Alan Dell created and hosted his half-hour Dance Band Days shows in 1969, featuring British dance bands of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, initially on BBC Radio 1, but shortly thereafter moving to the more suitable Radio 2. He continued to broadcast on Monday evenings until shortly before his death in 1995, when Malcolm Laycock took over the programme.

These programmes were recorded off-air from FM broadcasts, and originate from my own and others’ archive tapes. Most of the shows are complete and dated, but regrettably a few are cut off either at the beginning or the end due to the vagaries of automatic recording timers of the day, and some were taped without noting the broadcast date.

This is an ongoing project to present as many of Alan Dell’s shows as possible: if you can help with recordings that aren’t on this website, or if you have complete shows for those which are incomplete, please do get in touch!

While every effort has been made to remove any extraneous FM interference, inevitably some remains on occasion.

These shows will be posted as often as I have new editions processed and playlisted. It’s a surprisingly long process from tape (reel-to-reel and cassette) to web-page, and now that I have a team of volunteers to produce the playlists, I’m only posting when these are received. There’s always room for more volunteers, though, so if you can spare some time to listen and write down details of what Alan programmed, please do contact me.

My most sincere thanks to the following contributors and assistants – in no particular order: Bob Sanders, Anthony Middleton, Peter Wallace, Robin Cherry, Mark Alexander, David Small, John Rogers, Geoff Hunt, Alan Bond, Ray Frost, Mark Spry, Daniel Goldberg and the late Danny Read.

Please note that these are intended for personal enjoyment only and may not be sold or copied for redistribution of any kind. Copyright remains with the BBC.