When ITV's Stars on Sunday religious series ended, he presented both the Ten Commandments programme and its successor, Songs That Matter, as well as contributing to ATV's weekday Epilogue.
He also acted on stage in Moscow in the 1950s with John Gielgud, and occasionally played flamenco guitar music in a Spanish restaurant in London.
Raven then moved to another pirate station, Radio Invicta, which broadcast from a wartime defence tower on a sandbank in the mouth of the River Thames.
It featured recordings by Texas Alexander, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Gus Cannon, Robert Johnson, Speckled Red, Victoria Spivey, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Boy Williamson, Brownie McGhee, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Elmore James.
The Mike Raven Blues Show debuted on the first day of Radio 1, and was a regular feature, usually on Sunday evenings, until November 1971, eventually expanding to a two-hour slot.
[3][7][8] Raven was regarded as a leading authority on the subject, and the show was highly influential in promoting the music of African American culture within the UK, being described as "essential listening for every self-respecting blues fan".
He then moved to the Amicus production company for I, Monster (1971), and worked with producer Tom Parkinson on Crucible of Terror, in which he played a mad sculptor.
[4][7] He determined not to sell any work until he had enough for an exhibition, but was initially thwarted by the unexpected deaths of two of his sponsors, the critic Peter Fuller and then the artist Christina Hoare.
His first show of sculptures was eventually arranged in Cornwall, but shortly before it was due to open the sponsors pulled out on the grounds that some of the works were in bad taste.