge music, the station’s popular breakfast DJ Dave Asher (who had been living in Israel for some time) [see blog] played me a recent 12-inch single ‘Galbi’ by a young Israeli singer of Yemeni origin named Ofra Haza. It was a traditional Yemeni song, re-mixed and cut up into a state-of-the-art club tune that sounded to me like a new, exciting ‘Middle East meets West’ genre. I wanted to find out more, but the terrible winter storms and shortage of DJ staff meant that I was stuck working on the ship for the next three months.

Eventually, during my first shore leave, I visited the Tel Aviv office of the small independent record company ‘Hed Arzi’ that had produced the Ofra Haza single. They were baffled that a British DJ would be so interested in one of their worst selling record releases, and particularly one that seemed to have such minimal mainstream potential. They humoured me and let me sit at a desk in their office, penning handwritten letters to radio DJ’s and record labels that I knew back in the UK, sent by airmail along with the single and related album ‘Yemenite Songs’.

Within a month, I had received replies from John Peel at ‘BBC Radio One’ and Charlie Gillett at London’s market leader ‘Capital Radio’, both saying that they had played Ofra’s record on their shows and had received enquiries asking where the record could be purchased. During my next shore leave, I returned to Hed Arzi, whose staff were amazed that their song had been played on national radio in the UK. They introduced me to Ofra and her manager for the first time. I wrote again to several UK record labels and one of them, ‘Globestyle’ owned by ‘Ace Records’, was convinced sufficiently by the airplay to release both the single and the album [see blog].

I returned to the UK at the end of 1985 and spent the next two years trying to convince everyone I knew of Ofra’s talent. By 1987, I had given away so many copies of her records to music industry people that Ace Records’ Roger Armstrong said I would be given one last free box. By chance, I had recently been invited to attend a monthly staff meeting of London pirate station KISS FM (at the London School of Economics) [see blog] and, as a last resort, I distributed copies of Ofra’s records from this last box to some of the station’s DJs, mailed from my part-time job with ‘Rough Trade Records’ director Scott Piering. Simultaneously, I attended monthly meetings in a London pub of music industry personnel who created the new genre ‘world music’ and marketed it for the first time in the UK [see blog].

KISS FM DJ’s Jonathan More and Matt Black, recording together as ‘Coldcut’, had already enjoyed underground success with some highly original cut-up singles on their ‘Ahead Of Our Time’ label. They liked the Ofra Haza songs so much that they cut up one of them into their homemade remix of US rappers Eric B & Rakim’s latest single ‘Paid In Full’. ‘Island Records’ in the UK released this remix without seeking Eric B’s prior approval, and without clearing the Ofra Haza sample. By the end of 1987, the single had reached number 15 in the UK singles chart, giving Eric B his first British hit and earning significant royalties for the Israeli record company because a third of the track featured Ofra’s voice, a fact I knew because Roger Armstrong had asked me to time the recording with a stopwatch in order to negotiate his appropriate share of royalties from Island Records.

More than anything, the chart success of that Eric B remix stimulated huge public interest in Ofra Haza’s voice beyond the narrower market for the new ‘world music’ genre. In early 1988, I organised interviews for a promotional visit to the UK, shepherding Ofra Haza and her manager Bezalel Aloni to BBC Radio 1, the BBC World Service and London commercial radio stations. Ace Records re-issued Ofra’s ‘Im Nin Alu’ single, which quickly garnered radio airplay this time, despite it being sung in a strange, foreign language. However, the public demand for the single was so great that the independent label had difficulty fulfilling orders, so it licensed the track to ‘Warner Brothers/WEA’. After an initial meeting with the major label at which I passed on all the press coverage I had achieved to date, my direct involvement with Ofra Haza ended abruptly, just as she was invited back to the UK to perform on BBC1 TV show ‘Top of The Pops.’ I had asked Warner to keep me updated but it never did.

After the success of this single internationally, the Israeli record label invited me to London’s ‘Sarm West’ Studios, where the follow-up single ‘Shaday’ was being mixed. It was evident that none of the Warner Brothers personnel involved had any understanding of the unique charm of Ofra’s Yemeni music in the international marketplace. Ofra’s controlling manager was far too keen to turn her into a mainstream pop singer, which is exactly how the public perceived her in Israel. As a result, the follow-up single bombed and, sadly, it seemed then as if Ofra was consigned to be a one-hit wonder as a result of poor career guidance.

In 2000, I was shocked to learn of Ofra’s death at the age of 42 from AIDS-related organ failure. I emailed the family in Israel, asking to attend the funeral, but received no response. Two years later, an Israeli ‘Channel 2’ television film crew came to London and filmed an interview about my role in creating their country’s most successful international pop star [for 70-minute ‘The Life & Death of Ofra Haza’]. They had just filmed a similar interview with John Peel at his home, during which he impressed them by producing my handwritten letter that had accompanied the Ofra records I had initially sent him from Israel seventeen years earlier. The interviewer asked me if I had made a fortune from ‘discovering’ Ofra Haza for the international market. I laughed. All I had ever received was one cheque for £200 from Ace Records in 1988 to reimburse my expenses for taxis, refreshments and food during Ofra’s initial London promotional visit. Neither Hed Arzi, nor Ace Records, nor Haza’s estate have communicated with me since.

