Bob Harris

Bob Harris (b. 1946) is the only DJ from the early 1970s Radio One Sounds of the Seventies era still broadcasting regularly on national BBC radio. A respected figure who has been honoured by both the Radio Academy and the Country Music Association of America, he celebrated 40 years of radio work in August 2010. His first shows for Radio One in 1970 had been as holiday cover for John Peel, and in the early stage of his career Peel was, as he acknowledged, an important influence. In later years Peel and Harris became estranged, both musically and personally, but their relationship became friendlier during Peel's final years.

Before beginning his radio career Harris had been an enthusiastic listener to Peel's Perfumed Garden programme on Radio London; he interviewed Peel for the student magazine Unit in early 1968 and later that year was co-founder, with Tony Elliott, of the listings magazine Time Out. He soon left, claiming that he lacked Elliott's dynamism and ambition, and contributed articles and record reviews to underground papers such as Oz and Friends.

His trial programmes as a stand-in for the holidaying Peel were successful enough for him to obtain a regular Monday evening show of his own in the Sounds of the Seventies series on Radio One, after its host, DJ David Symonds, resigned from the BBC. Backed by producers and engineers who had also worked with Peel (such as Jeff Griffin and John Muir), Harris was the most successful of the new "progressive" DJs, with initial playlists not very different from Peel's but with more emphasis on singer-songwriters, a major trend of the early 1970s with which "Whispering Bob" became closely associated.

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