11:42am
Charlotte Hawkins says Strictly has 'lost its sparkle' after Brendan Cole sacking
31 Jan 2018
11:31am
On this day in 1606: Guy Fawkes,http://www.crimescenejournal.com/vanilla/discussion/128988/cheap-jordans-online-store-kicksokokcheapjordanshoesfreeshipping.com/bolg, treasonous plotter, is executed in Westminster
Premium
11:30am
Watch Virgin Atlantic transform old Air Berlin aircraft – complete with new business-class 'Love Suites'
31 Jan 2018
11:26am
Glee cast members criticised for paying tribute to Mark Salling,
cheap retro jordans,http://www.vivasanvivat.ru/news/2015-04-28-solnechnyi-ozhog-ili-zagar-bez-problem.html#comment-58121cheapjordanshoesfreeshipping.com/bolg, late actor who pled guilty in child porn case
31 Jan 2018
11:09am
'Top secret' Australian papers found in secondhand shop include reports on previous embarrassing security lapses
31 Jan 2018
10:49am
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Sweden: Royal couple discuss mental health at Stockholm research centre
31 Jan 2018
10:48am
Eight million broadband customers overcharged as providers keep quiet when contracts expire
31 Jan 2018
10:20am
Deadly fentanyl behind America's dramatic doubling of synthetic opioid death rates
31 Jan 2018
9:53am
Valentine's Day 2018: Why Cupid and the heart are associated with love
Premium
9:42am
'Emotional support peacock' turned away from United Airlines flight
01:33
9:41am
Could JFK's grand-nephew Joe bring the Kennedys back to the White House?
Premium
9:31am
How popular is Donald Trump? Latest polls, approval ratings and impeachment odds
Premium
9:19am
Dave the cat banned from local shop after 13 years because of complaint from anonymous customer
31 Jan 2018
9:12am
Sydney seaplane took 'totally inexplicable' turn before crash that killed five Britons, investigators reveal
31 Jan 2018
8:51am
Government minister suggests Brexit could be reversed if gloomy economic forecasts are 'anywhere near right'
31 Jan 2018
8:26am
Glee star Mark Salling found dead in suspected suicide
Gallery
Gallery:
Pictures of the Day: 31 January 2018
31 Jan 2018
Comment:
The BBC thinks podcasts are the future – but do listeners agree?
Pete Naughton
6:58am
Donald Trump reveals in State of the Union that he has signed an executive order to keep Guantanamo Bay open
02:31
6:43am
Fact-checking website crashes during Donald Trump's State of the Union address
02:31
6:24am
State of the Union address: Donald Trump calls for 'new American moment' in bid to unite country
Contact us
In February last year, the
BBC sacked
Tony Blackburn. The corporation’s longest serving DJ, who was the first voice ever heard on Radio 1, was given his marching orders after the director general, Tony Hall,
jordan shoes, declared himself unhappy with the way Blackburn had behaved during the inquiry into Jimmy Savile.
"My interpretation is that Tony Blackburn fell short of the standards of evidence that such an inquiry demanded," Hall told a news conference,
Kicksokok.com, gravely. But Blackburn wasn’t prepared to go quietly. Instead, the normally chirpy presenter issued a furious statement,
cheap jordans free shipping, accusing the BBC of trying to cover up its negligence during the years that Savile roamed its premises and announcing he was taking legal action over his dismissal.
“Sadly what is happening to me now seems to be entirely in keeping with the past BBC culture of whitewash and cover-up,” he said. “[They] have decided to make me a scapegoat. I will not allow them to destroy my reputation.”
Radio 1 DJs pose for a group photograph outside Broadcasting House in 1967. Blackburn is standing at the back on the far left
Credit: Robert Stiggins
The row centred on one thorny issue: a meeting Blackburn was meant to have had in 1971 about an allegation - later withdrawn - that he had seduced a 15-year-old member of the Top of the Pops audience.
The BBC swore the meeting between Blackburn and a senior executive and a lawyer had taken place. Blackburn swore just as vehemently that it hadn’t. The BBC's claim implied that it had historically taken complaints of this nature seriously; Blackburn's implied that it hadn't and that presenters in the 1970s (and beyond) were regarded as untouchable.
There was never any suggestion that the 15-year-old’s allegation was true. In fact, the inquiry, carried out by Dame Janet Smith, did not accuse him of any misconduct. The girl, Claire McAlpine, tragically took her own life a few months after making her allegation, but neither a coroner’s inquest or a subsequent police inquiry attributed any blame to Blackburn.
The whole episode was unfortunate and a messy end to an otherwise good relationship between Blackburn and the BBC.
But what is this? Spool forward 12 months and the DJ is back, presenting two shows on Radio 2 - Sounds of the Sixties on Saturday mornings and Tony Blackburn’s Golden Hour on Friday evenings - and two other programmes on BBC Radio London and BBC Radio Berkshire.
What on earth happened? I have already been told by Blackburn’s agent that his client will not be able to comment, but, when I meet him at Wogan House, the home of Radio 2 in central London, I ask anyway.
Is there anything he wants to say about the inquiry into the Savile period?
He smiles apologetically, shakes his head. "No."
His dispute with the BBC? ‘No."
The BBC, too has issued a statement saying it will not comment. But, we can perhaps draw our own conclusions about who was in the right from the fact that Blackburn is back behind a microphone, doing what he does best. And it is obvious, whatever his opinion of the top brass, that the DJ is thrilled.
“Everybody wants to work for the BBC,” he says. “It’s the height of the profession. Especially Radio 2. I absolutely adore it here.”
