David Allan Jensen was born in 1950 in Victoria, British Columbia. He began broadcasting in Canada at the age of sixteen, presenting, oddly enough, classical music.
Later, he joined a pop station in British Columbia and also worked as an announcer on radio and television in Whitehorse, Yukon.
He was dubbed ‘Kid’ when, at eighteen, he became Radio Luxembourg‘s youngest DJ. He stayed in the Grand Duchy for 6½ years, during which he also appeared on Granada Television, where he introduced a weekly pop show.
In May 1975, he was taken on by a commercial station in Nottingham and, just over a year later, moved to Radio 1.
Over his eight-year tenure at the BBC, he hosted the mid-morning slot, the network’s flagship teatime show, and the Sunday Top 40 chart rundown.
His evening shows championed early post-punk, synth-pop, and indie bands, famously hosting historic live studio sessions for acts like The Smiths, U2, and Iron Maiden.
Jensen also guest-hosted Top of the Pops between 1977 and 1984 before joining US broadcaster CNN. He was also the face of ITV’s The Roxy, a rival music chart show in the late 1980s.
He returned to the UK in the 1980s and worked for Capital Radio.
In 2018, Jensen publicly revealed that he had been privately battling Parkinson’s disease for over a decade. Following his announcement, he became a high-profile champion and celebrity ambassador for the charity Parkinson’s UK, working to raise awareness and funding for the condition.
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He was dubbed ‘Kid’ when, at eighteen, he became Radio Luxembourg‘s youngest DJ. He stayed in the Grand Duchy for 6½ years, during which he also appeared on Granada Television, where he introduced a weekly pop show.
