Entertainment For Lively Minds
Annie Nightingale
Annie Nightingale has been on the wireless for 40 (FORTY) years now, covering a huge variety of different styles of music, most recently specialising in what the yoof call "drum and bass". There was a series of programmes celebrating her work on Radio 1 over the last few days, all of which are still on the iplayer. Included in these programmes were some mixes - one from the lady herself and others from her devotees.
My Annie Nightinglae era was the Sunday Night Request Show that followed the new chart. It played an astonishing variety of music, little to none of it coming within a country mile of what Tony Blackburn and DLT would have played on the same station. All that reminiscing of that programme brought back only one track that was played nearly every week (in my own mind anyway), and by the power of Youtube, here it is.....
Any more Nightingale memories, Massive?
- More from jockblue.
- Login or register to post comments
-
National Treasure (TM)
Yep – I’m from the request show era too. In the days before retro-radio really took off, this WAS my musical education. The first place I got to hear Bowie’s back catalogue (at a time when his current releases were at a low).
She also played two of my requests (The The’s Heartland and Joe Jackson’s Stepping Out). Its great to see she has moved with the times, partly due to her connections with Primal Scream in the 90s (her son Alex was their manager).
For radio presence, musical integrity and general likeability she is second only to Peel in radio history..
Not the best song she ever played
by any stretch of the imagination. Just memorable.
Halloween every year…
..this always got a spin on the request show -
She's ....
"She's superman's big sister, she's superman's big sister, she's superman's big sister - Anne Nightingale" - Ian Dury - Radio 1, In Concert - about 79 Xmas?
It has to be this one
For a long time this record was impossible to get hold of, on the grounds of being in v poor taste. Let's hear it for Cristina's iconoclastic take on Is That All There Is? EDIT: The point being that Annie Nightingale's programme was the only place I could ever hear this record.
She played this for me once...
... I had my fingers poised over the [PLAY] and [REC] buttons in anticipation accordingly! The record was actually withdrawn because Lieber & Stoller objected to Cristina's rather "liberal" reinterpretation of the lyrics, but they must have gotten over it as it's now freely available on CD and even Spotify (and the 7" single was my first ever purchase on Ebay over 10 years ago!)
Annie also played Monsoon's "Ever So Lonely" and Squeeze's "Pulling Mussels From A Shell" for me in her time. I still think she's great.
And who could forget this one?
Ah, the Steve Miller Band. What were they thinking of when they recorded Macho City? It's completely preposterous, ridiculously long and transparently facile. Drugs may well have been taken. And somehow it was utterly thrilling when Annie N played the whole damn thing on a dark Sunday night - all 17 minutes minutes of it, complete with synth explosions and a fabulous rainstorm. Sadly, you can't get the whole thing on youtube, but it's a nostalgic trip to hear this nine-and-a-half-minute version, not having heard the song for over twenty years.
Blimey..
I remember taping that! I used to listen to her show with my fingers poised over the "play" and "rec" buttons.
I always seemed to be doing my homework
when she played Macho City or Doug E Fresh's The Show. Oh happy days.
Somewhere I have a tape of an Annie Nightingale interview with Gong. They must have been promoting Angel's Egg. It includes a superb exchange that goes, from memory, something like this:
Daevid Allen: We wanted to get the sound of piano falling to the ground from a third story window.
Annie: That's amazing, wow, what did it sound like?
Daevid Allen: I don't know. We couldn't do it. We didn't have a third floor.
Didier Malherbe (apropos of nothing): aluminium dish
All: rather stoned giggling.
Sundays, late 1970s...
I remember being entranced by her fags / honey mix of a voice.
After I'd been entranced by Alexis Korner's gravel /cement / fags / honey mix of a voice.
One Sunday night at university..
I accused a mate of nicking my tape of Blue Öyster Cult's "Imaginos" without asking because he had The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle At Weisseria playing in his room. It's not as if anyone would ever play THAT on the radio on a Sunday evening, would they. Would they..?
She
Introduced me to The Roches on Whistle Test & The Blue Nile "Tinsel Town in the Rain" on her Saturday night programme. I was there when she opened Peacehaven garden fete (remember them?) in 1970-ish. I remember thinking she was sexy & nice and it struck me how confident & self assured she was in front of the crowd. Being 14-ish, these thoughts came out as "coo!- blimey! & cor!"
No mention anywhere
of her infamous interview with Paul Simon!
What happened?
Did she call him Al?
She asked What's it like writing the songs on your own now
without Art? (or something on those lines.)
Quack quack...
oops.
The Europeans
Taped this off her show and didn't get rid of it because I could never find it on CD - eventually did about a couple of years ago.
And wasn't Nightowl of Croydon a regular correspondent ?
No definitive memories...
...just that as a female who loved radio and music, she was incredibly important to me when I was growing up. I don't listen to her stuff now (I'm asleep at that time, obviously), but I'm glad she has stayed as cool as I always thought she was, and hasn't turned into a 'it was all better in my days' nostalgist.
She introduced the world to
Barry Andrews's song Rossmore Road. I'm sure it used to be on YouTube, but it's not there now.
I was about to post the same thing!
I've still never been there. But I did have a look on Google Streetview. There doesn't seem to be a dolls-house shop on the corner of Lisson Grove any more. It's an offie.
It's still a lovely, lovely song. It's one of the few tunes I had to nick off a filesharing site because I couldn't find it anywhere legitimate.
Return for the next London Massive drink
and maybe I'l take you there! ;)
It's actually one of the most unprepossessing places in London that I've passed through.
Is it just me or
does anyone else fondly remember her agony aunt items on the show? I particularly recall one touching moment when she read out a letter from a male listener stating that he was convinced he was ugly and would never ever be attractive to anyone - her response was the genuine sound of someone trying to help someone else.
That was me!
Not really. She is great - as someone said above - a national treasure. I always thought her Sunday show was the radio equivalent of Smash Hits at its best, noting a similar, slightly esoteric, sense of humour in both.
Has she ever been given (or offered) an honour? If not - it's a bloody travesty.
Rain Dogs
Jock : yeps, I'd spend many Sunday eves revising for exams whilst at Poly in the late 80s / start of the 90s listening to the self same show. Songs that remind of that time that she'd play were Flash & The Pan's "Waiting for a train", Napolean the Third's "They're coming to take me away" and of course your own choice, "Fish Heads"!
Also there was a series of tenuously linked songs she'd play that all had at some point rainstorms in them (as Rosbif's Steve Miller track has, which I'm guessing is probably why she played it) : The Doors' "Rider on the storm" was one of 'em, I think the Flash track had one in, and OMD's magnificent "Crush", which I've used as my ringtone for years!
BR
FT
Two arrows (one for Crush and one for the rain)
Yes I certainly remember the Steve Miller song. The use of songs with rain storms was such a simple but effective way to create an atmosphere (especially on a wintry Sunday evening)… just like her use of the highly spooky “Martin” at Halloween. I think we can safely say she knows how to do radio.
And Crush is a great song from a (mostly) great album. Most of that album is them returning to a more experimental sound. It’s a shame they had to spoil it with the overly saccharine singles as some of the other stuff (88 Seconds, The Lights Are Going Out, the title track) have dated exceptionally well..