The last of a special breed who loved radio for radio’s sake
◆ Steve Wright’s style of Dj-ing has fallen out of fashion, but new celebrity presenters are far from an upgrade, says Aidan Smith
As soon as the sad news came through, I knew a photograph would pop up somewhere: Britain’s top discotheque being graced, as per the posters plastered all over town, with a personal appearance by Steve Wright, the wackiest DJ on what used to be called “The Station of the Nation”.
How for goodness sakes did Brechin have Flicks, centre of four-to-thefloor excellence and Angus’s answer to Studio 54, when the claims to fame of its neighbours Forfar and Arbroath were the bridie and the smokie respectively?
That’s another story. This one’s about Wright who, late Friday afternoons after spinning his last record of the week for Radio 1, would regularly rush to Heathrow, jump on a plane and then be sped from Edinburgh to the nightspot beloved of nurses bursting to be off-shift, locally-stationed US Top Guns on weekend passes, Aberdeen and Dundee United footballers dodging their clubs’ spies and coach-loads of gasping revellers leaving behind their unhedonistic corners of England.
And yes, a snap of Wright whooping it up at Flicks from 1988 – Tony Ferrino moustache, Buggles specs, billowing white leather blouson – duly appeared on social media in heartfelt tribute to a proper jock.
Wright seems like the last of a breed. The last of the DJS for whom radio was, in the words of a song, the first, the last, the everything. The last who was in radio because – in the words of another song, W.O.L.D. by Harry Chapin – “that’s the place to be”. The last whose idea of a holiday in New York was to stay in his hotel room the whole time flicking between the stations there, studying the Stateside style and schtick. The last of the DJS indeed who would belt up to Brechin to fill an underlit floor and solidify the special relationship between station and nation.
I mean, can you imagine Vernon Kaye doing this? Or Claudia Winkleman or Dermot O’leary or any of the presenters on the BBC’S airwaves, past or present, who are star names from televison, recruited as such, and not DJS in the way some of us know and cherish them?
None of them, I bet, nor Graham Norton or Jonathan Ross or others who’ve had shows on Radio 2 which these days fulfills the function of Radio 1 – music, as opposed to what’s-thatterrible-racket? – will have regarded a slot on the wireless as their heart’s desire the way Wright did when he joined the BBC as a humble clerk. And, frankly, it shows. About none of them do we say: They’ve come from TV, the much more glamorous medium, but are really demonstrating a feel and passion for radio. They clearly understand and believe in it, and come the day their achievements are tallied, radio will be right up there.
Rather, I say the opposite: They were handed their shows as gifts, to top up already fat salaries, in the hope they’d be persuaded to remain as Corporation “talent”.
They think radio is easy, they phone in their chatter, and they reckon, because an increasingly desperate Beeb have persuaded them in this, that a little bit of their “stardust” is enough.
When did we become so celebrityobsessed? Actually, don’t answer that. The BBC seem to think we’re desperate for tiny crumbs from the stars’ tables. Hints of what their dazzling lives are like at home round actual tables, revealed over a relaxed couple of hours of digitally-programmed music.i mean, does Winkleman, soon to quit Radio 2, actually press any buttons?
Of course it’s a long time since radio jocks spun records on turntables.
Wright was not from my era of slavish devotion to Radio 1 as was, but I recognise what he meant to his audience of students and skivers when I was already in the world of work.
My era was Tony Blackburn and his dog Arnold (“Woof! Woof!”), DLT’S “Radio Darts” (“Quack, quack, oops!”) and Simon Bates’ with “Our Tune”, the maudlin theme triggering a crescendo of hissing brakes as thousands of macho truckers parked in lay-bys ready for a good greet. There was also Ed Stewart (“’Ello Darlin’!”), Alan Freeman (“Not ’arf!”) and Emperor Rosko. Was he really an emperor? No matter. Stuart Hendry came from Edinburgh and that was good enough for me.
Then I became a music snob. Graduating to late-night radio – where John Peel addressed Blackburn as Timmy Bannockburn – the daytime jocks suddenly seemed naff. The naffness was reinforced by Peter Powell’s matey-ness, Mike Read’s pomposity and even if Garry Davies didn’t actually utter the words, “Feel the warmth of my sincerity”, it must have been a close-run thing. All of this went into the creation of Smashie & Nicey and how we all laughed.
But, like a single whirling at 45rpm, the standing of the first-generation DJS has come full circle. They learned their chops on choppy waters as pirate station pioneers. They loved radio and radio’s constituency loved them right back.
Yes, there was clunkiness and bampotery and egomania – 20 million listeners at peak will do that. But these guys, and gals like Annie Nightingale, connected up Britain, a function some claim social media can fulfil now, at least until the arguments and abuse start.
From Broadcasting House to Brechin, Steve Wright connected us up. There was nothing of him in Smashie or Nicey, which isn’t to say he took himself or the job seriously like the next-gen jocks who were so careful to avoid ridicule – far from it. He was – a word that’s fallen out of fashion – zany.
His style of Dj-ing has fallen out of fashion – but so for the BBC have monster audiences. Celebrity presenters from TV aren’t bringing them back and neither is the pursuit of the young. And getting rid of muchloved jocks from the classic, old-school tradition is just insanity.