John Richbourg

John R. (born John Richbourg, August 20, 1910, Manning, South Carolina; died February 15, 1986, Nashville, Tennessee) was an American radio disc jockey who attained fame in the 1950s and 1960s for playing rhythm and blues music on Nashville radio station WLAC. He was also a notable record producer and artist manager.

Richbourg was arguably the most popular and charismatic of the four announcers at WLAC who showcased popular African-American music in nightly programs from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. (The other three were Gene Nobles, Herman Grizzard, and Bill "Hoss" Allen.) Later rock music disc jockeys such as Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, and others mimicked Richbourg's practice of using speech that simulated African-American street language of the mid-twentieth century.

Richbourg's highly stylized approach to on-air presentation of both music and advertising earned him popularity, but it also created identity confusion. Because Richbourg and fellow disc jockey Allen used African-American speech patterns, many listeners thought that both announcers were actually African-Americans. The disc jockeys used the mystique to their commercial and personal advantages until the mid-1960s, when their racial identities as Euro-Americans became public knowledge.

Richbourg was a descendant of French Huguenot immigrants. As a young man, he moved to New York City to work as a theater actor. Because of the Great Depression and lack of work, he shifted to voice work on radio soap operas. Tiring of the instability of life as an actor, Richbourg returned to his native South Carolina. He obtained a job announcing at WTMA in Charleston. After a year there, in 1942 Richbourg moved to WLAC in Nashville. During World War II, from 1943 to 1946, Richbourg served in the U.S. Navy. He returned to Nashville after his honorable discharge and was invited back to his old job on the air.

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