Bob Boilen (All Songs Considered, Tiny Desk) retiring from NPR after 35 years

Bob Boilen, the NPR broadcaster who hosts All Songs Considered and helped create the Tiny Desk concert series, will retire from the network on October 2 after more than three decades. The news came via NPR Music’s Lars Gotrich, who wrote on Twitter, “I will have more to say soon — probably even on the All Songs Considered podcast, which I’m taping with Bob on Friday if I can get through it without 😭 — but without Bob, there’s no Tiny Desk, no NPR Music.”

Fun fact: The Tiny Desk series got its name from Bob’s old DC band, The Tiny Desk Unit, who were the first group to play the 9:30 Club.

From Bob’s NPR’s bio page:

In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR’s doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.

Significant listener interest in the music being played on All Things Considered, along with his and NPR’s vast music collections, gave Boilen the idea to start All Songs Considered. “It was obvious to me that listeners of NPR were also lovers of music, but what also became obvious by 1999 was that the web was going to be the place to discover new music and that we wanted to be the premiere site for music discovery.” The show launched in 2000, with Boilen as its host.

We’ll miss hearing you every week, Bob, but we hope to still run into you at shows. Thanks for everything you’ve done and good luck with what’s next.