Masterclass: Bob Harris

Thursday August 21, 2008

In this age of round-the-clock music television, it is easy to forget how music on TV was once a precious commodity.

Back in the Seventies, while Top Of The Pops could be relied upon to offer up a weekly diet of chart hits, for artists not falling under the mainstream umbrella there was only one destination on British TV: The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Launched in 1971, the BBC2 late-night show gave an early visual platform to such legends as Bob Marley & The Wailers, Tim Buckley and Captain Beefheart who, without the existence of the programme, may never have been seen by a UK TV audience. Its draw was also such that in 1975 it managed to persuade John Lennon, then living in New York, to perform several tracks as part of the promotion for his Rock ‘n’ Roll album, the last musical performance he ever gave for UK television.

No one is more closely linked to the programme than Bob Harris, whose presentation style earnt him the ‘whispering’ nickname and attracted much parody, but came with an authority that has continued throughout his career, helping influence future “serious” popular music programmes such as Later…with Jools Holland.

Harris’s stint on The Old Grey Whistle Test largely coincided with his first spell on Radio One where, alongside the likes of presenters such as John Peel, Alan Freeman and Paul Gambaccini, he provided a serious music antidote to lightweight daytime personality jocks such as DLT, Noel Edmonds and David Hamilton.

Harris presented Sounds Of The Seventies on the BBC network before leaving at the end of 1974 to join Radio Luxembourg, where he stayed for a couple of years before beginning stints on various BBC and ILR stations around the country including Radio 210, BBC Radio Oxford, LBC and GWR.

He rejoined Radio One in late 1989 as a stand-in, but eventually secured his own weekly show, which suitably placed him in a late-night slot as he presented Sunday nights from 11pm to 2am. He moved to weeknights in 1990, with the programme extending to 4am when Radio One started broadcasting 24 hours a day in 1991.

Having joined London’s GLR in 1994, he returned to the national airwaves in 1997 to present the 11pm to 1am Saturday night/Sunday morning slot on Radio Two as part of then-controller Jim Moir’s “evolution not revolution” station overhaul. He remains on the schedule on Saturday nights, and additionally hosts Bob Harris Country on Thursday evenings and plays a a key role in the station’s annual Country Music Awards coverage. His Whispering Bob Broadcasting Company (WBBC) has produced four Radio Two-aired documentaries, including The Day John Met Paul, which uncovered the story of Lennon and McCartney’s first meeting and which won a silver honour at this year’s Sony Radio Awards.

Beyond radio, he was a co-founder of Time Out magazine, has written a series of books including an autobiography entitled The Whispering Years, produced several records and has his own compilation series, Bob Harris Presents…, which features tracks by artists he has championed on air. Among those featured since the series began in 1999 are Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Thea Gilmore.

Here Harris offers his step-by-step guide of what makes a successful music radio presenter.

Be yourself

It was John Peel who originally got me started as a broadcaster. He mentored me at Radio One and, crucially, introduced me to Jeff Griffin, the producer with whom I worked during my first months on the network in 1970. Both encouraged me to put my programmes together in my own way, to express my enthusiasm and play the music I loved. I could not have learned from two better people.

Jeff taught me the nuts and bolts of programme building, the creative stuff like music flow, blending tracks and the programme’s pulse alongside mundane considerations such as structure and timing. This was radio of another era; the five-day test match versus today’s 20/20, but the disciplines and skills I learned in those early days are still serving me well today.

John encouraged me to be myself. I remember him telling me that he saw his role as that of a page-turner, linking the listeners from one piece of music to the next. He did it with the quality that marks out all the great broadcasters: a natural ease. I could not slide a cigarette paper between the John Peel I knew and the John Peel that came out of my radio.

Always search for new music

I always use new music as the basis of my programme builds. I can genuinely say that the most exciting CDs in my collection are the ones that dropped onto the mat this morning. New bands and artists are the lifeblood of everything. In this respect, you can draw a straight line from what I was doing in my early days on Radio One and on television to what I am doing today on Radio Two.

