Witness the revival of The Old Grey Whistle Test

But where Top Of The Pops, its glitzier BBC One cousin, was all about chart positions and celebrity DJs, The Old Grey Whistle Test was defiantly, unrepentantly – and often unfashionably – about the music. Or as its most famous presenter Bob Harris put it: “Whistle Test was an albums show. Top Of The Pops was singles.”

Now, to mark 30 years since its final broadcast, BBC Four is resurrecting the Whistle Test. This Friday a live three-hour special presented by Harris will feature music from Peter Frampton, Richard Thompson and Albert Lee – all performed on the original show – as well as guests including Joan Armatrading, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart and Chris Difford of Squeeze.

It will also feature several of Whistle Test’s other presenters including Annie Nightingale, Richard Williams, David Hepworth and Andy Kershaw.

And if the whole thing will naturally be something of an exercise in nostalgia for old grey rockers both in the studio and watching at home, it also marks a long-overdue recognition for an institution that arguably did more to champion rock music as a serious art form than any other TV programme before or since.

The list of acts that made their debut British performances on the Whistle Test is astonishing: Bob Marley and the Wailers (whom Harris described as being “ridiculously good
and totally stoned”), Dire Straits, the New York Dolls, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, XTC all of whom shared the tiny studio with superstars including Blondie, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Patti Smith, Queen, R.E.M., The Smiths and Talking Heads.

If the eclecticism and sense of musical adventure was part of Whistle Test’s magic – a typical episode might introduce an unknown band followed by a stadium-filler like The Who – so was the sense of absolute equality.

If the music was good, that was enough. This attitude, plus the fact that the show aired live, also meant that things often turned unpredictable, especially in the years after Harris’s departure when Annie Nightingale gave many punk and new wave bands their first real TV exposure.

“A lot of the bands were very inexperienced,” she remembered.

“Everything went wrong when Gary Numan came on with his band Tubeway Army. This was a big break for them and they’d brought their own set made of bits of polystyrene. The fire officer didn’t like it and started spraying it with fire retardant, adding to the tension. Then when the camera swung round and knocked over half their props, hysteria took over.

“I was laughing to try and calm things down but Numan told me later he never forgave us for that because he had felt so nervous.”

She also recalled The Damned performing their breakthrough hit Smash It Up – and promptly doing exactly that to all of their instruments (“to the point where they were looking round to see if there were any mic stands they’d missed”) and a particularly bizarre interview with Jeff Beck, who agreed to appear only if a member of his entourage walked naked across the studio playing bagpipes as they talked.

Other surreal highlights included a segment with future US president Jimmy Carter in 1976 in which Carter sported a Whistle Test badge on his lapel, and an interview with Rolling Stone Keith Richards, during which the rocker consumed most of a bottle of Jack Daniels.

On another occasion Harris remembered an appearance by Lou Reed, who came into the studio flanked by a menacing-looking minder on each shoulder: “Then I noticed the two huge guys were literally supporting him, one under each arm, the toes of his black boots dragging across the floor as they dumped him into the chair beside me.”

Whistle Test was first aired in September 1971 and was the brainchild of BBC Two controller David Attenborough. It was originally presented by Melody Maker journalist Richard Williams, with the emphasis from the start on “serious” music. So there were no fancy sets, only the most basic stage and barely any studio audience.

Even the name reflected its muso intentions, being a nod to the days of Tin Pan Alley when pluggers would judge the merit of a new song by playing it to the “old greys”: the bouncers who worked the doors of Soho clubs.

If they could whistle the tune after just one hearing, it would invariably prove to be a hit. The show also had a tight budget – just £500 an episode, including rights, appearance money and set design (which may explain why there was no set design).

Initially the presenters were paid £40 a week and the acts a measly £15… with the exception being John Lennon, who was paid in biscuits.

When Harris explained to the former Beatle that, by a quirk of BBC regulations the £15 payment was mandatory, whether he wanted it or not, Lennon – by then living in New York – responded: “Bring me £15-worth of Chocolate Olivers, I can’t get them in America.”

Harris presented Whistle Test for only seven of its 17 years but thanks to his laid-back delivery, hippy geography teacher style and nerdish enthusiasm, he remains the man most associated with it.

Under his tenure it attracted upwards of five million viewers per show but ultimately it was those qualities that forced him to leave.

As the music scene shifted in the mid-1970s, Whispering Bob’s love of a long guitar solo became seen as a sign that he was out of touch with the angrier music that was emerging from the underground.

The final straw came when he described cross-dressing proto-punk outfit the New York Dolls as “mock rock” and then glam pioneers Roxy Music as “all arrogance and packaging and not a lot of substance”.

“Unfortunately a perception developed that we were against punk and new wave,” he said.

“But the spotlight of aggression on me did wear me down.”

That “spotlight of aggression” climaxed with Harris being assaulted in a nightclub by Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, who demanded to know why they hadn’t been invited on to the show.

In an almost perfect metaphor for the changing musical landscape Harris was rescued by roadies from prog band Procol Harum.

In 1978 he was replaced as presenter by Annie Nightingale, who gave the show relevancy again, and although ratings declined through the 1980s under the tenure of presenters including Hepworth, fellow journalist Mark Ellen and DJ Andy Kershaw, it continued to showcase future stars such as The Smiths to the end.

In 1988, under the orders of Janet Street-Porter in her role as head of BBC youth and entertainment, it was laid to rest.

Friday’s special is unlikely to spring any surprises – either musically or in the way of Damned-style anarchics – but for anyone of a certain age who grew up believing pop music is about more than mere chart positions, it should at least bring back some happy memories.

And as for its most famous former presenter even at 71 he’s not ruling out a return for an older, greyer Whistle Test.

“I’m not talking about it being a retro show,” he says. “I mean a magazine show where we discuss new bands.”

Stranger things have happened.