The BBC claim that the production company Unique and Brian “agreed” that it was the right time for him to step down, after a period of ill health (see link), but Brian refutes this, calling it “balderdash” (link in comments). At 88 years old it seems he’s still raring to go.
A damn shame to lose him from the programme, and rather a shoddy way to ditch him, in my opinion.
http://radiotoday.co.uk/2017/01/brian-matthew-leaves-radio-2-sounds-of-the-60s/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/radio-2-takes-horrible-decision-replace-britains-oldest-dj-brian/
Tony Blackburn is an obvious replacement.
Bunch o’ fuckwits, they really are. Brian IS Sounds Of The 60’s, and it is the only radio show that I listen to every week. Tim Rice is OK I must admit, and as for Tony B? I suppose a man has to eat, but I would like to think that I would have told the BBC to GTF if I had been in his shoes after the way they hung him out to dry last year.
Difficult to think of anyone else tho’.
Someone suggested Bob Stanley, which would be a better fit than Tone, but I can’t see him being asked, or indeed accepting after the way Brian has gone.
Bah humbug. That’s what happens when ‘production companies’ get involved…never mind IS the Sound of the 60s, he WAS as well. Until the pirates came along, his on Saturday Club was the only voice bringing you decent music. Those Saturdays when he had the Fabs on playing live were red-letter days, I can tell you. Have I had me dinner?
I like the way he pronounced “Ringo” with a soft g. “Ring-o”!
Do you need the toilet?
Too late.
The staff are stealing my things. I complain but nobody listens.
Our old mate!
Radio 2, always complete shite, Wogan included, completely out of nowhere was suddenly great about 15 years ago (Mark Lamarr’s various shows, terrific documentaries and, of course, Brian)…..so the 60s dodgers changed it…..and it’s now back to being complete shite again (except, of course before today, Brian).
Can’t say I’m surprised, but, if you’ve got shows dedicated to organs and the f***** Ratpack and musicals and easy listening, you are FAR more current in 2017 than the 60s!! Hilarious, isn’t it.
Tim Rice, probably a nice fella (loves cricket, so must be), unfortunately sends me straight to a (60s) record on Saturday morning rather than his show.
The Radio Today article of the first link has now been edited and updated with info from the Telegraph article.
Bring back Desmond Carrington, say I.
I thought Radio 2 died years ago, really must pay more attention.
Must say I’m saddened to see him go. It was a little link to my youth when Saturday Club was the soundtrack to my….er….Saturdays. The restriction of needle time meant that there was plenty of live music, interviews etc.
As an aside, I realised in the 80s that the BBC were potentially sitting on a motherlode of recordings from the 60s from programmes like Saturday club and Easybeat, particularly the Beatles, and they were publicly asking for programme ideas for radio at the time. I wrote to them and suggested archive material would be really interesting. I didn’t get a reply, but a few months later they put out The Beatles At The Beeb….I should have sued….
If it’s true then this is a shambolic way to treat the great man.
Blackburn as a replacement is an awful prospect. Everything about him makes me cringe – he epitomises the Smashy and Nicey generation.
There’s talk of it being moved to a different time slot, where it will no doubt wither and then eventually be shelved for good.
Just heard that the night time broadcasts of Janice Long and Alex Lester have also been axed. Disgraceful. Meanwhile non entities like Steve Wright (“Love the show”) and Chris Evans are no doubt continuing with huge salaries.
Yeah, apparently overnight broadcasts will now be DJ-less “playlists”. Might as well just put Spotify on.
They could call the playlist “Here’s one for all you truckers out there…”
Let’s face it, Radio 2 is no longer for the likes of us konnisewers. It always used to be slanted towards “Civilian” tastes in the past. Now it seems they’re going back to Full Civilian.
6 Music, the millions of Internet Radio “stations” and the better streaming services are the ones aimed at us picky people.
The Dermot O’Leary story beneath the Brian Matthews story on Radio Today suggests that Dermot may be taking over the Saturday morning time slot……
Presumably at that time in the morning, before the caffeine kicks in, he’ll sound even more strangulated and urgent.
