2008 Flashback: WQXI radio host Bob Carr (’Willis the Guard’) has died at age 66

Bob Carr was never a household name in Atlanta radio. But back in the 1970s and ’80s, everyone in the city knew his radio character Willis the Guard.

Carr created the redneck good ol’ boy in 1973 at WQXI-AM and became part of Atlanta’s biggest morning team from the mid-1970s through late 1980s on both WQXI and 94Q.

The Alabama native died Monday of lung disease at St. Joseph’s Hospital. He was 66.

His funeral services are at H.M. Patterson & Son at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

“I would have just been another morning jock if it hadn’t been for him,” said Gary McKee, who led the morning show. “He was Larry the Cable Guy before there was cable. He was able to walk the thin line between self parody and lifestyle parody. Everyone has a little bit of redneck in them.”

Carr‘s real voice was resonant and absent any Southern accent at all. “He actually had a real soothing radio voice when he wasn’t doing Willis,” said his wife of 39 years Judy, who met him while he was in the Air Force in Biloxi, Miss.

In fact, Carr‘s low-key persona was nothing like the higher-pitched drawlin’ Willis the Guard, who brought an exuberant blue-collar touch to the show. “Some days I had to sit down after the show, I was laughing so hard,” McKee said.

And even when 94Q added a female sidekick to the show, Carr never expressed any jealousy or threat.

“He never sensed I was usurpiing his role,” said Yetta Levitt, who joined the show in 1978. “We did spar a bit. I represented the liberal female. Willis was conservative. That was part of the schtick.”

The show itself was sometimes likened to a local radio version of “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson,” not too raunchy or edgy but always fun.

Carr would never break out of character on the air and in public radio appearances, donning a big beard and cowboy hat and boots to complete the image.

“Appearances would be so crowded,” McKee said, ““I’d have to go on the air and say, ‘Don’t come now. There are too many too people here!’”

Carr‘s son David Carr said he got to feed off his dad’s fame growing up, taking special pride when Bob showed up to David’s fourth-grade career day. “I remember the first thing he said to the students was, “Don’t ask me how much money I make!’ Naturally, that was the first thing they asked.”

“Looking back,” David added, “I appreciate his desire to look at things through a comedic lens. He could be sarcastic and cynical but that’s where good comedy comes from.”

When the Gary McKee show disbanded in 1988. