It’s been four months since ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris took over from DJ Johnnie Walker on Radio 2’s popular Sounds of the 70s – just weeks before the legendary DJ’s death. But it’s not the first time Bob has been in the hot seat.
He was first given the show to host 55 years ago back in 1970. The iconic star had a rock and roll journey, co-founding Time Out in 1968, hosting seventies cult music show The Old Grey Whistle Test and presenting Radio 2’s The Country Show.
And despite turning 79 next month, he is still ahead of the curve. He can’t ever imagine retiring, insisting, “I’m not a workaholic. I’d describe myself as a lifer. But then it’s been my life for almost 60 years now.
“One of the reasons I carry on working is that I do what I do because I love it. But I am conscious,” he adds, “of not becoming the Ken Barlow of rock.”
His big break came when he interviewed DJ John Peel for Time Out, who was so impressed by his musical knowledge that he asked him to cover his radio show while he took a six-week break. By 1970, Bob had been given his own show, Sounds of the 70s.
“My dad came along to Broadcasting House and got chatting to Terry Wogan. My show followed his. Dad asked him if there was any security with the job. Terry replied, ‘Put it this way, I have a contract that lasts 13 weeks…’”
Despite the ominous warning, he has presented The Country Show on Radio 2 for 26 years, and to his delight, country music is now more popular than ever. Even Beyonce is getting in on the act. Since 2013, he’s been fronting the annual C2C – Country to Country festival, which kicks off on March 14.
That audience also makes up a healthy percentage of those people who tune into Sounds of the 70s, the show Bob inherited from an ailing Johnnie Walker, a matter of weeks before his death at the end of December. Helen Thomas, Head of Radio 2, had approached Bob last autumn with the offer of taking up Johnnie’s reins.
“But I felt I had to get the blessing of him and his wife, Tiggy. He and I went way back to the 70s on Radio 1. He was kind enough to say he was extremely pleased I was going to be taking over. And, I must say, I was flattered to be embarking on a new chapter in my career. It feels like I’ve come full circle.”
Bob has had some health issues of his own. In 2007, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a condition he’s living with to this day. “Medical technology is advancing apace and keeping me alive. If I ever get a flare-up, I go and see my oncologist. But I’m still here.”
Only by the grace of God. Six years ago, in May 2019, Bob suffered a tear in his aorta, the main artery supplying oxygenated blood to all parts of the body. “I describe it as the M1 of the body.”
A Type A aortic dissection is almost always fatal. “I was lucky in that I had a Type B. The ambulance arrived quickly, the paramedics doing what they could parked in my drive. I was then whisked off to the John Radcliffe Hospital near where I live in Oxfordshire, my family gathered around my bed. The pain was off the scale. I wasn’t expected to last the night.”
One piece of good fortune was that his consultant advised against operating on the damaged aorta because it was so high in his chest – a move that could have cost Whispering Bob his whisper. “Any surgery would almost certainly have damaged my voice and, without that, I would no longer have had a career.”
As it was, he stepped onto the stage of the Radio 2 in the Park live concert that September and the audience of 65,000 rewarded him with a deafening ovation. Not for nothing has he long been known as Whispering Bob, his vocal delivery making it sound almost as though he’s swallowing the microphone.
Eric Idle on his comedy sketch show, Rutland Weekend Television, based his character on Whispering Bob on the Whistle Test. “I appeared with Eric playing me. Great fun,” he says.
Meanwhile, his seemingly unstoppable professional CV is matched by an equally colourful private life. Married three times, he has eight children by four different women and now a further eight grandchildren. First wife Sue, the mother of his two eldest daughters and a much-loved friend to this day, was succeeded by Italian cook Valentina, mother of his two boys.
Between the two marriages, Bob also had a daughter from another relationship. Trudie, who he married in 1991, is mother to the three youngest.
He doesn’t see too much of Val, as he calls her, but he and Trudie have maintained an amicable relationship following the unravelling of their marriage. “I’ve been helping her write a book, Words of Love, based on Buddy Holly’s life which will be launched next month.”
He has a wide circle of friends including Suzi Perry, Grand Prix motorcycle racing TV presenter. “We see each other as often as we can when she’s in the UK. In fact, we’ve done a Celebrity Antiques Road Trip which will go out later this month.
He knew the Beatles, of course. “I saw Ringo just recently and I’ve always been close to [George Harrison’s wife] Olivia Harrison. Paul and I are in touch.”
But the most incredible moment in his career, he says, was meeting John Lennon. “It was late ‘74 and I was talking to Elton [John] who was off to America to perform at Madison Square Garden. He told me that Lennon was going to join him onstage on one of the nights.
“So, I asked Elton if he’d ask John whether he’d consider appearing on Whistle Test. I never thought anything of it. About 10 days later, I was sitting in the office when the phone rang. The caller asked to speak to me. It was John. Why didn’t I come over and record a slot with him in New York?
“The word is over-used but, in my opinion, Lennon was a genius. And don’t we need him now! He and Yoko were responsible for a million people serenading the White House with a rendition of Give Peace A Chance. I wonder if Mr Trump would listen?”
Bob became a good friend, meanwhile, of the newly departed Marianne Faithfull. “She’d come and visit her mother in Berkshire where I was working on local radio and we’d go for a drive together and look at the night sky.”
In 2014, he first came across Taylor Swift in Nashville. “I was there with Trudie and our son Miles. She’d created a lovely party room backstage complete with Coca-Cola machines and sweets all over the tables. We had our photo taken with her. I was the first person to play her on UK radio.”
And, of course, there is true country legend Dolly Parton. “I’ve met her a few times,” says Bob, “but I never met her husband, Carl, who’s just died.
“He was a reclusive, proud of his wife’s success but not wanting to have anything to do with the music industry. I know she regarded him as her rock. He provided the security and comfort she needed. He never saw her as a star. When she got home, she was his partner and his wife. Theirs was a very loving relationship. She’s a fantastic person, a real force for good in the world.”
Bob Harris will be fronting shows from the C2C festival on Radio 2 and BBC Sounds on Saturday March 15 and Sunday March 16
