Most of the content that Tony introduced in his first two years on Caroline WERE innovative. I think he anglicised commercial radio AND pop radio presentation from the worst of American delivery, for the UK. Categorising various kinds of music by genre is something we had never heard before - he and a small hard core of DJs on Caroline South were responsible for that. Most of all he added pace to the delivery - even Caroline was very "laid back:" before Tony joined. Before Tony, it was mostly a bunch of old luvvies (most were resting actors, darling!) playing show tunes, jazz and stuff. Tony took pop and soul to all departs, but especially the breakfast shift. And of course his legendary exercise books full of jokes. That really uplifted the whole sound of the station. And let's not forget he had ago at cutting his own jingles too, being quite a reasonable singer himself in his previous life.
But the sheer dynamism of the guy. . . . he DID make a lot of changes.
I'll stop there, I sound like his fan club. But credit where its due.
Radio IS after-all about entertaining, as you well know Mr K !
Absolutely. Compare with today's Radio 1 where you might have 2 or 3 presenters spending a lot of time talking to each other about themselves rather than playing music (presumably limited by BBC budgets, though they could save some cash by firing the extra presenters). What happened to talking to the listeners? Always good to listen to Tony Blackburn.
The best story I heard whilst working in wireless was when Tony said to a lady at an awards dinner ‘My cock is so big it keeps stealing the rolls off the table!’ fabulous. Probably couldn't say that today.
Most of the content that Tony introduced in his first two years on Caroline WERE innovative. I think he anglicised commercial radio AND pop radio presentation from the worst of American delivery, for the UK. Categorising various kinds of music by genre is something we had never heard before - he and a small hard core of DJs on Caroline South were responsible for that. Most of all he added pace to the delivery - even Caroline was very "laid back:" before Tony joined. Before Tony, it was mostly a bunch of old luvvies (most were resting actors, darling!) playing show tunes, jazz and stuff. Tony took pop and soul to all departs, but especially the breakfast shift. And of course his legendary exercise books full of jokes. That really uplifted the whole sound of the station. And let's not forget he had ago at cutting his own jingles too, being quite a reasonable singer himself in his previous life.
But the sheer dynamism of the guy. . . . he DID make a lot of changes.
I'll stop there, I sound like his fan club. But credit where its due.
Radio IS after-all about entertaining, as you well know Mr K !
Wouldn’t argue with any of that, Paul. Cheers MK
Absolutely. Compare with today's Radio 1 where you might have 2 or 3 presenters spending a lot of time talking to each other about themselves rather than playing music (presumably limited by BBC budgets, though they could save some cash by firing the extra presenters). What happened to talking to the listeners? Always good to listen to Tony Blackburn.
The best story I heard whilst working in wireless was when Tony said to a lady at an awards dinner ‘My cock is so big it keeps stealing the rolls off the table!’ fabulous. Probably couldn't say that today.