Tony Blackburn

Anthony Kenneth Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey, singer and TV presenter. He first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC, on the BBC Light Programme. He was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 at its launch, on 30 September 1967, and has had several stints working for the corporation. He has also worked for Capital London and Classic Gold Digital, and currently BBC Radio 2, BBC Local Radio, and British Forces Broadcasting Service. He has also had a singing career.

In 2002 Blackburn was the first winner of the British reality TV series '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!''

Early life

Blackburn was born in Guildford, Surrey, on 29 January 1943, but in 1946 his family moved to Bournemouth, then in Hampshire, where his youngest sister, Jacqueline, was born. His sister was born suffering from polio and was unable to walk since birth. Blackburn's father, Kenneth Fleming Blackburn, was a GP and his mother, Pauline Cubitt (née Stone), was a nurse. He was educated at Castle Court School in Parkstone, Poole, Dorset. He gained entry to Millfield in Somerset on a sports scholarship and captained the school's cricket team.

He left before taking any examinations, but gained O-levels following private tuition, and enrolled for an HND course in Business Studies at Bournemouth Technical College.

Career

Early career as disc jockey

After beginning his career as a singer, Blackburn then worked as a DJ for the offshore pirate radio stations Radio Caroline and Radio London (1964–1967), before joining the BBC in 1967, initially broadcasting on the BBC Light Programme.

After a simulcast with BBC Radio 2 hosted by Paul Hollingdale, Blackburn was the first DJ to be heard on BBC Radio 1 when it officially launched at 7 am on 30 September 1967, with his first words on the new station being "And good morning everyone! Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1!" The Move's "Flowers in the Rain" was the first complete record he played. Blackburn recalled in 2014: "My job was to entertain and tell corny jokes, not have opinions or talk politics. If I wanted to wish the Queen a happy birthday, I had to get clearance from above." Throughout his Radio 1 career Blackburn often employed an audio clip of a barking dog, "Arnold", which he had previously used at Radio Caroline and Radio London.

At first he was associated mainly with mainstream pop, but he later championed soul music. It was largely due to him that " I'm Still Waiting" by Diana Ross, which was initially just an album track, was released as a single in the UK in 1971 and reached number one. He was a regular host of ''Top of the Pops'' for a decade until 1979 and he appeared with fellow DJ's Noel Edmonds and Kenny Everett on the 500th anniversary show where he performed the spoken part of " Won't Somebody Dance with Me" and then danced with singer Lynsey de Paul. In 1968, he fronted his own show, ''Time For Blackburn'', produced by Southern Television for the ITV network. "The Radio 1 DJs were a massive attraction. We were mobbed everywhere we went", Blackburn told Simon Hattenstone, referring to personal appearances. "It was all a bit mad, but great fun", he told Judith Woods in 2014. We "were built up to be stars in our own right, and as a result we were as famous as the artists we played."

In 1973, when his pantomime performance was interrupted by a power cut, he said the miners should "go back to work". He was admonished by management and taken off-air for two weeks. In an interview for the Radio Academy's ''Radio Talk'' podcast in 2013, Blackburn said that it is "not advisable" for a broadcaster to reveal their political allegiances. In this interview, he said that he is "not a great lover of the TUC or of unions ... but I keep it to myself now."

Singing career

He was in a group called Tony Blackburn and the Rovers which at one point included Al Stewart; they performed in Bournemouth and the surrounding areas. His singing career failed to take off, although three studio albums and fourteen singles were released, of which two, "So Much Love" and "It's Only Love", made the UK Top 40 in 1968 and 1969 respectively. "So much Love" suffered from a shortage of copies because "the pressing plant went on strike, so nobody could get the record", he once recalled. "I don't think the strike was anything to do with the record, though it might have been... quality control or something." As the years progressed he spent less time making his own music and concentrated on radio work, by the end of the 1970s he had stopped singing altogether.

In 1972 he released a self-titled album on the RCA label. Two of the tracks were released as singles: "Chop Chop", written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, and "House of Cards", written by Lynsey de Paul and Barry Green. His version of Doris Troy's "I'll Do Anything" was recorded in 1969 for his second album, ''Tony Blackburn'', which was released on Polydor label. This version of the Gamble and Huff song was re-discovered by Northern soul fans when it was pressed up as a white label and became a hit on the scene's dancefloors. The single was re-released as a single under the pseudonym Lenny Gamble on Casino Classics in June 1978, with the pseudonym being a portmanteau of songwriters Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble. Blackburn was allegedly furious when Noel Edmonds revealed the alias on air. Nevertheless, Blackburn and Edmonds became close friends. All of Blackburn's singles, including "I'll Do Anything" and "House of Cards" were released in 2012 on a CD compilation album ''The Singles Collection 1965–1980'' on the Cherry Red label.

From 1973 to 1984

In June 1973, he took over Jimmy Young's mid-morning slot when Young moved across to Radio 2, where he introduced " The Golden Hour". The feature was to prove durable, being carried on by Simon Bates, Simon Mayo, and Chris Moyles when they subsequently took over that time slot.

Over several years of the 1970s, Blackburn was a co-presenter on the BBC
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