Sharing a passion for great music and pubs
Jo Whiley has called for more airtime for new music on our television screens. “TV is pretty safe at the moment,” believes the 49-year-old BBC Radio DJ. “Although Later... with Jools Holland is peerless, The X Factor is more of a soap opera than a music show, and there aren’t many avenues for people to play – and there should be more.”
By contrast, she said Radio 1 and Radio 2 were doing a good job of serving a broad range of tastes, while the upload service BBC Introducing gave exposure to plenty of great new acts – from Florence and the Machine to Jake Bugg.
“Live gigging is a crucial part of making a name and getting a following for yourself,” she added. It’s especially the case in London, “where the choice of places you can go to hear new bands is just so rich”.
Speaking at the fourth Made of London event, Whiley recalled her time as music booker on Channel 4’s notorious live show The Word, where Nirvana made their first British TV appearance and the Manic Street Preachers rehearsed one song then performed a much filthier one. “Bands could be spontaneous and they took advantage of that,” she told the crowd at The Tokenhouse on Moorgate.
Whiley grew up in Northampton, got into broadcasting after university in Sussex and was hired from The Word to present a Radio 1 show with Steve Lamacq as part of the station’s early-90s rejuvenation.
She was there at the dawn of Britpop, and spotted the early potential of Arctic Monkeys and Coldplay. Later, as the BBC’s face of Glastonbury, she interviewed Beyoncé – who insisted on her own lighting technicians.
Currently, Whiley is excited by the new crop of singer-songwriters: when Damien Rice performed on her show, it was “like an out of body experience”.
Today, Whiley presents the evening show on Radio 2 from Monday to Thursday. She has four children aged between 22 and six with her husband, music executive Steve Morton. Recently, they took their older o spring to “the mosh pit” of a Foo Fighters gig at Islington’s Assembly Hall. Next week, to give youngest daughter Coco a look-in, the whole family is going to the singalong to Disney’s Frozen at the Royal Albert Hall.
A dedicated North Londoner since she first moved here, Whiley loves the boutiques, cafés and restaurants of Islington, especially Ottolenghi, and mounts gigs on behalf of Mencap at the Union Chapel.
“And there’s a pub on every corner,” Whiley adds. “I grew up next door to a pub so I have always been steeped in pub culture.”
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