Steve Wright: DJs pay emotional tributes to ‘radio legend’

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Tributes have poured in for Steve Wright, with fellow DJs remembering him as a broadcasting “legend” and a “radio genius”.

Nicki Chapman, who is filling in for Zoe Ball on Radio 2’s breakfast show this week, was moved to tears on air.

“I said to myself I wasn’t going to cry and I have done it once,” she said as she read out messages from listeners.

Wright, who hosted shows on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 for more than four decades, died on Monday at the age of 69.

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Liza Tarbuck will present a special Sunday Love Songs programme this weekend as a tribute.

Another Radio 2 colleague, Jo Whiley, told Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday that “he was a master of his craft”.

“He devoted his whole life to radio and all he cared about was making people happy,” she said.

Whiley hosted a tribute show to the broadcasting “legend” on Radio 2 on Tuesday evening and said it felt “very strange” to be doing it given she had seen Wright “only days ago”.

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“We were all in tears and felt very sad, I hate talking about him in the past tense,” she said on the Today programme.

Fellow former Radio 1 presenter Nicky Campbell told Today that Wright “was born to be in a studio”.

“His heart soared when he was on the air, and that was contagious.”

Current Radio 1 breakfast host Greg James opened his show on Wednesday with a tribute to Wright and described him as the “king of jingles”.

 

“I felt so lucky I could nerd out about radio stuff with him. He did this show in the 90s and was amazing for 40 years, that is why there is such an outpouring of love for him.”

Mike Read, who co-hosted a show called Read and Wright with the DJ on local radio before they moved to Radio 1, told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday that he was a “ringmaster” and “good at pulling people in”.

“He worked tirelessly, he was a radio man not just somebody who turned up, did the show and went home. It was in his mind, always thinking of ideas”.

Tony Miles, known to listeners as Smiley Miley from the Radio 1 roadshow, added his tribute on BBC Breakfast, calling Wright a “radio genius”.

“Hundreds of thousands of people would come and see him on a roadshow, he just had this way of communicating and bringing his characters to life,” he said.

Ex-Radio 1 breakfast show host Chris Evans shared a tribute on Instagram, writing that Wright was the “soundtrack to millions of our afternoons”.

 

“Nobody will ever come close to the length and breadth of the way he encompassed all things entertainment, in his own highly original and light hearted style,” he wrote.

“He was to afternoons as Sir Terry [Wogan] was to breakfast.”

‘Delightfully nuts’

Radio 2 colleagues Gary Davies and Tony Blackburn paid tribute to their friend on BBC Newsnight, calling him a “very generous broadcaster”.

“If you were a guest, he wanted you to shine, it wasn’t about him,” said Davies.

Blackburn added: “He was such a lovely man and was delightfully nuts, that’s what I loved about him. Whenever we saw one another, we burst out laughing.”

Blackburn also recalled how Wright was a “pioneer of zoo radio”, a format that featured his on-air “posse” as well as celebrity interviews and entertaining trivia featured in his Factoids segment.

Magic cupboard

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Blackburn shared more of his fondest memories.

“When I saw him, we never said hello, we used to sing jingles to each other instead,” he said.

He was “a unique character”, Blackburn continued. “He didn’t like going to the dentist so he bought his own dental kit and used to do his own dental surgery and he did it quite well.

“I also remember he had this magic cupboard that was off limits to everyone. He used to lock it and put tape around it, and one day he left it unlocked and I saw inside, and there was nothing in it.

“That was him, he was just a lovable person who was a one off and there will never be anyone quite like him.”

His friend and long-time Radio 2 colleague Ken Bruce said he was “totally shocked” by the news, revealing they had been planning to celebrate Wright’s “richly deserved” recent MBE with a lunch in the near future.

“An outstanding and innovative broadcaster whose listeners loved him. What a loss to the world of radio,” Bruce added.

In a heartfelt video message shared to Instagram, Paul Gambaccini called Wright “one of the all-time greats”.

Sara Cox became emotional when she reacted to the news of Wright’s death during her Radio 2 slot on Tuesday. “We are all shocked and devastated and blindsided by this news,” she said.

Wright’s cause of death has not been revealed.

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We were called at 10.07am on Monday 12 February to reports of an incident. We sent a number of resources to the scene. Very sadly, a person was pronounced dead at the scene.”

The Metropolitan Police said they were also called to a flat on Monday morning after the body of a man was found. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

They said the death was unexpected but was not being treated as suspicious. A report will be prepared for the coroner.