When I worked in the power industry, Janice Long & Alex lester were my company on night shift & I thought then & still do now that they were excellent radio presenters.
Give me an hour of Alex Lester to a week of Steve Wright/Vanessa Feltz/Chris Evans.
Wright and Evans are just annoyingly naff. Vanessa Feltz is a horrible, loathsome presenter. Can’t stand even a moment of her at all.
Every so often I get begging letters from a charity about women in the third world who have to empty public latrines with their bare hands. That’s the sort of work Vanessa Feltz should be doing.
Don’t beat about the bush, what do you really think of her?? Because of the 5 hr time difference, Long and Lester would keep me company in the evenings here should I put Radio 2 on, I shall miss that.
Has anyone noticed that every one of those ‘early breakfast’ shows that Vanessa Feltz does is identical? Completely devoid of originality, and so self-satisfied in its own awfulness that she feels the need to recap a ‘potted history of the programme thus far’ half way through every one! Dreadful.
Ayyyyyyye!
Gone are the days (c.1995) of Martin Kelner playing the whole of Abbey Road on a Saturday Afternoon because, never mind the fact that everyone has that album, he liked the idea of thousands of people listening to it at once.
Gone!
The announcement and Mathews subsequent response sounds very reminiscent of a bedenimed guitarist and how “left” his job. We know what happened next.
Once a chance, twice a coincidence….
Who’s next?
Brian Matthew played Pictures of Matchstick Men 467 times.
It’s happened several times before – stalwart national, regional or local radio personality steps down, press kicks up a stink because they like to bash the broadcaster, and then unfortunately the presenter in question passes on within months.
I think the current state of Radio 2 can be traced back to the Brand/Ross affair. Lesley Douglas made the station what it became at the turn of the millennium, hers was the management head that rolled. Now Bob Shennan has turned it to vanilla which sounds like a thousand other stations. The thought process which led to the axing of the night time programming beggars belief -it’s a public service broadcaster, it should provide original content at all hours. Through-the-night playlists appeal to nobody and will reduce the station to sounding like all other commercial stations which, I think, will lead to more calls for the Radio 2 to be privatised.
My own particular axe to grind is that it doesn’t have a regular rock show. The retirement of Desmond Carrington was a great opportunity to revive The Friday Rock Show brand. Instead we get thrown the bone once every six months of Gene Simmons, Brian Johnson or Slash phoning-in the links for six one hour shows featuring ‘Classic Rawk’. Marillion had a Top 5 album last year, Steven Wilson, Opeth etc regularly get in the Top 15, where is UK radio support for artists like that outside specialist DAB and internet stations? How many contemporary jazz or blues artists shift units and tickets in such a number, yet they get an hour every week (not that I’m saying those genres shouldn’t get an hour, by the way).
Those Rock-Celeb presented shows are made by production companies and syndicated to anyone, anywhere in the English-speaking world who’ll pay for them. The Beeb buy them in ready-made and just bung them on the air. No better than the proposed presenterless all night shows, really. Dylan’s “Theme-Time Radio” was a classier version of it. Most of the rest are characterless pap.
The Beeb don’t have enough money left in the budget these days after overpaying the likes of Evans, Wright and Feltz and the corporation’s bloated management structure.
Not that privatisation could ever improve things. You’d get fewer executives but they’d be paying themselves even more for doing even less and there’d be no specialised programming at all. Just lots of computer-generated playlists with occasional inane interjections from hack deejays. Like we get on most local commercial stations.
I didn’t realise that about those syndicated shows, thanks for opening my eyes to it.
At least Johnnie Walker and Bob Harris are still there (for now)
And poor Bob’s non-specialist show got pushed back to later slot, it was excellent driving-home-from-a-gig listening when it started at midnight.
As of a fortnight ago, the Whispering One is back in the midnight to 3 slot.
