14/12/2024
Christmas 2024 would have been the 80th birthday of Kenny Everett, the ground breaking and inspirational DJ wo passed on from an AIDS related condition in 1995. To mark the life and times of the broadcasting genius, commercial channel BOOM Radio and BBC Radio 4 Extra are both to celebrate him. BBC Radio 4 Extra is to air a week of programmes on the late broadcaster. Compiled by journalist and broadcaster Paul Rowley, there’ll be a special show every day during Christmas week to celebrate the work of the man who was born Maurice Cole on Christmas Day, 1944. They include some of the “lost” tapes from his time on BBC Local Radio after he was sacked by Radio 1 in 1970. Rowley, author of two radio documentaries about Cuddly Ken, has digitally remastered the original reel-to-reel recordings which were left on a shelf for much of the last fifty years. They’ll now be heard in full for the first time since they were originally broadcast. One of them includes an interview with John Lennon which hasn’t been aired since going out on Radio Bristol in 1971. The series begins on Monday 23rd December with Rowley’s documentary “Kenny Everett: The BBC Local Radio Years” from 2001. On Christmas Eve it’s Kenny’s first programme on Radio Bristol from June 1971. On Christmas Day is another of Rowley’s documentaries “Happy Birthday Maurice Cole” from 2009. It’s followed on 26th December by a Boxing Day special from 1971, finishing on 27th December with another of Kenny’s Radio Bristol shows which features a chat with the former Beatle. Meanwhile, over at the older person's station Boom Radio, Nicky Horn hosts a two hour celebration of Kenny at 7pm on Christmas Night, 25th December. Horn worked with Everett on a number of occasions. Kenny began his career on "Wonderful" Radio London, one of the offshore pirate radio stations of the mid sixties (pictured) and also put in time on border blaster Radio Luxembourg. He helped build the studios of the BBC's pop network Radio 1 in 1967, but his sense of anarchic humour repeatedly got him into trouble with the BBC management. Kenny was fired from several jobs before being recruited by the newly legalised commercial radio sector with Capital Radio in 1973 which was more tolerant of his sense of the funny. Kenny broadcast right up until his final months of life for both commercial radio and the BBC.