Ofra’s incredible voice lives on through the music she recorded, although I am always reminded of the parts of her life that had been unbelievably tragic. The crucial roles of the late John Peel and Charlie Gillett in her international success should not be forgotten. Ofra Haza’s music arrived in the Western world at a time when the public welcomed sounds that challenged their expectations. We are musically much the poorer for the loss of Ofra, and of John and Charlie, from our world.

[Green Productions in Israel has just completed a video documentary ‘One Song’ in Hebrew that narrates the story in detail for the first time of how ‘In Nin Alu’ became an unlikely pop chart hit.]

[Originally published at https://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/ofra-haza-making-of-world-musics-first.html ]

I did not think the girl could be so cruel : 1989-1990 : Amanda Jane Lyons, BBC Radio

 July 1989. I had just broken up with my girlfriend of three years, after a particularly bitter confrontation that had shocked me profoundly. Since Easter, London’s rail and underground system had suffered a series of one-day strikes that had brought the city to a complete standstill once a week. On returning home one evening to the flat we shared, I had found a note informing me that me she was staying overnight with a friend because she was working the late shift in her job and thought the following day’s strike would prevent her from getting home.

However, that evening, I happened to notice that the packet of condoms stored in the bathroom cabinet had been disturbed and, on inspection, I found that several of them were missing. When she returned the next day, I confronted my girlfriend with this evidence and she admitted she had spent the night with a work colleague who was still in his teens, and with whom she had planned to have sex using my condoms. Later, I discovered that my girlfriend had been harbouring sexual desires towards this work colleague for at least the previous year of our relationship, and that she had specifically asked her employer to change her shift pattern so that the two of them could spend the night together.

I was outraged that she had deceived and cheated on me so blatantly. I told her that our relationship ended there and then. However, she refused to move out of the flat that we shared as joint tenants, so the two of us were now living together in a horrible atmosphere. I no longer wanted anything to do with her, but she refused to get out and go her separate way. It felt as if a complete stranger had suddenly invaded my living space, so I tried to stay out of the flat as much as possible, since I could no longer trust her to tell me the truth about anything.

December 1989. I bought a last-minute return air ticket to The Gambia for £199 and spent three weeks there, enjoying a fascinating and restful time, lazing in the sun on a beautiful sandy beach. The holiday proved to be the ideal antidote to both the pressures of the KISS FM licence application [see blog] and the continuing antagonism I was suffering from my former girlfriend, who was still refusing to move out of our flat.

Blearily reaching home, I noticed that the flat’s front door no longer seemed to have a curtain across the inside of its window. I turned the key, went inside, and realised that many other things were missing as well. In the kitchen, the wooden dining table had vanished, the saucepan stand and vegetable rack had gone, and there was very little cutlery to be found. There was a note in my former girlfriend’s handwriting that I did not need to read to understand what had happened. She had finally left the flat during the three weeks I had been away, but she had taken much of the contents of our home with her.

I cautiously opened the door to the spare room, to find that shelf units, a filing cabinet and a writing desk had gone. In the bedroom, the double bed was still there, probably because it was too large to remove easily as I had assembled it within the room. More shelving had gone and two bedside tables were no longer there. I was mightily relieved to find that my stereo system and record collection looked untouched. Then, opening the door to the living room, I was amazed to find that the entire room had been totally stripped bare. There was no longer a carpet, curtains or furniture – not even a lampshade. The room was completely empty, the only remaining fittings being the curtain track and a bare light bulb swinging from the ceiling in the centre of the room.

I was far too tired after the long journey, and too pleased with my restful holiday, to immediately become angry about the situation. This flat had been the first unfurnished rented accommodation I had taken in London, and I had invested all my savings in redecorating the place and purchasing all its contents. For the first few months living there, my lack of funds had left the place almost bare and I had slept on a mattress on uncarpeted floorboards. Now, most of the household items I had built up over the last few years had gone. I returned to the kitchen and decided to read the note from my former girlfriend. It started: “I have moved out. Things that were jointly purchased, divided as follows …” Then it listed several household items. However, the list bore little relation to the items that had disappeared from the flat, and the note quickly became irrational and bitter: “I have taken the kitchen table since you always wanted to chuck it out.” Predictably, she had not left me either a forwarding address or phone number.

There was no fresh milk in the flat which might have enabled me to find solace in a much-needed cup of tea, so I crawled into bed, tried to forget about the loss of so many of the flat’s contents, and fell asleep. It was late at night, already early Saturday morning, and I realised that I would have to spend the next day sorting out exactly what I had lost and what I was going to do about the situation.

It was only just daylight when I suddenly realised that the phone was ringing. It seemed to take me ages to drag my weary body out of bed, as the phone continued to ring long and hard. Who on earth would want to phone me at this early hour on a Saturday morning [see blog]? I toyed with the notion that it might be my former girlfriend, who seemed determined to inflict as much hurt on me as possible, despite our relationship having ended abruptly through her own infidelity and lies.

