A paean to Mary Ann Hobbs

As some of you may know, I am a huge fan of Mary Ann Hobbs who is a presenter on BBC 6 music, and who is, in my opinion, the best radio presenter across any of the stations. There are two reasons for this, primarily.

Firstly, she has a perfect radio voice - smooth and silky, listening to her is like been hugged, and have her talk to you personally, individually. What is more, she never gets flustered, or at least, it never shows. Actually, I first saw her at Sonar last year, where she did get flustered because her headphones broke, but on air, she never shows any signs of being disturbed. She is a really calming voice on the radio.

But the real reason that she is always worth listening to is that her selection and range of music is quite astounding.She is probably the only person who could get away with playing Sonn 0)) on generalist, national radio. However, she also played, in the same show, near-classical piano pieces, and fairly well-know commercial music.

It was most interesting to hear her on Radio 3 - where she used her style, her knowledge, her understanding of music within a very different style and form of music. Even though I may not listen to radio 3 for anything else, she was superb in the first episode, and will, I am sure, be also superb in the second. It is all relevant, whatever your style of music, because it is all music, some of which is good, some of which is not.

The thing is, so many people have such a limited range of music - church people are probably the worst. This is the Pandora approach to music - the make-it-yourself radio site, where you entered your favorite song (or a typical or enjoyable piece), and the system would select other pieces that were similar in style and sound. Then you could mark up or down the tunes based on whether they had picked up on the right aspects of your selection, meaning that you could tailor your music selection to be just right. You could narrow down the selection to be just what you like.

The problem is that you can end up with very bland, very samey music.This is the process that seems to affect most churches with musical selection - the most vocal people vote up or down, and you end up with the bland, the inoffensive, effectively one sound repeated endlessly.

Mary Ann does not suffer from this. I might not like every piece played, but that is fine - someone does. And it will change again, and something I really relate to will probably be on next. She also treats each piece with huge respect - it is not about music being the chance to relax between the important talkie bits. The music is the crucial pieces, and the talking, the introductions are about helping people to appreciate the selection better. She does not just pick the most well known version of song - she constantly amazes me by knowing a John Peel session version of a piece that is different and (often) better than the well known version. It is a careful selection, done with passion and belief, and presented with excitement and care. It shows huge respect for both the music and the listeners.

The respect for her listeners is also shown in that she never patronises us. There is an assumption that we will know all of the musicians and groups that she talks about (or that we can go and find out). She never explains stuff that is easy to find out, or that we should know. She does explain stuff that is not easy or obvious. So I, as a listener, feel respected.

In the end, that is what I appreciate about her shows. She cares about the music, and she cares about her listeners, but expects them to appreciate the selections. She demands, calmly, that you listen, and try to appreciate - that you have an open mind, appreciate the music for what it is.

Much of my experience of church music, on the contrary, is of people who want a good sing-along session, with little appreciation of music for itself, little open-mindedness about styles. It is sad, to me, that so many musicians give so much for so little appreciation.

So on Sunday mornings, I prefer Mary Ann, and her musical appreciation.