A pop up radio station dedicated to a singer who died in the blitz 70 years ago is launching on 19 DAB multiplexes around the country today.
Called '70 years without Al Bowlly' the service will be produced by Hampshire community station Angel Radio, which is run by older people.
Al Bowlly was one of the best loved singers with the dance bands of the 1930s. His life was tragically cut short when a parachute mine exploded on his home in Jermyn Street, London on 17th April 1941. He recorded over a thousand songs and is best known for his renditions of Goodnight Sweetheart and Love is the Sweetest Thing.
The station will broadcast on the NOW Digital multiplexes, owned by Arqiva, in Plymouth, Cornwall, South East Devon, South East Wales, Bristol, West Wiltshire, Swindon, Berkshire, North and South Hampshire, Sussex Coast, Kent, Essex, Norwich, Peterborough, Cambridge, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Wolverhampton and Ayrshire.
Angel Radio Station Manager Tony Smith is overseeing the nostalgia programmes being made for the station. He told us: "Al Bowlly was such an important figure in the history of British dance bands that I felt he deserved a radio station dedicated to his memory. I must stress that we won’t just be playing one Al Bowlly record after another. We will be looking at the whole dance band era and playing a vast range of dance band music, but Bowlly will take centre stage."