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.
It was with great sadness I heard on Sunday of the death of Brian Matthew, one of the voices of my youth and, through the BBC Radio 2 programme Sounds of the Sixties, also of my recent adulthood.
Despite his apparent dismay at a crass decision by the powers that be to replace him, and his stated intention to make further programmes for Radio 2, Mathew was obviously not as hale and hearty as he once was (none of us are.) There had been another lengthy absence from the programme a couple of years ago so the final news was merely a confirmation of what I had feared.
Whatever, Sounds of the Sixties is not – and never can be – the same without him. The new incumbent, Tony Blackburn, is far too chatty (what is all that stuff with Dermot O’Leary, who follows him on air? Just play the music and give us the information about the acts) and always sounds fundamentally unserious about the show’s contents. It’s Blackburn’s style and has always been his style but it grates somehow.
So. Here is the tune that will forever now be associated with Matthew – the one with which Sounds of the Sixties played (and plays) out every episode and which I will never in future be able to hear without a further tinge of sadness.
Regular readers will know I occasionally mention the Radio 2 programme Sounds of the Sixties.
Barring two minor interludes when he was unwell, for all the time I’ve been listening to it – many years now – it has been compered by Brian Matthew, a well-known voice from the Light Programme of my youth. In fact he has introduced the show for 27 years.
Recently he has been absent for a span of time during which Tim Rice filled in. I was pleased when I learned on 18/2/17 that Matthew was set to return – as he did last Saturday, the 25th.
This turned out to be a temporary reprieve as Saturday’s episode was valedictory and Matthew informed us it would be his last ever Sounds of the Sixties.
Fair enough, Matthew is not a young man any more. I wish him well in his (part) retirement. I say part as he did say he would be introducing other Radio 2 shows from time to time in the future. But I’ll miss him.
The good lady and I speculated on who might or could replace him – neither of us thought Tim Rice had quite the timbre of voice for it – whether a star of the 60s or the only other DJ from that time presumably available (Johnnie Walker already ensconced in the Sounds of the Seventies seat) Tony Blackburn.
All was revealed in a trailer I heard on Sunday. It’s to be Blackburn. I suppose it’s the obvious choice. The show will feel very different, though. Blackburn does not have the gravitas that Matthew has.
Another change is that Sounds of the Sixties will now be aired at 6.00 am rather than 8.00 am as previously. That’ll be me listening on catch-up then.
If any of you still hanker after Matthew and his style that last show is available on the iPlayer for another three weeks or so.
A few days ago it was Raphael Ravenscroft, now Alvin Stardust. In the words of another 70s song, “They’re dropping down like flies, man.”
I don’t remember Alvin Stardust’s first pop incarnation. (Apparently on his comeback, Tony Blackburn – who has a running joke with Graham Norton that he still hasn’t been arrested – bumped into him backstage on Top of the Pops one week and said to him, “Didn’t you used to be Shane Fenton?) I’d heard the name but couldn’t put a tune or face to it.
I do, though, remember the 1970s records and leather clad appearances on TV – complete with outrageous size ring worn outside his glove – and thought he was rather sending up the rock hard man schtick.
I haven’t opted for either of his two big hits, Jealous Mind nor My Coo Ca Choo, though.
Alvin Stardust: Red Dress
Bernard William Jewry – aka Shane Fenton; aka Alvin Stardust. 27/9/1942 – 23/10/2014. So it goes.
