Johnnie Walker to be remembered as ‘one of the radio greats’ on tribute show
The show which will air on Boom Radio on Thursday will see former Radio Caroline presenter Roger Day and others pay their respects.
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Your support makes all the difference.Late radio DJ Johnnie Walker is to be remembered as “one of the radio greats” on a tribute show presented by Roger Day on Boom Radio.
In the show, which will air at 8pm on Thursday, former Radio Caroline presenter Day and Ron O’Quinn, who was also involved in pirate radio working alongside Walker, will pay tribute to the DJ after he died on Tuesday aged 79.
DJ Les Ross will also pay tribute to the former Sounds Of The 70s presenter, who he met aged 21 when he beat him in a DJing competition.
Walker had announced in early October that he was retiring from radio after 58 years, having been previously diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
Speaking about the presenter’s career, Ross will say on the show: “Johnnie Walker was one of the radio greats. But even more importantly, Johnnie Walker was a genuinely nice guy.”
The show will also see O’Quinn explain how he hired Walker for pirate station Radio Caroline.
He will say: “One day, I got a call from the lobby downstairs that a young man by the name of Peter Waters Dingley was wanting to come up and audition.
“Send him on up, I said. So, in comes a skinny lad with a large smile on his face and a great, clean voice. I gave him some typescript that I had typed up just to make believe commercial, I think, and the newspaper article to read along with a portable tape recorder and the microphone.
“And I told him to go into the loo where he would have some privacy and record that and then come back out and talk to me about it. When he returned to the hotel room, I listened to what he’d recorded and it was good.
“And so I said to him, an anchored ship is probably not the most exciting place in the world to live, so are you ready to be out there for two weeks at a time with nothing but guys?
“He looked at me and said, ‘I am’. Well, I told him then that most disc jockeys picked air names and I had two of them left with that were sung as a jingle. And I’m a real big believer in jingles to identify who you are and what you are, what the station is, et cetera.
“So the names that I have left that are already jingles recorded are Boom Boom Brannigan and Johnnie Walker.
“He picked Johnnie, and this was the beginning of Johnnie Walker, the broadcasting icon.
“I want to make it perfectly clear that I did not make Johnnie Walker a broadcast icon. I merely gave him the platform to reach the people that he needed to reach to become that star.”
Day adds on the show: “I think he proved that you don’t need to put on an act in the studio – be yourself – and stand up for your belief such as he did in refusing to play the Bay City Rollers.
“Along with (Terry) Wogan, Kenny Everett, Alan Freeman, Tony Blackburn, he’ll be remembered as one of the real communicators of all time.”