The first thing I needed to do was to secure the flat properly, since my former girlfriend still had two sets of keys for the front door. The last thing I wanted her to do was to return while I was out and remove anything further that might take her fancy. Unfortunately, opening the door to the hallway cupboard, I found that all the useful household tools had already gone with her. There was no ladder, no iron, no ironing board, no painting implements and, most importantly, no screwdrivers, chisels, hacksaws or drill.

That day, and during the months that followed, I experienced the same disappointment on many occasions when I looked around the flat for things I used to own. Just when I needed a particular implement for some household maintenance or repair job, I would find it missing and have to buy a replacement at the local hardware shop. To add insult to injury, my former girlfriend had even taken the £24 do-it-yourself manual we had purchased to help us maintain the flat.

That Saturday, once I had purchased a new set of screwdrivers, I set about removing and replacing the front door locks to the flat. My next-door neighbour emerged to find out what was necessitating all the hammering and chiselling on a Saturday morning. I explained that my former girlfriend had removed much of the flat’s contents while I had been away. He told me he had seen her and some helpers spend the better part of a day shifting everything down four flights of stairs and into a large van parked outside. To him, it had simply looked as if she was moving out. Of course, he had had no idea who owned most of the goods that were being carried away.

January 1990. After my former girlfriend moved out of the flat we had shared, I now had to meet the monthly rent payment of £280 by myself. She had also left me several bills to settle – the quarterly telephone bill now due was £138, the highest amount I had ever had to pay, and the quarterly electric bill of £66 was also due. I owed £572 Income Tax to Inland Revenue for the 1987/88 tax year, and my season ticket for daily train travel to the KISS FM office in Finsbury Park was costing me £68 a month.

During the previous month, I had been forced to spend considerable sums replacing necessary household items that had disappeared along with my former girlfriend. A kitchen table, crockery, cutlery, an iron, an ironing board, lampshades and curtains were amongst the items I had already bought. The living room was still completely bare, exactly as my ex-partner had left it. Until now, I had had neither the time nor the money to even start replacing its former contents. If I was now not going to be paid at all for my work for KISS FM in January, another broken promise, I would certainly not have the means to buy the remaining household essentials.

[Excerpts from ‘KISS FM: From Radical Radio To Big Business: The Inside Story Of A London Pirate Radio Station’s Path To Success’ by Grant Goddard, Radio Books, 2011, 528 pages]

POSTSCRIPT:

Weeks later, I received a letter from my landlord concerning its planned renovations to the block of flats. I went into what remained of my home office to check the appropriate suspended file in my four-drawer filing cabinet, only to find it was empty. My girlfriend must have taken the rental contract with her. But why? It was I who had found the flat advertised in the ‘Willesden Chronicle’, I who had made an appointment with the landlord, I who had been interviewed, I who had provided references and I who had signed the contract. Just when I needed to check the fine print of MY document, it had been stolen away.

One Saturday, I walked into a record shop in Harrow and found my former girlfriend there, casually checking out albums. Although I remained so angry about her behaviour that I could have balled her out, I realised that my immediate priority must be to respond appropriately to the landlord’s letter. I asked her why she had stolen the rental contract, explained that I needed it for urgent correspondence with the landlord and asked her to return it. She refused point blank. All I could do was storm off.

One weekday evening, I returned from work by London Underground and, alighting at West Harrow station, I spied my former girlfriend disembark from the same train ahead of me on the platform. I followed her at a distance as she walked out the station and entered the front door of a large Georgian terraced house on Vaughan Road only a short distance away. It made me wonder if her secret plan all along had been to persuade her wealthy parents to buy this house for her and her new teenage lover so that she could then fill it with the household items stolen from the flat we had shared. She seemed to have been leading like a gypsy queen in a fairytale.

For a very long time, her betrayal shook my trust in people to the foundation. Neither was this the first such occasion. After a similarly lengthy relationship during my early 20’s in Durham, my then girlfriend had woken up one morning and announced unexpectedly and without explanation that she would be moving out of our shared home [see blog]. You begin to question whether there must be something wrong with you when your partners repeatedly and unexpectedly desert you.

The scarily personal aspect of my latest girlfriend’s actions was that their cruelty copied so precisely the blueprint of betrayal and inexplicably hateful revenge inflicted upon me by my own father seventeen years previously. He had walked out on his family when I was fourteen to shack up with a teenage girlfriend, leaving my mother to raise three children on her own [see blog]. Not only did he sever all links with his offspring, he then refused to pay for our upkeep and celebrated my sixteenth birthday by convincing Farnham court that day that my maintenance payment be reduced to £1 per year [see blog]. Not only did he starve his family financially, he repeatedly broke into our home and took away almost everything we owned [see blog]. Until the day he died, I never forgave him for stealing my treasured vinyl records purchased with pocket money. You try and recover from such a betrayal … and then the same thing happens all over again.

Girl, there’s a star in the book of liars by your name.

[Originally published at https://peoplelikeyoudontworkinradio.blogspot.com/2025/12/i-did-not-think-girl-could-be-so-cruel.html ]