Annie (formerly known as Anne)
Nightingale MBE (born in London on April 1, 1942) is a radio broadcaster in
the United
Kingdom. She was the first female presenter on BBC
Radio 1 and since the death of John Peel in October 2004 has been its
longest-serving presenter. Her career at the station is more than
twenty years longer than that of the second longest-serving presenter,
the dance DJ Pete Tong. This is testimony to
her rare ability to move with the times and reinvent herself musically.
She was known professionally as "Anne" until the early 1990s when she
adopted the name "Annie".
After attending Lady Eleanor Holles
School, Hampton, Middlesex and the Polytechic of Central London School
of Journalism, she began her career as a journalist in Brighton.
Nightingale's Radio 1 career began with a Sunday evening show in 1969. She hosted the
singles review show "What's New" in the early 1970s before
graduating to one of the late-night "progressive" rock shows then
simulcast on the Radio 2 FM frequency. After these had been dropped,
she presented a Sunday-afternoon request show during the later part of
the 1970s, and by 1980
was presenting a Friday night show and the non-music-based Radio
1 Mailbag. In 1978, Nightingale began presenting the The
White Room on BBC2.
In 1982
her best known show - the Sunday-night request show, for most of its
life broadcast on FM just after the Top 40 - began its 12-year run. The
show was one of the first on British radio to regularly play music from
CDs.
Her gimmick was to allow the intro of the first song in her
show to play uninterrupted before saying "Hi" in the very last second
before the vocals started.
In 1994
Annie Nightingale began her "reinvention" by ending the request show
and moving to a weekend overnight dance music show, initially called
"The Chill Out Zone". She can still be heard overnight, although now in
midweek. On her current show (2-4am on Monday mornings on Radio 1) she
spins breaks, and she often features headline breaks DJs like the Plump DJs, Freestylers,
Noisia,
and Meat
Katie. Annie also regularly plays at clubs and festivals around the UK
and Europe.
Nightingale has published two autobiographical books: Chase
The Fade (1981) ISBN
0713711671 and Wicked Speed (1999) ISBN 0283061979. She has also compiled two
Albums Annie On One (1996, Heavenly Recordings) and
her own installment of the Breaks DJ mix series Y4K
(2007, Distinctive Records).
External links
