Bernie Andrews


 * Bernie Andrews (17/08/1933 – 11/06/2010) was a BBC radio producer. He is the man credited with enabling John Peel to become sole presenter of Top Gear, a programme he had originated on the Light Programme in 1964. Introduced by Brian Matthew and featuring many of the leading artists and records of the time, it ran for six months between 10 p.m. and midnight on Thursday evenings, before being taken off by the BBC management. The assumption at the time was that this fast-moving, youthful and modern programme was too radical for the Light Programme, which, despite the beat group explosion of the 1960s, still concentrated on pre-rock'n'roll forms of pop music. Unlike most BBC producers of the era, Andrews was enthusiastic about pop music and won additional studio time to for guest artists to record sessions for the programme. (This was a necessity owing to the Musicians' Union's "needletime" restrictions on playing records.) In so doing he winning the respect of artists such as the Beatles - and invented what would later be known as the "Peel session".
 * Top Gear was revived as a key programme of the new Radio One in September 1967, with a three-hour slot on Sunday afternoons. Its role was to be at the cutting edge of new developments in pop music and Andrews, having heard John Peel's Radio London programmes, was sure that he was the right DJ to present the show. However, his admiration for Peel was not shared by his BBC superiors (only Robin Scott, Controller of Radio One, agreed with him), so for the first few months of Radio One Top Gear had a variety of presenters.

(TBC...)