Long regarded as one of the most important voices in jazz radio and a mainstay of the Philadelphia-area jazz scene, Bob Perkins passed away. He was ninety-one.
According to radio station WRTI, Perkins, a resident of Wyncote, passed away on Sunday at Jefferson Abington Hospital after being admitted there for the previous two weeks.
Before returning to Philadelphia to work at WDAS, Perkins, who was born in Philadelphia, started his broadcasting career in Detroit in 1964.
Later, in the late 1970s, he hosted a weekend jazz show at WHYY. In 1997, he moved to WRTI to lead an evening jazz program.
Musician Christian McBride told WRTI that Bob Perkins always sounded like one of those voices that was everywhere. He was able to play and communicate things with the audience from a perspective that most DJs don’t have since he carried a lot of history and was a legacy in his own right.
“What Bob brought to it was this sort of deep understanding of what it meant, not just as entertainment, but what its cultural value was, what its history was,” said Bill Johnson, General Manager of WRTI, to KYW Radio Philadelphia. “He didn’t have to preach to you in order to convey that.”
After retiring in 2022, he launched the Stay Tuned podcast, which explores history, culture, and music.
In 2022, Perkins told KYW, “I’m just a guy who loves jazz music, but I’m so-called an alleged jazz authority.”
Stories by
Chris Mautner