Pete Drummond in 1967
Peter Drummond-Hay (born 29 July 1943), known professionally as Pete Drummond, is a British voice artist and former BBC and pirate radio disc jockey and announcer.
He was born in Bangor, Wales. His parents were Geoffrey Francis Drummond-Hay and Margaret Felon, married in 1936. His father fought in the First World War.
As a child he lived in Australia and France, before attending Millfield Schoolalongside later BBC Radio 1 colleague Tony Blackburn. He trained as an actor and toured the US, where he realised that, following the "British Invasion", English accents were in demand on radio stations. He worked as an announcer in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas, before returning to Britain in 1966. He then joined the staff of pirate station Radio London, where he had his own shows during the station's final months on air. His nickname was “Dum Dum” and the music he adopted as his theme tune was the 1966 track "Marble Breaks, Iron Bends" recorded on Fontana records by Peter Fenton. Each of his shows ended with a piece of advice: "Smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you've been up to." The station closed at 3pm on Monday 14 August 1967.
He joined Radio 1 from its start in September 1967, and, as someone who was seen as both avant garde and reliable, was used as one of the early presenters of Top Gear, along with John Peel who later took over the programme. In 1977 the BBC chose him to present a series of 11 radio programmes, scripted by Pete Frame and John Tobler, called Summer of '67 which concentrated on the music and sounds that had made an impact ten years earlier. Between September 1978 and March 1981 he presented the BBC2 rock programme titled Rock Goes to College, which featured bands playing at university campuses.
Drummond continued presenting radio and occasionally TV programmes for the BBC until the early 1990s, often featuring progressive rock music on programmes such as Disco 2, Sounds of the Seventies and Sight and Sound In Concert (a BBC initiative to provide simultaneous pictures on BBC2 television and stereo radio broadcasts on BBC Radio 1, as stereo television broadcasts and receivers did not exist at the time).
He also worked for the BBC World Service and Radio Luxembourg. He left the BBC in 1991. On 11 July 1997 he attended, along with other DJs, the launch of the BBC documentary The Radio One Story, which commemorated the 30th anniversary of the radio station.
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Links to Peel[]
In the late 1960s Pete Drummond was the DJ regarded as closest in style and musical interests to John Peel. Like Peel, he was a former public schoolboy (educated at Millfield School, like Peel's "enemy" Tony Blackburn) who had gained his initial DJ experience in the United States, but in his case in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas, rather than on the West Coast. . He joined Radio London in September 1966 and was an established member of the Big L DJ team (rejoicing in the nickname "Dum Dum") by the time Peel arrived on the station in March 1967. He sometimes deputised on the midnight to 2 a.m. slot when Peel was on shore leave and seemed to share some of Peel's musical enthusiasms; he stepped in to present the penultimate Perfumed Garden when Peel was called ashore at short notice because his then wife Shirley Anne Milburn ("the White Rabbit") had been taken ill.
Drummond and Peel, by then both managed by Clive Selwood, co-presented the first Radio One Top Gear on 01 October 1967. In the station's first few weeks, Drummond, rather than Peel, seemed to be regarded as the main presenter of Top Gear, hosting the show for six consecutive weeks with co-presenters including Mike Ahern, Tommy Vance, Rick Dane and Peel. Indeed, Record Mirror, previewing the first week of Radio 1 in its September 23, 1967 issue, stated that Drummond (wrongly described as an American) had "been signed on as an anchor man for the longest (three-hour) D.J stint of the week.."[2]. However it was Peel who producer Bernie Andrews chose to co-host Top Gear from November 1967 to January 1968 with Tommy Vance, and then as sole presenter of the programme from February 1968.
Pete Drummond continued his Radio One career, introducing editions of Midday Spin, in which he included what were then known as "progressive sounds", and also deputising on occasion for Peel, for example on Night Ride when JP was ill in December 1968. He began hosting a one-hour weekend show with a playlist similar to Peel's in January 1969 and became one of the presenters of the Sounds of the Seventies weeknight programmes from 1970, as well as introducing some Radio One In Concert performances. He was one of the DJs who lost their regular slots when Radio One ended Sounds of the Seventies in 1975 as part of the BBC's economy drive.
Drummond under the name of Pete Drummond And The V.H.F. Band released a single, 'Rocking At The B.B.C.', which was played by Peel on Top Gear's show in 1972.
Despite this, Pete Drummond still appeared on Radio One, being chosen in 1977 to narrate a Summer of '67 series, scripted by Pete Frame and John Tobler and focusing on the music and events of the year in which Peel made his name.[1] It is not known whether Peel was asked to present the series, but his distate for the sixties nostalgia of many of his contemporaries would probably have made him refuse. Nevertheless, the programmes featured much of the material played on the Perfumed Garden and early Top Gear. Drummond's Radio One career ended in 1991, although he also worked for other stations, BBC World Service and Radio Luxembourg among them.
Unlike Peel, Pete Drummond did not develop a second career in journalism or wholeheartedly espouse the values associated with the music he played. Before going into DJing, he had trained for three years at RADA as an actor and had the versatility such a background provides, but was less of an "original" than his Radio London and Radio One colleague. Perhaps because of this, his DJ career did not last as long as Peel's. He has most recently been active in commercial voice-over work.
Shows Played[]
- 07 November 1972: Rocking At The B.B.C. (7") Warner Bros.