It was announced on Hogmanay that DJ Johnnie Walker has died. He was one of the original pirate DJs and eventually joined the BBC when the pirate radio became untenable.

I remember listening to his lunchtime show on Radio 1 back in the day, indeed it was on that show I first heard Barclay James Harvest’s I’m Over You, one of my favourites of that band’s songs.

He was too much of a rebel to last at the BBC and moved to the US for a few years.

When he eventually came back to the UK he finally settled in at Radio 2 with the show Sounds of the Seventies, taking over as presenter from Steve Harley and also took the helm of The Rock Show. He had a short stint presenting Sounds of the Sixties in the aftermath of Brian Mathhew’s departure from that show before Tony Blackburn took over the slot. His increasing health problems saw him give up broadcasting only a few months ago.

His voice is missed.

This Duane Eddy track was so beloved by Walker that it became his signature tune. No excuses for featuring it again:-

Duane Eddy: Because They’re Young

Peter Waters Dingley (Johnnie Walker;) 30/3/1945 – 31/12/2024. So it goes.

As I mentioned last week, Duane Eddy, the man who inspired so many electric guitarists of the 1960s, has died. He conjured a distinctive twang from his instrument.

This 1959 track, Peter Gunn, written by Henry Mancini for a TV series, might have been the inspiration for the theme tunes of all those 1960s spy movies. It certainly suited Eddy’s style.

Duane Eddy: Peter Gunn

DJ Johnnie Walker loved Eddy’s tune Because They’re Young (1960) so much that it became Walker’s signature tune.

Duane Eddy: Because They’re Young

But it is perhaps this track which is most appropriate for this post.

Duane Eddy: Dance (with the Guitar Man)

Duane Eddy: 26/4/1938 – 30/4/2024. So it goes.