Still so superbad he's super good Twenty years after finding fame with Radio Clyde, Freddie Mack is funking up the airwaves again

''I was born in, uh . . . was it '33 or '34?'' he muses with charming vagueness. Freddie Mack's CV is packed with so many remarkable facts that minor details like birth-dates are easily blurred.

Hapless interviewers can feel similarly hazy after a face-to-face get-together with Freddie Mack. It's like encountering a benign, charismatic version of Freddie's two early inspirations: Floyd Paterson, his Brooklyn boxing buddy, and soul brother number one James Brown. For there's never much opportunity or need to ask Freddie Mack many questions. He talks it like he walks it: unstoppably, whirlwind-style.

Freddie begins our meeting by insisting that just two things are on the coversational menu - his six-month-old Clan FM show and his current mission to establish a Scottish branch of America's Boxing Hall of Fame. ''The past is OK,'' he says, ''but I'm focusing on the young people in Lanarkshire now, helping them get along together, and they don't want to know about the past tense.''

Predictably, though, our chat takes many intriguing historical twists and turns. Few people, after all, can lay claim to a working life that has encompassed Hollywood superstar Liz Taylor, fight legend Henry Cooper, punk icon Johnny Rotten, and smoochy soul maestro Barry White. There's also the small matter of Freddie having been a world-class boxer; the leader of a 15-piece soul band, and the co-star of an Italian cheapo movie called Two Escape From Sing-Sing.

In the beginning, however, there was Floyd Paterson. Freddie Mack first began making something of himself as a boxer in the fifties, sparring with his world champion New York neighbour.

Freddie eventually became a top five light-heavyweight world-title contender himself, before leaving for a two-year spell boxing in Lima, Peru. That preceded four years fighting in Rome, his mother's family home, with notable victories over the Italian and European champions.

With the arrival in Rome of a movie circus starring Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Freddie found himself in Cleopatra, co-opted into being an African slave. ''I'm one of six guys who carry Liz Taylor in on a throne,'' says Freddie. ''They painted me gold, took a month to wash it off.''

Soon afterwards, Freddie Mack re-located to swinging sixties London, where his film career would eventually resume with an appearance as the MC of the Sex Pistols' movie, The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle. A sparring partner for top Brits from Henry Cooper to Billy Walker, Freddie saw his UK boxing career peak in 1965 when he knocked out Scot Chic Calderwood, the latter's only such defeat. Emulating other emigre Americans like Geno Washington, Herbie Goins, and Jimmy James, Freddie next started a soul band, Freddie Mack and the Mack Sound Band.

They became a staple support band, touring with The Who and the Rolling Stones - even accompanying the Stones to Blackpool on the night when angry vacationing Scots in the audience took exception to Mick Jagger's unmanly shimmying and staged a riot. It's not a gig Freddie likes to recall.

But he well remembers supporting Barry White one night, stepping out solo to introduce the Walrus of Love with a few badly-chosen words - and lucking into a new career. ''As MC, I made two mistakes that night,'' admits Freddie.

''First, I say ''Here he is, the biggest hunk o' funk' - and of course Barry White ain't funk. Then I say 'Ladies'n'gentlemen! Billy . . . Barry White!''

Watching from the wings, Barry White was unimpressed. Watching from the stalls, however, was the MD of the K-Tel budget re-issue label. He was impressed by Freddie's sincere on-stage demeanour. ''I told him: 'That was because I didn't know what the hell I was saying' - but he still gave me the job of presenting K-Tel TV ads.''

One of the albums he had to advertise was a collection called Superbad. Hence Freddie Mack's mutation into Mr Superbad, and eventually his accidental arrival as a broadcaster with Radio Clyde.

He'd already become acquainted with Scotland as a boxer, thanks to a Glasgow promoter, the late Peter Keenan. He swiftly put down genuine Scottish family roots, marrying and settling in Lanarkshire.

''One night, I'm the MC in a Glasgow disco, up on the stage, talkin' over the music, boogeyin' - and Andy Park from Radio Clyde says to me: 'What prompted you to do that? People liked it - you didn't know it, but you sent the buzz out. Come and work for me.'

''So I'm there on the radio, trying to get the people together with music, and I can't cool down when I'm playin' records I like . . . I got to dance, and move and wave my hands but the people can't see me doin' all this, so I'll talk and sing. Other radio DJs are readin' out the song title and the writer's name and the publisher, but I can't do that sittin' on my booty thing, being a stand-offish pain in the ass.

''Then it's like Andy Park says: 'Freddie, the day you stop talking over the music is the day you get fired'.''

Freddie Mack is currently ablaze over starting a Scottish Hall of Fame for native boxers. ''I owe it to my wife, Jan. She says: 'We've got to go see Ken Buchanan get inducted into the US Hall of Fame.' I ain't goin' back there, first time in 50 years, I say.

''But she insisted, and all the great champeens come out, and it's fantastic. And Glasgow's had so many great boxers, and boxing's something for the young kids. Keeps 'em fit. Stops 'em gettin' bored, gettin' into drugs an' all.

''Now we've this campaign for the Scots' Hall of Fame, and they make me chairman. Then they stop me bein' chairman, on account I talk too much. So now I'm president, and it's in my heart and I'm on fire about it.''

Just like Mr Superbad is on fire on the radio again every Saturday, ''operatin' outta downtown Mother-wall''. Being defiantly shambolic; playing everything from Howlin' Wolf to The Beatles, with lots of Motown, plus Philly soul and Stax funk.

His air of difference is heartening in an age when every commercial joss-dickey plays the same bland records from the same computer-selected play-list, speaking in the same pretend-American tones and joshing predictably about the same zany snippets from the tabloids. Mr Superbad: he's still so super bad he's super good.

Mr Superbad's Clan FM show rocks the airwaves between 10pm and 1am every Saturday night.

Mack the life

l As well as leading Freddie Mack and the Mack Sound Band, Freddie Mack has acted as the focus of Mr Superbad and the Mighty Super Power Band. The creator of numerous singles and one album, Freddie Mack also recorded one single as Kung Fu Man.

l Freddie Mack's bands in the sixties worked the London R&B/ British beat circuit alongside such notables as Georgie Fame and Chris Farlowe, appearing at semi-legendary venues including the Marquee, the Whiskey A-Go-Go, the Ram Jam Club, and the Flamingo. Of the Mack Sound Band, Freddie recalls: ''They were a solid 10-piece band, with a girl dancer called Honey plus four singers who couldn't sing a lick - but the people sure still loved 'em.''

l Freddie twice had his own record label, Superbad Records in the seventies, and Superbad Productions in the eighties.

l Among a wide range of media jobs, Freddie Mack once hosted STV's Best Disco in Town Show in the seventies and operated as on-site MC for

the duration of the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival.

''I can also say that I was the oldest man to host a disco show at Glasgow's famous Apollo Theatre - and it attracted 1500 people.''