Education
He was raised in Eltham, a suburb of London, and completed his national service in the Royal Air Force.
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Bernie Andrews
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After working as a Post Office telephone engineer, he joined the British Broadcasting Corporation as a technical (tape machine) operator in 1957, later being promoted to producer. In the early 1960s, he began producing Saturday Club, one of the few programmes on the British Broadcasting Corporation Light Programme to feature popular music, and frequently booked and recorded The Beatles, along with many other leading groups and artists of the time. He also booked The Rolling Stones.
The group failed their first British Broadcasting Corporation radio audition, but Andrews used them as a backing band for Bo Diddley and re-recorded their performances of some of their own numbers, enabling them to pass on the second occasion as a "trial broadcast".
Later in the 1960s, he became the first producer of the new Radio 1 programme Top Gear, with John Peel as the main presenter. He recorded the first British Broadcasting Corporation sessions of Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Fairport Convention among others
He was known for his record library, at one time owning a collection of every 45rpm popular record released in Britain since 1958 later sold to Elton John. He was also responsible for retaining many of the tapes of British Broadcasting Corporation radio session recordings, against the rules, which would otherwise have been wiped or discarded, and which in subsequent years were released officially, notably in the British Broadcasting Corporation Sessions series.
His collection also includes material from The Goon Show"s recording sessions, some of which has been included as bonus material on The Goon Show Compendium Civil Defense box sets.
Bernie Andrews retired in 1984, and later lived in Spain and Dorset. He died in 2010 at the age of 76.