Blackburn at home, after it was announced that he was to rejoin the BBC in 2016
His job on Sounds of the Sixties - one of Radio 2's most popular programmes - started two weeks ago, following the departure of 88-year-old Brian Matthew, who had presented the show for 27 years. Matthew had apparently not wanted to go. And a new, earlier time slot for the programme has annoyed some fans.
“The scheduling is, unfortunately, not up to me,’ says Blackburn. “I know listeners will miss Brian, but I hope they will come to think that I was the right man to replace him. After all, it’s my era and I can’t mess it up too much because the music’s so good. There’s still a huge appetite for it.”
In addition to his shows on the BBC, Blackburn also presents programmes on Thames Radio, Dragon Radio, KMFM and the Bauer/City network, which goes to 17 stations in Scotland and the north of England, all of which stayed on air during his temporary absence from the BBC.
You could, I point out, listen to Blackburn for a total of 18 hours from Friday to Sunday.
He smiles. "And I hope people do! I suppose I am a workaholic. I just absolutely love radio. I programme all of these shows so I spend a lot of time working out the records that I’m going to play. I usually spend all day on Monday listening to new music, mostly soul music which is my big passion."
So what does he do with himself in those few hours when he’s not working?
"I lead a very simple life," he says. "I’m not much of a drinker. I’m not one for showbusiness parties. I like being at home with my wife. I listen to a lot of music and I watch a lot of TV."
Blackburn won the first series of ITV's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2002
He is a news junkie and never misses Newsnight. For the record, he supports
Brexit but can see Remain’s point of view.
He currently loves Celebrity Carry On Barging ("absolutely hilarious" - Blackburn says "absolutely" a lot) but his favourite show is Coronation Street, which he has followed since it began.
"I came home from holiday recently and I was 12 episodes behind. I didn’t have time to watch them and the number crept up to 16 and people were actually beginning to tell me what had happened,
cheap jordans," he says,
cheap air jordans, a note of alarm in his voice. "I ended up watching 18 episodes back to back because I had to catch up."
His only remaining ambition is to appear on the show: "I’d like to just be sitting in the Rover’s Return, drinking a pint." His agent put out feelers but Corrie executives pointed out,
cheap wholesale jordans, quite reasonably, that viewers would wonder what Tony Blackburn was doing in the pub.
He might not be quite the superstar DJ he was in the days of Radio 1’s pomp, when his shows commanded audiences of 20 million, but he is still instantly recognisable,http://www.mapsxm.com/search/node/cheapjordanshoesfreeshipping.com/bolg,
jordans for cheap, despite the fact that he is now - his own description - "a decrepit mess".
View more!
His radio persona is eccentric, that of a self-deprecating narcissist. He pretends to think himself amazing but the pay-off to most stories is a gag at his own expense.
His daftness on air has meant that his technical skill and genuine passion for music are sometimes forgotten but he has two Radio Academy lifetime achievement gold awards and is respected by his industry peers.
Stuart Maconie says: "I've always thought he was unfairly mocked by people like [John] Peel and by dreary music snobs because he liked pop. He was a massive champion of black music too, which I like him for." Another presenter regards him as "the head boy of DJs".
Even Peel himself, who affected to think Blackburn "the antichrist", grudgingly admitted on his This Is Your Life that he actually liked him.
Off air, Blackburn is far less bumptious than his DJ schtick suggests; quieter, diffident almost.
"My first autobiography was called The Living Legend," he recalls. "It was meant to be a joke. Everything I do is meant to be a joke."
When comedians Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse introduced their parody DJ characters, the cheesy Smashie and Nicey, who endlessly played Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, some presenters didn’t see the funny side. Blackburn did.
Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as DJs Smashie and Nicey at the Brit Awards in 1993. The character of Mike Smash was based loosely on Blackburn
"Adored it. Absolutely loved it," he says, sounding not unlike Whitehouse’s character, Mike Smash, which was loosely based on him. "I think when you take yourself seriously, that’s when you have a problem."
His trademark relentless cheeriness has only once failed him. When his 1972 marriage to actress Tessa Wyatt broke down four years later, so did he.
He poured his heart out on his show, endlessly playing lachrymose numbers such as Chicago’s If You Leave Me Now. It now seems extraordinary that no executive or colleague took him aside to have a word.
"They should have done," says Blackburn. "I really wasn’t aware I was going on about it too much but I was and it was stupid."
He undoubtedly has an obsessive trait. ‘When I lived by myself, in the 17 years between my marriages [he married his second wife Debbie in 1992], I used to have the same thing to eat every day - lentil soup and processed peas,’ he says.
He never entertained the notion of, say, cream of tomato or maybe winter vegetable?
"Not really, no." He laughs. "I know it makes me sound mad but it’s true."
In 1984, his Radio 1 contract was not renewed and he worked in local radio for years before joining Radio 2, now the nation’s most popular station, in 2010. And after the recent contretemps, his star is once again ascendant. He is the only one of the 23 presenters in the 1967 Radio 1 and 2 launch picture still broadcasting for a national BBC station.
‘I’ve been very lucky,’ he says. ‘God, I’ve had a wonderful time. I couldn’t complain about anything.’
After our interview, he ambles off down the corridor to do his Friday evening show.
Quarter of an hour in, he plays a very familiar record.
"Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Smashie and Nicey always used to do that didn’t they?" he says as the song fades out. His voice becomes infinitesimally more Tony Blackburn-ish: "And right now - You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet."
He’s doing an impression of Smashie doing an impression of him. He sniggers. He’s absolutely loving it.
Sounds of the Sixties is on Radio 2 on Saturdays between 6am and 8am
View more!
