M People

I would dearly love to see one televised athletics programme that doesn't have Heather Small telling us to "Search for the hero" or posing the ludicrous question: "What have you done today to make you feel proud."

I don't know, Heatherwhy ask us? It's your song. What have you done?

Well, she has just released an album reviewed elsewhere which seems certain to catapult her back to the top of the we-are-adults-now-so-we-will-listen-to-any-old-tosh genre. I have a recurring dream. I stand in a large, strange room where Chris De Burgh, Mick Hucknall and Heather Small are trying to bore each other to death (De Burgh wins by a noseor an eyebrow).

Well, each to their own, I suppose and I know that many Warrington folk will be drifting down to the MEN Arena later this year to catch Heather in concert and I have no doubt that they will enjoy a supremely professional show.

Fair enough, but whenever an M People track drips like syrup from my radio speakers, my mind is immediately sent scuttling back 23 years, to a scorching July in New York, where myself and Hacienda booker Mike Pickering would be indulging in far too many melonball cocktails and discussing how to introduce hard dance music and house to the British mainstream charts.

Mike was something of an expert. He knew every little scuttling break dance ensemble on Chicago pavement and, a musician himself, he would infuse eclectic and exotic beats into his own band, Quando Quango. A great little band they were too, with Pickering sending blistering sax solos across repetitive world beats. Mike, one of the most unpretentious musicians I have ever known, found his happiest state downing pints while chatting about the merits of Man City. His musical career had started in Sheffield where, alongside fellow Stockport muso Martyn Fry later of ABC he would form Vice Versa. He also still claims to have been the first punk in Stockport although I would challenge him on that score.

More famously, Mike's introduction to Factory Records came after he had been chased through the streets of Nottingham by blood lusting Forest fans. Diving into the safety of a handy garden, he looked up to find a fellow City fanJoy Division manager Rob Gretton.

In New York, Mike Pickering told me: "There is a tremendous energy hereand in Chicago and other cities. But it's not in the rock clubsit's on the sidewalksall around. Record companies aren't seeing it at all, especially not in Britain. But if we can tap into it and forge a link with The Haciendait could just explode."

And so it happened. Pickering brought Chicago house and hip-hop directly to that previously deserted Hacienda dance floor. This was the source and soul of Madchester.

However, for Pickering himself to evolve from eclectic DJ to the main song writing force behind the gargantuan and profoundly mainstream act M People simply defied belief. The transformation came through a series of Pickering bands Quando Quango, T-Coy, M People and an increasingly powerful link with record companies. Pickering didn't see it as a softening to successbut that's exactly what happened. From sidewalk to cocktail lounge, from Chicago beat box to Scunthorpe living room.

Mike Pickering is no longer working with Heather Small. He is, however, still immersed in the music business, working as A&R at Columbia. Maybe his new level of influence, all the more powerful given that he is a multi-million selling artists, will give him space to bring fresh, original talent to public attention (get your CD's down there now!). That, I sense, has always been his true passion.

Finally, a sombre note. Last week saw the death of World of Twist front man, Tony Ogden. An idiosyncratic talent with a touch of genius, their version of She's A Rainbow succeeded in eclipsing the Jagger/Richards original. He should have been a major forcebut Tony and the band deserve a special place, anyway.