Olden but golden | 23 February 2017

This weekend Brian Matthew will present his last-ever Sounds of the 60s show on Radio 2. Now 88, he’s been in charge at breakfast time on Saturdays since 1990, his gravelly voice deepening and getting hoarser with the years. You could tell he was well past his clubbing prime, or for that matter being able to dance along to Bryan Ferry. Yet this has never mattered. Matthew’s band of devoted listeners have cherished his weekly two hours on air precisely because of his age. It has meant he was there when those classic Sixties’ records were made. He met the Beatles in their prime, and Dusty Springfield, Steve Winwood, Alan Price, Sandie Shaw. He knows exactly who was in what band when because he saw them performing on stage back in 1966 or visited them in the recording studio. When he adds the back story to a song or album, he’s not reading from the sleeve notes or a script prepared in advance by a diligent researcher, but coming up with facts embedded in his memory.