PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia jazz fans have been lucky to get to listen nightly to the genre’s most experienced and knowledgeable DJ, Bob Perkins, a fixture at WRTI for the last 25 years.
That ends Thursday night, though, when Perkins — known to fans as BP — steps back from the mic after a radio career that spanned nearly 60 years.
“I don’t know anybody else in Philadelphia or further environs that’s still in radio at 88, so I guess I feel really special,” he said.
He’ll reduce his full-time schedule to just one show on Sunday mornings, attributing his decision to “Father Time.”
“We’ve been fighting over the last five or six years, and he knocked me down and I always got back up, but I think I’ll give it to him this time,” he chuckled. “He’s knocked four days out of me but he let me keep that fifth day. I’ll fight him over that fifth day.”
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Perkins has been a jazz fan since his childhood in South Philadelphia, learning from his older brother, though he said he stumbled into radio on his own.
“With no experience, I just walked into a radio station and they needed someone, and I got the job,” he said.
That was in Detroit in 1964. He went from spinning discs to news and was lured back to Philadelphia as a newsman by WDAS.
He started moonlighting at WHYY in the late 1970s. He used Chopin’s prelude in E minor as a theme song and adopted the identity “BP with GM” — “Bob Perkins with good music.”
He had a variety of jobs before taking his side gig full time, joining WRTI as a jazz DJ in 1997.
“He was the face of WRTI,” said Maureen Malloy, the station’s jazz music director. “He’s a pillar in the Philadelphia jazz community. People who don’t even listen to jazz on a regular basis know who BP is.”
Perkins has hosted countless jazz shows and met most of the great jazz musicians of the last 50 years. As for his impeccable music selections, he said he picks them “by feel.”
“Millions of people have learned from Bob Perkins. He had so much information in his programming,” said Mark DeNinno, chef/owner of Chris’ Jazz Café in Center City.
DeNinno also loves Perkins’ voice, which has gone from a baritone to a tenor over the years but always sounds smooth and, appropriately for jazz, cool. DeNinno calls it soothing.
“It changed your perspective, changed your mood when you got to hear his voice,” he added.
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Despite his career, spent rubbing elbows with jazz stars and his legion of fans, Perkins is supremely down to earth. He’s excited about his Sunday show but expects the audience not to notice him.
“That’s a pretty big day,” he said. “People are doing last night’s dinner dishes. The things they don’t get to do Monday to Friday, they’re doing Sunday, and I’m their background.”
Temple University has not yet chosen a replacement for the weeknight shows. Josh Jackson, associate general manager, will fill in until a new host is announced this summer.
Jazz music radio hosts are a rare breed and growing rarer, according to industry publications. Perkins thinks jazz music in general suffers from short attention spans. People need time, he said, to get “soaked into” jazz. He considers himself lucky to have made a career in it.
“I’m so-called an alleged jazz authority, but I’m just a guy who loves jazz music,” he said.
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