Tony Blackburn on retirement: 'I know people who stopped too early – and didn't last long'

Then aged 20, the now legendary DJ was a singer and a guitarist in an outfit called the Jan Ralfini Orchestra. They were the purveyors of the kind of entertainment – the quickstep and the foxtrot – that unbeknown to them was about to be swept aside by a phenomenon erupting that very evening, some 300 miles to the north.

Nobody can put a precise date on the birth of Beatlemania, but a strong case can be made for this one – the opening night of the band’s first ever UK tour, as one of the acts supporting the teenage singing sensation Helen Shapiro, at the Gaumont Cinema in Bradford.

Popular though Shapiro was, it was the Beatles that concertgoers went wild for, as their single Please Please Me was shooting up the UK charts.

Bradford turns out to have played a surprisingly significant role in the Beatles story. As the 2025 UK City of Culture, now is the time to explore it, and in a Radio 2 documentary Tony Blackburn is doing just that.

Bradford, Brass and the Beatles, which is being broadcast on 20 April as part of a Radio 2 Loves Brass season – it also touches on the Beatles’ connections with the famous Black Dyke brass band – has taken Blackburn back to those days, he tells Radio Times, not least the one time he saw the Beatles in concert, later in 1963, at the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth.

"It was terrific. I’d never seen anything like it. The place was packed out, the girls went mad, it was just a great evening. Not musically, because you couldn’t really hear them. I’m not even sure they were plugged in! But what they created was very special."

In those days, he explains, you were either a Beatles or a Rolling Stones person, "and I was definitely more a Beatles person. I’ve always loved melody and I just thought their songs were more melodic".

Blackburn will always be known as the first voice on Radio 1 when it launched in 1967, and he remains a BBC fixture with his Radio 2 shows Sounds of the '60s (Saturday) and Golden Hour (Sunday). Across his career, he’s met all the Beatles and likes to tell the story of the time he interviewed Paul McCartney and cheekily suggested that he owed him a share of his royalties, thanks to the number of times he’d played Beatles records on the radio. "He just laughed!"

The story hints at the possibility that Blackburn played all those Beatles records less from love for them than a sense of duty, and this famous champion of Motown is honest about the pop music that stands highest in his affections. “I do like the Beatles very much, but if you push me on it, I’d rather see Diana Ross or Marvin Gaye or someone like that.”

Radio itself is another love that never dies. At 82, it seems remarkable that Blackburn still chooses to wake up every Saturday at 3am to travel from his Berkshire home into Broadcasting House in London, to present Sounds of the 60s live at 6am. "I was offered the chance to pre-record it, but I said no, I’d much rather come in and do it. As long as I can, I always will. With live radio, you get an immediate reaction from the listeners."

With his live touring show as well as his broadcasting, Blackburn’s energy levels are prodigious. A vegetarian since the age of five, he has mostly enjoyed excellent health but last year he had a spell in hospital.

That was a setback but the experience was alleviated by the opportunity it gave him for contact with his old friend Noel Edmonds – like Blackburn, a huge name across Radios 1 and 2 as well as TV thanks to his 1990s hit show Noel's House Party .

"I was having injections every four hours, and because Noel lives in New Zealand it meant he and I could chat on the text when it was the middle of my night-time. For about four weeks, we just talked rubbish together. It was great. It kept me going, it really did."

Edmonds, Blackburn says, "was a lovely guy – very unusual". What does he mean by that? "Well. He wears odd shoes. You and I wear the same shoes, don’t we? But Noel will wear different colours – one might be black, the other red. I once said to him, 'Noel, why do you wear odd shoes?' He just answered, 'Because I can!' Then he made up some story of how, where he lives in New Zealand, it’s compulsory to wear odd shoes. He's a one-off – great fun to be with."

Long-time fans of Blackburn will be all too familiar with his own capacity for silliness – as expressed in his seemingly limitless capacity for corny puns. They’re a Blackburn trademark – stored up, he reveals to Radio Times, in a dozen or so exercise books, so old and well used that they’re now "falling to bits".

The books contain thousands of jokes, but has he got a favourite? "I quite liked one the other day. 'I used to work in an ice cream bar, but I got the sack because I couldn’t do sundaes!'"

Blackburn thinks that one of the reasons he's lasted so long is that he doesn't take himself too seriously. "People who take themselves too seriously, that's a bad sign. When I go on stage, my opening line is always, 'I know you're disappointed, you thought I'd be taller!'"

Blackburn and his wife have a son and a daughter and two grandchildren who keep them busy, but he says he dreads the idea of retiring. "Getting up in the morning with nothing to do doesn't appeal to me. I know a lot of people have retired too early, and they haven't lasted long. You need something to keep your brain going."

The puns, the 3am alarm call, the texts from Noel Edmonds, and of course his love of music – they would all appear to be just that.

The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here.

Bradford, Brass and The Beatles is available now on BBC Sounds and will be broadcast as part of the Radio 2 Loves Brass concert on BBC Radio 2 this Sunday, 20 April (8-10pm).

Check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.