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Annie Nightingale, who became the first female disc jockey on BBC Radio 1 in 1970 and remained a popular personality there until her final show, late last year, died on Jan. 11 at her home in London. She was 83.<\/p>\n
Her family announced the death in a statement but did not cite a cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the woman who changed the face and sound of British TV and radio broadcasting forever,\u201d Annie Mac, a longtime BBC Radio D.J., wrote<\/a> on Instagram after Ms. Nightingale\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Ms. Nightingale became well known in music circles in the 1960s as a columnist in British newspapers. And she was a familiar face to stars like the Beatles, whom she interviewed at the Brighton Hippodrome in 1964.<\/p>\n \u201cAs Derek Taylor<\/a> liked her, she was welcome at Apple,\u201d the Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn<\/a> said in an email, referring to the Beatles\u2019 press officer and the company they founded in 1968.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 1967, she applied to be a D.J. on BBC Radio 1, the pop music outlet that had just been started in reaction to the rise of popular offshore pirate stations.<\/p>\n But she found herself up against the station\u2019s sexist hiring policy. She was told that its all-male D.J. lineup represented \u201chusband substitutes\u201d to the housewives who were listening, and that a woman\u2019s voice would lack the authority of a man\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cIt came as a huge shock,\u201d Ms. Nightingale told The Independent in 2015.<\/a> \u201cI was almost amused. What do you mean, \u2018No women\u2019? Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n But in October 1969, the BBC offered her an on-air trial. Before her first appearance, she told The Manchester Evening News, \u201cI am sure that a lot of girls would make marvelous D.J.s if given the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She was hired the next year for a weekday record review program, \u201cWhat\u2019s New,\u201d and two years later she became a host of an evening progressive-rock show, \u201cSounds of the 70s.\u201d Later in the decade, she became the host of a Sunday afternoon request show and a music interview program. She hosted a variety of other shows through last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFrom Day One, I chose the records I wanted to play and stuck to it ever since,\u201d she said in her autobiography, \u201cHey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture From Britain\u2019s First Female DJ.\u201d (2020). \u201cI preferred the evenings, where I wouldn\u2019t have to introduce playlist tunes I didn\u2019t like. That would have been like lying to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Anne Avril Nightingale was born on April 1, 1940, in the Osterley district of London. Her father, Basil, worked in the family\u2019s wallpaper business. Her mother, Celia, was a foot doctor. As a girl, Anne listened to children\u2019s programs on her father\u2019s radio and came to love that it could tune in to distant cities.<\/p>\n \u201cI still feel when you\u2019re broadcasting, you don\u2019t know where it\u2019s going and it could be reaching outer space somewhere, and I am still in love with that, completely,\u201d she said in an interview in 2018.<\/p>\n After graduating from the Lady Eleanor Holles School, she studied journalism at Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) in London. She began her journalism career soon after, first as a reporter for The Brighton and Hove Gazette and then at The Argus, in Brighton, where she wrote a music column called Spin With Me. She later wrote a music column for a national tabloid, The Daily Sketch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 1964, she collaborated with the pop group the Hollies on a book, \u201cHow to Run a Beat Group.\u201d<\/p>\n She found a measure of television fame on BBC\u2019s \u201cJuke Box Jury,\u201d<\/a> where she was part of a guest panel that reviewed new record releases, and as the host of \u201cThat\u2019s For Me,\u201d a record request program on ITV, and the Rediffusion network\u2019s quiz show, \u201cSing a Song of Sixpence,\u201d both in 1965.<\/p>\n But she was best known for her time at BBC Radio 1, which began with some rocky moments because of her inexperience \u2014 like the time there was eight seconds of dead airtime when she accidentally pressed an \u201coff\u201d switch while a record was playing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I found difficult in those early days was being bad technically,\u201d she told The Western Daily Press of Bristol in 1979. \u201cEvery time I made a mistake I thought they\u2019d all say, \u2018Oh yes, woman driver!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She remained the only female D.J. on BBC Radio 1 \u2014 the \u201ctoken woman,\u201d she said \u2014 for 12 years. In 2010, when she was more than halfway through her 41st year there, Guinness World Records cited her for having had the longest career ever for a female D.J. (That record has since been surpassed twice, by the Peruvian broadcaster Maruja Venegas Salinas and Mary McCoy, a D.J. in Texas.)<\/p>\n \u201cIt was not until the 1990s and the \u2018girlification\u2019 of Radio 1 with the likes of Sara Cox, Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball that Nightingale\u2019s exceptionality became her longevity and impact rather than her gender alone,\u201d Lucy Robinson, a professor at the University of Sussex, and Dr. Jeannine Baker, who at the time was with Macquarie University, wrote on the BBC website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Nightingale\u2019s success went beyond radio. In 1978, she was named a host of BBC\u2019s live music television show \u201cThe Old Grey Whistle Test<\/a>,\u201d where she focused on new wave music.<\/p>\n After John Lennon was killed on Dec. 8, 1980, Ms. Nightingale and members of the \u201cWhistle Test\u201d staff were trying to round up people to talk about him. During the program, a producer appeared in the studio and told Ms. Nightingale, \u201cPaul\u2019s on the phone and he wants to speak to you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea who he meant,\u201d she recalled on the podcast \u201cI Am the Eggpod<\/a>\u201d in 2018. It was Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHe wanted to say thank you on behalf of Linda and himself and Yoko and George and Ringo,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what really got me.\u201d She added: \u201cI got back in front of the camera and it\u2019s live and I thought right, right, you\u2019re the messenger. And he said, \u2018You know how it was.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Nightingale\u2019s survivors include a son, Alex, and a daughter, Lucy, whose name was inspired partly by the Beatles song \u201cLucy in the Sky With Diamonds.\u201d Her marriages to Gordon Thomas, a writer, and Binky Baker, an actor, ended in divorce.<\/p>\n Throughout her career, Ms. Nightingale championed new music \u2014 from progressive rock to acid house to grime.<\/p>\n She described her visceral connection to new music when she was interviewed in 2020 on the popular BBC Radio 4 program \u201cDesert Island Discs.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a thrill, it\u2019s absolutely so exciting,\u201d she said. \u201cI actually get a physical sensation. I get shivers up and down my legs when I hear something that becomes very successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n