DJ who partied with Elvis, Paul McCartney, and Cliff Richard
Sacha Taylor-Cox DJ Tony Prince met some of the world's biggest celebrities during his time on Radio Luxembourg
Tony, ebullient, pint-sized self-styled “Royal Ruler” of pirate station Radio Caroline and then influential European station Radio Luxembourg, hailed from humble beginnings in Oldham, Lancashire. Yet the boy “from a Coronation Street terrace” went on to work – and sometimes party – with everyone who was anyone in music from his childhood idol Elvis Presley to Paul McCartney, Led Zeppelin and rock wild man Keith Moon – “a lovely man… when he was sober”. He also DJ’d for the Luxembourg royal family including Princess Marie-Astrid who was once tipped to marry Prince Charles.
Tony’s brush with musical stardust started aged 15 in 1960 when he sang backed by the drumming of a pre-Beatles Ringo Starr. The self confessed “small and cheeky” 5ft 4in Tony, now 71, recalls: “I entered a talent contest at Butlin’s in North Wales. The camp’s backing group was Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and their drummer was Ringo. So I sang with Ringo before Paul McCartney and John Lennon did – and I borrowed Ringo’s cowboy boots. “I sang Be-Bop-A-Lula, the Gene Vincent song. Gene used to kick up his leg on the microphone stand. I tried that but Ringo’s boots, three sizes too big, came off and landed on a Teddy Boy’s head. Ringo couldn’t stop laughing, the audience were laughing and clapping and I guess that first turned me on to the power of an audience.”
GETTY Tony Prince with Cliff Richard
Three years later Tony, by now a successful DJ, introduced The Beatles on stage at a gig in Oldham in 1963 as their first number one, Please Please Me was announced.
All you would hear at a Beatles concert was screaming Tony Prince
“I was the last person to hear The Beatles live because after this, all you would hear at a Beatles concert was screaming,” recalls Tony, who has written an autobiography The Royal Ruler And The Railway DJ (alongside reminiscences from Czech DJ Jan Sestak) which has had interest from Hollywood. After leaving school, Tony briefly trained as a jockey alongside Willie Carson. But he ended up a star jockey of a different sort.
He became singer with an Oldham group called The Jasons and later a solo singer and DJ. UNUSUALLY he worked in TV before he went into radio, presenting a Bristol-based pop show, Discs A Gogo, where guests included Sonny and Cher and Tom Jones. One guest was Tony Blackburn who talked about his life as a pirate DJ on Radio Caroline – which Tony soon joined and developed his on-air persona of the Royal Ruler – a nod to fellow pirate DJ Emperor Rosko. Tony has fond memories as a pirate of the airwaves off the Isle of Man… “I can’t tell you how exciting it was. I wish I could get in a Tardis for a few weeks and experience it again.
PH All the stars came to Luxembourg but Tony’s greatest memory was meeting Elvis Presley
“It was an idyllic life for a guy who loved music, young, a bachelor – it was the 1960s, transistor radios had just come out, The Beatles were gods and all these great records, The Stones, Bob Dylan, The Kinks – and we were the boys playing them for the first time.” When pirate radio was made illegal in 1967, Tony joined “fabulous” Radio Luxembourg. Popular with youngsters in the UK and all over Europe, where “208” had a 100 million audience, the quick-witted Royal Ruler became a celebrity, with personal appearances and a column in the teenage girls’ magazine Fab 208. He even promoted a keep-fi t device called the Star Disco Trimmer with Cliff Richard. At first, to protect his bachelor image, he was advised to keep quiet about his girlfriend and future wife, childhood sweetheart Christine (they’ve been married for 47 years and have two children). All the stars came to Luxembourg but Tony’s greatest memory was meeting Elvis Presley in Las Vegas in 1972 and then introducing him live on stage before his show. “It was an overwhelming thing for me as an Elvis fan and I suppose the greatest thing in my life,” says Tony. “To see Elvis clapping and walking towards me as I introduced him.”
TOP 20 best selling singles of all time Mon, October 6, 2014 According to Guinness World Records, the holiday perennial "White Christmas" (1942) by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single worldwide, with estimated sales of over 50 million copies. The song recognized as "the best-selling single of all time" was released before the pop/rock singles-chart era and "was listed as the world's best-selling single in the first-ever Guinness Book of Records (published in 1955) and—remarkably—still retains the title more than 50 years later." Guinness World Records states that double A-side charity single "Candle in the Wind 1997"/"Something About the Way You Look Tonight" (1997) by Elton John, a tribute to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, is "the biggest-selling single since UK and US singles charts began in the 1950s, having accumulated worldwide sales of 33 million copies," making it the second-best-selling single of all time Play slideshow IG 1 of 20 Bing Crosby "White Christmas" 1942. Over 50 Million singles sold
As president of the UK Elvis Presley fan club, he took 200 British fans on a pilgrimage to Elvis’s home town of Tupelo, Mississippi, and five days in Vegas where Presley was in residence. Tony had used his cheeky charm to inveigle a meeting with The King’s formidable manager Colonel Tom Parker and got him to agree to a rare pre-show interview with the singer. It was 1972 and Tony recalls: “My impression of Elvis? He was incredibly handsome, a beautiful human specimen and so polite, so gently spoken.” Tony met Elvis again in 1973 when the King promised him he would come to Europe to entertain fans for the first time – alas something Elvis, who died in 1977, never did. Prince also presented Elvis with a trophy. Says Tony: “When I was 15 I had Elvis’s poster on my bedroom wall. Now, today, if you go to Elvis’s home at Graceland, you’ll find a photo of me presenting him with that trophy. So my photograph is now on Elvis’s wall. How about that for a turn of events?”
PH Tony with his wife Christine and their two children Daniel and Gabrielle
TONY’S Luxembourg early- 1970s heyday coincided with the teen idol era and he compered the Osmonds’ British shows while David Cassidy – who recently revealed he has dementia – became a friend. “It is such sad news,” Tony says. “He is a lovely guy, a good mate. I feel sorry for people at that deep end of fan mania, they find themselves in a goldfish bowl. It all became a bit much for him.” Another chum is Sir Paul McCartney who asked Tony to compere a Buddy Holly-themed event he and his late wife Linda held annually for 10 years. Linda converted Tony to vegetarianism. “Every time she saw me she’d ask, ‘Are you still vegetarian, Tony?’” The young Noel Edmonds, who also worked at Luxembourg, is recalled by Tony as a lothario and, even then, a practical joker who tried to fake his own death as a prank on his unamused flatmate, fellow DJ Kid Jensen. Jensen meanwhile, apparently caught the eye of the bisexual David Bowie for a while but batted off his overtures, according to Tony.
GETTY The legendary DJ with his good friend Paul McCartney