A new development: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/31/radio-2-invites-brian-matthew-record-goodbye-sounds-60s-avid/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw
Looks like Tone has got the job, then: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-02-10/tony-blackburn-named-new-host-of-radio-2s-sounds-of-the-sixties
With the slot moving to 6-8am. Yikes.
Yeah, but at a new time – 06.00 to 08.00. That’s me out then; 06.00 on a Saturday, no chance!
Indeed, you’ll be out jogging at that time, won’t you? While I’m attending my Early Bird Step Aerobics class.
(Then we wake up from our respective nightmares, into the real-life one of the Dermot O’Leary Breakfast Show.)
Including a spot where we are invited to pause and listen to a religious homily. They really know how to pull the listeners in, don’t they?
Easy enough to listen later via iPlayer.
True, but no more Twitter-based SOTS bingo fun.
I’m up at 6 every Saturday morning, but it’ll be a 50s/60s record I’ll be listening to, not Tony Blackburn.
I can think of a load of better alternatives in 30 seconds…..Joe Brown, Paul Jones, Mark Lamarr (as if!), Johnnie Walker, Sandie Shaw (she stepped in for Brian about 10 years ago), Annie Nightingale, Bob Stanley, David Hepworth…..maybe just alternate it every 6 weeks or so.
Tony Blackburn!
Me? 60s dodgers running radio stations?
Love ’em, but couldn’t eat a whole one.
Well, anyone hear it?
Predictable tracks, DJ talking over tracks, a “bed” (is that the right word) used that was clearly from a later era…I’d be amazed if it’s still going at Christmas. More chance of Arsenal not finishing third.
Two things spring to mind –
1. In pop music, longevity (i.e. Tony Blackburn’s 50+ year career) is absolutely NO indication of actually being any good at something, and,
2. Just who is making the decisions at Radio 2?
Heard some. Blackburn was Blackburn. No surprises in delivery or musical choices.
I occasionally got a little irritated by Brian Matthew, but today brings into focus what a consummate broadcaster he is. He always had a penchant for playing some more obscure stuff, which I think will be lost now.
And as for passing the traditional slot over to Dermot O’Dreary, a broadcaster with all the personality of a vanilla mousse, I despair.
re O´Leary, couldn´t agree more. As someone who missed the rise of the current crop of radio personalities (lived outside UK pre-internet), what was his thing? Now he just seems so unbelievably dull.
Woke up at stupid o’clock, so heard a bit of it (at a low volume). I liked the segment where he brought on Phil ‘The Collector’ Swern, but much of the rest was irritating for the time of day, especially with it now being broadcast live and the resulting exhortations to text, email, etc.
From the ever reliable Popbitch:
Never ones to miss a chance to
clobber the BBC, the Mail and
the Telegraph have been quick
to condemn Radio 2 for dropping
Brian Matthew from the Sound
Of The Sixties – citing it as
yet more proof of the Beeb’s
endemic ageism.
The truth, however, appears to
be slightly more sad. The “ill
health” discussed in the BBC’s
statement is most likely not
a reference to the fall that
Matthew suffered last year,
but a slightly more discreet
way of referring to some of
the other difficulties that
might start to get in the way
of an 88 year-old doing a
regular radio show.
Yet, in attempting to quietly
protect his dignity, the BBC
has left itself open to further
thrashing from the right-wing
press.
Journalists are aware of this,
of course, but the opportunity
to land a hit on the BBC was
too good to pass up.
It was only Bri calling the Beeb’s “protective” statement “balderdash” that led to his fans getting upset on his behalf. As far as I recall, any journalistic bashing began after the outcry from Sounds (note the ‘s’, Popbitch) Of The Sixties avids. The Mail jumping on a handy bandwagon, as per.
Crikey, makes you wonder how the managment ever managed to get away with putting the likes of Man Jaffa and Sam Costa out to pasture. Mind you that was in the days before radio presenters started to assume they had terms of tenure that would make Arthur Scargill blush.
Gave it another (about 10 tracks) go.
