Tony Blackburn: Escaping school, life at sea and landing the biggest job in radio
Full Disclosure with James O'Brien
Global
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2024
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Radio legend Tony Blackburn has spent the past 60 years entertaining listeners with his cheeky charm and passion for soul music.
His journey in broadcasting began in 1964 on the offshore pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London. Just three years later, he made history as the first DJ to be heard on BBC Radio 1, launching the station with his exciting new music show.
Tony quickly became a household name, hosting iconic shows like Top of the Pops, the Top 40 and Capital Gold's award-winning Breakfast Show. In 2015 he made history again, becoming the first person to receive two Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Radio Academy. Still going strong, he continues to entertain on the airwaves, with no plans to hang up his headphones just yet...
Tickets for his UK tour, Sounds of the Sixties, are available here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Cold mornings, grey skies, and the holidays are but a distant memory. |
| 0:05.1 | Halford's Big Sale is here to perk you up, with up to 50% off on tools, in-car tech, car cleaning, adult bikes, and much more. |
| 0:14.2 | You can tackle winter head-on and prepare for warmer days. |
| 0:18.2 | Visit Halford's online today and keep on moving for less. |
| 0:22.4 | Halford's big sale is live across selected retail products online at Halifers.com |
| 0:25.9 | and in stores subject to availability. |
| 0:27.6 | Full T&C supply, see Halifest.com for details. |
| 0:32.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:42.7 | Music Global Player Original podcast. Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project conceived entirely to let me spend more time with interesting people than I would ever get in a radio studio. |
| 0:51.9 | Although it occurs to me, Tony Blackburn, that nobody has spent |
| 0:55.0 | more time at a radio studio than you. And you said interesting people. So what am I doing here? |
| 0:59.7 | No, don't be silly. I mean it. Sixty years you celebrated in July of this year in the business, |
| 1:06.4 | almost all of which has been spent behind a microphone. Yeah, I mean, I started down in Bournemouth. |
| 1:11.9 | I actually did have an education. |
| 1:14.6 | I've got a high in the diploma in business studies, believe it or not, |
| 1:17.8 | but I never wanted to go into that. |
| 1:19.4 | I started in Bournemouth, the Bournemouth Pavilion, |
| 1:22.8 | as a singer and guitarist with a 15-piece band. |
| 1:27.1 | And I loved it. I was in the ballroom there and actually |
| 1:29.6 | we're going back to the pavilion ballroom with the sound of the 60s theatre show that I'm |
| 1:34.0 | talking about. That's lovely. Yeah, I'm going back to where I started and I was in the |
| 1:39.2 | ballroom and I always wanted to be in the theatre and it's taken a long time. But at last week |
... |
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