He brought great music, great humor and great talk to New Orleans for more than 50 years... Lonnie Matherne was an icon on the radio.
Most people knew him better as Bob Mitchell or "The Real Robert Mitchell."
He died Monday at the age of 79 after complications from surgery to repair a broken hip.
Long-time friend, coworker and competitor Bob Walker, "The Oldies King", told WWL First News that Mitchell will be sorely missed after an amazing life.
Walker credits Mitchell with reintroducing New Orleans to some of the greatest artists in the city's history. He says when Mitchell became the program director at WTIX in 1965, he pledged to revive New Orleans artists.
"We were playing all the New Orleans songs that were really buried up until that time... with the Neville Brothers, Ernie K-Doe and Irma Thomas and everything. We started to bring them all back, and it was because of Bob Mitchell."
Listen to Walker talk about Bob:
"The Real Robert Mitchell... was an iconic legend in this market," WWL's Scoot in the Afternoon reflected. "So many of you grew up with Bob... he was a legend"
For many years they were competitors.
Listen to Scoot's tribute to Bob:
Bob had a long and rich history on the radio:
-Started out in radio in White Castle, Louisiana as a teenager
-Worked at WTMA in Charleston, South Carolina in the early 60's
-Came back to the city at WNNR in 1964 at the Jung Hotel in New Orleans
-Went to work on WTIX in 1965
-Became WTIX program director in 1968
-In 1986 went to work at Lite 105 for Ed Muniz
-1993 he began at KOOL 95
-In 2000, Entercom bought Muniz's radio stations and brought them into the family with WWL Radio
-After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Bob started working on WWL Radio doing news and talk
-Bob continued hosting shows on WWL 870am and 105.3fm until the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020.
Listen to Bob Mitchell from 1964:
Listen to Robert Mitchel from 1969: