Andy Richards

Release Date: July 26, 2013

Andy “DJ Andy Richards” Turtill

The Embassy has always resonated with me! Like many others I was just a teenager in the 70s when I started to visit Woods, The Town House and the Embassy, however I have never been content to just be a spectator – from an early age I would organise football matches, then went on to create a football team the “Dunthorne Colts”, later it was to be darts competitions – music though has always been in my soul if you pardon the pun!, so at the tender age of 17 I started buying music and set about hiring myself out for discos and similar events nothing as grand as Mr Toast or Cloud Nine but I was out there!

Over the years I have built up an impressive collection of equipment and CDs and LPS – mainly soul and smooth jazz – but I’ll play anything!

My all-time hero of the airwaves is Robbie Vincent – I started listening to him on Radio One back in the day! Now I tune in to Jazz FM on a Sunday I inspiration also comes from Kenny G, George Benson, Roy Ayres and, of course, Luther Vandross.

In 2009 I was instrumental in resurrecting the Embassy, in the original building, now a Chinese restaurant, and since then along with Chaz J brought the Embassy it into the 21st century as a Soul Weekender at the Marks Tey Hotel, still with some of the original DJs.

Over the years I have played many venues – not least over in the Caribbean at the Grown & Sexy Week – but my ambition is to run a Soul Holiday Week in Cyprus -so watch this space!

Recently I was asked to join Soul City Grooves Radio – something new for me (computers have never been my strong point but hey – you are never too old to learn!) now they have merged with Cruise FM and I run my Timeless Soul Show on Tuesday nights 22:00 – 24:00, playing all my favourite tracks, giving me the chance to unearth all those CDs and LPs I bought eons ago, what’s not to love?! – and the rest, as they say, is history.