Goodbye Annie Nightingale
Goodbye to Annie Nightingale
I’ve just heard the saddening news that Annie Nightingale has died today after a short illness. Alongside David Bowie, her good friend, January has now deprived me of 2 of my favourite people.
I always loved Annie because she had that same crate-digger mindset that John Peel had. She found a lot of diamonds in the rough. It seems like yesterday that I was listening to her in the late 80s and early 90s. She was playing up and coming artists like Apollo 440, Bjork, The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Massive Attack etc……all established names now, but back then, electronic music was only really starting to break through. I thought of her as the female John Peel, and listened to her show whenever I could, as I wanted to hear more of her obscure discoveries.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find out she was following me on Soundcloud ( 11 years ago, when I was still using the 2ndMOUSE alias )
This is what she said……….
Fortunately, I delete nothing, and at times like these I’m glad I have a tendency to be a bit of an archivist, as I still retain things like that.
Her death is a shock to me because I just didn’t imagine her to be 83. I still retained an image of her as this indomitable maverick trailblazer….the way she was in the 80s / 90s, but I’m very glad that, for a brief moment, our worlds connected, and my 11 year old music struck a chord with her, and I got to say thank you for the morale boost.
If any of her friends or family should somehow stumble on this page, I offer my sincere condolences for your loss. Through her love of music, she touched many, and I, being one of those people, can attest to that.
Rest in peace Annie.