Sounds of the Seventies and The Old Grey Whistle Test were designed to mainly showcase emerging artists and to introduce the audience to ‘the best music you’ve never heard’ and I have always been guided by that principal. The artists appreciate that I have discovered them and so does the audience. I try and give as much information as I can. A trust builds up. It’s mostly instinctive; I try not to think about it all too much. I have stuck by the music I believe in and have found that, in a kind of miraculous way, the music has stuck by me.

Respect the music

It is very important to do the music justice. I don’t particularly like talking all over records and getting in the way too much, so I tend to build my music mix in segues of two, three or sometimes four tracks, mixed to create a mood or convey a feeling.

It is important to know the songs pretty well, to link piano with piano or lyric with lyric and it is a wonderfully creative process that highlights the music in a really complementary way.

I like matching new recordings with the tracks that inspired them, for example Oasis’s Cigarettes And Alcohol with T. Rex’s Get It On, making connections between new music and music from the past. I like to push out the boundaries to include as many different styles as I can and my programme building can be infinitely flexible as a result.

II have a website [www.bobharris.org] on which I publish my playlists just before I go on air, making links to the sites of all the musicians I play. It is an incredible buzz to hear from artists whose sites have been hit by listeners out of the blue, ordering copies of their CDs after plays on my shows. It is, as the old cliché says, what it is all about.

Acquire knowledge

None of the above is possible without knowledge. You have to be focused and immerse yourself in the music you love, listen through the new CDs, go onto websites, get to gigs, talk to people and mix with musicians. Not only is it all fabulously enjoyable but the acquisition of knowledge becomes a natural and beautiful experience.

Listen

I rarely go into an interview with a set list of questions. I do all my research ahead of time and prioritise a few topics in my head. I am keen to establish good eye contact with my guests and I can’t do that or concentrate on what they are saying if I am constantly looking down at notes.

The aim is to make this moment as close to a natural conversation as it can be; to have enough knowledge to follow your guest off-subject. The idea is to get the best out of them. Be interested to be interesting.

Be honest

The microphone is an unerring truth-teller. Be false and live radio will eventually find you out.

Make honest documentaries

In addition to my regular shows on Radio Two, I have recently been making programmes for the Whispering Bob Broadcasting Company, an independent production company founded by my wife Trudie and myself. So far, we have made four documentaries, the second of which, The Day John Met Paul, won us a Sony Silver.

The process of documentary making has changed hugely since I first learned the basics from Jeff Griffin, working with him on the six-part The Beach Boys Story on Radio One in 1974. Then we were editing across the playback head, cutting out micro bits of tape with a razor, trying to stick them back together again in some sort of order with the see-through equivalent of gaffer tape and playing the whole lot back from a mountain of machines operated by a control room full of engineers. Now everything is digital; a mini mixer inside my laptop. Documentary making in 2008 is easier, quicker and more conveniently creative, but the principals are the same.

Let the programme breathe. Be organic and let the material guide you, not the other way round. Look for the balance between organisation and flair. And it is vitally important for your programme to tell the truth. Do not give in to any kind of temptation to massage a piece of dialogue to conform it to your story. Making selective edits that effectively misrepresent your contributor is wrong.

Know your audience

One of my two weekly programmes on Radio Two is Bob Harris Country, on which I stretch the definition across the boundaries of country into alt.country, bluegrass, Americana, old-time and roots – it is an eclectic mix. Some say I take it too far, but the audience reaction is incredibly positive, which gives me the encouragement to experiment further. However, there is a limit. The Foo Fighters and The Kooks are just not right for the country show. It just wouldn’t work.

Enjoy yourself

Create your own studio atmosphere, relax into the music and have a good time. If you and your guests are enjoying yourselves, the vibe will communicate to the audience and make your programme better.

Finally… work with great people and be loyal

I have been unbelievably lucky from the start of my career to have worked with some of the finest programme makers, producers and artists.

From Jeff Griffin and Mike Appleton to Charles Foster at BFBS, Johnny Beerling at Radio One, Jude Howells and my programme team at GLR, Jim Moir, Lesley Douglas, Phil Hughes, Phil Swern, Dave Shannon, Sue Welch, Al Booth and Mark Simpson at Radio Two to Trudie, Neil Myners and Phil Ward-Large at WBBC. They have been absolutely brilliant, the lot of them.

In radio, everybody knows everybody. Treat everyone with respect.