Top Gear (radio show)

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This article is about the radio show, for other uses of Top Gear see Top Gear (disambiguation)

Top Gear was originally a short-lived pop music show on the BBC Light Programme in the mid-1960s. It was one of the Corporation's few attempts to compete with the pirate radio stations and Radio Luxembourg, who had attracted large audiences of young British pop music listeners in the absence of an "official" alternative. This was made explicit in the show's title, which evoked the 1960s fascination with fast cars, jet planes and high-speed travel, but also the use of "gear" to describe fashionable Carnaby Street clothes and the 1960s Liverpool term "fab gear", popularised by the Beatles as an expression of approval. The programme comprised a mixture of records and live sessions, was introduced by Brian Matthew, and featured many popular guests such as Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Who, Dusty Springfield, The Kinks and Manfred Mann.

It was revived, and evolved into a "progressive" music show, in the early years of BBC Radio 1 (from 1967 into the 1970s), with the same format of records and specially recorded sessions. It was hosted variously by Tommy Vance, Pete Drummond and, most notably, John Peel, who, with the help of sympathetic producers Bernie Andrews and John Walters, turned it into an award-winning show, while retaining the emphasis on new music. In 1971 the programme merged with the Sounds of the Seventies strand, broadcast on FM. It was still introduced by Peel, and moved from its weekend slot to two evenings a week.

It ended when the BBC, facing a serious financial crisis, was forced to make cutbacks in the Radio One schedules; most of the evening programmes of "progressive music" were scrapped. The final 'Top Gear' show was broadcast on 25 September 1975; it was composed mostly of sessions by artists who had become famous after appearing on 'Top Gear', ranging from T. Rex, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to Randy Newman and Bob Marley and the Wailers. On this show, Peel spoke of how influential and fashionable the programme had been in its heyday. He continued to be influential, hosting similar programmes of records and sessions for the BBC until his death in 2004, but the 'Top Gear' title - which by 1975 sounded very dated - was dropped.

Further reading:

Brian Matthew: This is where I came in (London; Constable 1991)

Robert Chapman: Selling the sixties; the pirates and pop music radio (London: Routledge 1992)

John Peel and Sheila Ravenscroft: Margrave Of The Marshes (London 2005)

Ken Garner: The Peel Sessions (London 2007)