It’ll be my last, but then I’d be amazed if he’s still doing it at Christmas.
Worse than last week.
The bizarre thing is that I don’t think Tony Blackburn actually knows anything about 60s pop music.
I mean, what would he be able to tell you about Dylan, The Kinks, even The Beatles?
He came out with an alarming detail this morning. Namely, that of the 100 or so 45s that would arrive on the Pirate Ship, only “2 or 3 would be any good,” and then went on to play an example…..I kid you not…..”I Love The Flower Girl” by The Cowsills!!!!
Makes you wonder what was in the pile of 97 or 98 singles…..The Idle Race, Zappa, Beefheart, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Love?
He hasn’t got a Scooby. It’s really quite sad.
I listened to a bit of the first hour (from the tub, so limited entertainment choices) and thought he was very brusque with Phil Swern – rude even. He likes to express his preferences a lot, doesn’t he? “Well, that was the b-side, but I prefer the a” (no surprise there), then following Swern’s pick of the bossa nova Hollies track with “actually I prefer the original” – shock horror! Brian was able to present both chart hits and the more obscure stuff with equal enthusiasm.
Got a new, AW-friendly, game.
At 8.10 a.m. having missed the show completely, get your wife/significant other/favourite teddy bear to read out the artist played, and then guess which jaw-droppingly obvious track Tony Blackburn played to convey the essence of that particular artist’s 10 LP, 3 EP and 20 single 60s career.
I got about 70% right this morning.
SIx whole weeks in, 12 hours of broadcasting, and still no track from Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix.
Crikey, I see what you mean! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lg24d#play
At least they played something other than Puppet On A String from Sandie, I suppose.
I’m sad to say it doesn’t even occur to me to listen to R2 on a Saturday morning now. Today I had a long bath, fitting in all of KD Lang and quite a bit of Esquivel too*, and didn’t give the radio a second thought.
*the CDs, you big perv.
I’m giving second, third and fourth thoughts of you, KD Lang and Esquival squeezed into a long bath.
Week 7.
Bob Dylan – number of plays – 0.
Jimi Hendrix – number of plays – 0.
Got about a 40% guess rate this week, though I find I’m looking for double-bluffs where, with Blackburn, it’s always best to not over-think the options.
He’s played three Kinks’ songs so far, out of about 150 possibilities, can you guess which ones?
You Really Got Me…?
….is, of course, correct.
As well at the Pet Clark track on the latest CBVD, if you hung on to the very end of the show, after the looong Human League track, you’ll have heard another little nod to Brian.
Week 12 … i.e. 24 hours.
Bob Dylan … 1 play!!! Oh, well done, Tony … “Lay Lady Lay.”
Jimi Hendrix … even though the 50th anniversary of “Are You Experienced” is upon us … no plays. Zip. Zilch. Nil. Nought.
Jimi H., for Tony B. at the height of the swingin’ 60s, simply didn’t exist.
Do you reckon he’s ever heard of him?
You’re still sticking with it, then?
Doesn’t his producer choose the records?
Nope, not sticking with it, haven’t heard a note since week 3, but the post-show “which disc would Tone play” on being told the artist, passes a few minutes.
I’m not entirely sure he’d know who won the World Cup in ’66.
Does anyone think/believe that Tony Blackburn is personally responsible for choosing the playlists? Sure, he might have some input, but I would have thought the decision-making would be mostly down to the production team.
Personally, I thought he was at home on Pick of the Pops or whatever they call it, the show he was on before being so rudely interrupted. He would be even better suited to presenting a specialist soul music show; that’s where his heart lies, and he knows his stuff in that area. But the notion would no doubt receive short shrift in the diversity-conscious Beeb.
I was going to say the same thing – I can’t believe he personally chooses the playlist. I don’t listen to this since BM left/was pushed/passed away, but presumably he hasn’t simply just taken over the seat, otherwise the programme would be the same. I never liked him or his style of presenting, but how come he’s back after all the bad blood between him and the Beeb..?