BBC Andy Peebles, Who Conducted One of the Last John Lennon Interviews, Dead at 76

Andy Peebles with John and Yoko, 1980

BBC radio announcer Andy Peebles died this week at age 76.

According to the Beeb, Peebles:

...presented on BBC Radio 1 from 1978 to 1992 and also hosted a number of editions of Top of the Pops in the 1970s and 80s.

Peebles interviewed Lennon two days before the musician's murder in December 1980. 

...Born in 1948, Peebles spent the late 1960s as a nightclub DJ, before turning his hand to radio.

He began his illustrious broadcasting career at BBC Radio Manchester in 1973, before going on to help found the independent radio station Piccadilly Radio a year later, where he first presented his Soul Train show.

In 1978 he moved to BBC Radio 1 where he would spend the next 14 years. He also presented on BBC Radio Lancashire.

It was during this tenure that Peebles interviewed John Lennon - one of the last that the former Beatle would do before he was shot and killed in New York in 1980.

Following Lennon's death, Peebles maintained a friendship with the musician's wife Yoko Ono and interviewed her again in 1983, in Tokyo, Japan.

Speaking on CBS about the interview with Lennon, Peebles said "I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my life.

"I'd grown-up not just idolising him but the group [The Beatles] and everything they'd done."