“Every moment you’re not listening to music is a moment wasted,” says Annie Nightingale. In a world where Radio 1 listeners are shunted off once they reach 30, Nick Grimshaw is interviewing the 75-year-old DJ who has been at the top of her game for as long as he’s been alive.
Radio 1’s Annie Nightingale: 50 Years in Music is a delight because Grimshaw focuses on raving rather than ageing. The pair giggle over Nightingale being crowned NME’s Caner of the Year in 2002, the same year she got her MBE. “I thought it was a tax demand,” she says of the latter.
Grimmy’s an attentive interviewer. Then again, it’s easy to listen to Nightingale. She makes the birth of acid house sound like the moment the sun came out. “Everything changed, people changed,” she says, in a way that would make older listeners smile. Grimshaw was still at primary school, wondering why his older siblings had come home “see-through with sweat”, so Nightingale’s description of how youth culture changed is a useful one.
“Did all the ravers call in?” asks Grimshaw, talking about her request show. Indeed they did, and Nightingale helped direct them to illegal parties. Kate Moss and the Chemical Brothers would also get on the phone. Less glorious was when Radio 1 broadcast from Ibiza and Nightingale was forced to do her show from the kitchen at Pacha because of a dispute over the music.
No one spots a banger like Nightingale and her exquisite taste is brought to life by a playlist that includes Fetty Wap, the Streets and Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well, the first song she played on Radio 1. Professor Green, TroyBoi and Wretch 32 queue up to call her “radio royalty” and a “living legend”, both accolades Nightingale has earned.
In Radio 4’s Burlesque Legends, Mat Fraser visits Las Vegas, where the Titans of Tease Reunion finds performers in their 60s, 70s and 80s still shimmying. Accessories include walking sticks and canes, and it’s not unusual to see a 92-year-old pointing her breasts up towards the balcony. “I think at 100 you can be sexy,” laughs April March, who’s pushing 80. What keeps them on stage at their age? “This is me,” says Marinka Hunter. “I get a kick out of it.” Well, what better reason to keep on working it?
