A regular Sunday afternoon radio programme I'm fond of just came on air with a substitute DJ, who was also on instead of the regular last weekend. But today he said that it looks like he'll be doing the intros from now on ... which means that the station's oldest on air personality, who was born in 1927 (the same year the station went on the air) and has worked there since 1949, must not be doing too well. :-( He would have announced any decision to retire himself on air so it's gotta be unexpected illness or injury combined with his age that is responsible.

He'd been slowing down a bit by rerunning old episodes of his show with new live introductions for the past couple of years; quite acceptable as a programme of pre-1960 music (often played from the original 78s) isn't based on new releases and his personal recollections of these artists/tunes can't go out of date; the man is a treasury of obscure anecdotes and personal memories. So glad it's all recorded and preserved for future generations of listeners.

Edited to add: And this is why I love this show and am glad old eps get rerun. Today's is from 2008 and just played a Duke Ellington recording of a tune that sounded nigglingly familiar but only a specific bit. Brain finally coughed up the answer as it was ending ... those few bars are performed by whistling and studio orchestra as the theme music for the 1949/50 radio version of The Saint that starred Vincent Price! Which I only heard for the first time a couple of years later when the entire run of that series was released on CD (and radio dramas of that era didn't, as a rule, bother giving info about their theme music) so even if I'd caught the original 2008 airing I wouldn't have had that connection to make. So now, thanks to today's repeat I know what that intriguing little tune is: "Pyramid" (the recording I just heard was by Duke Ellington)

Tags: listening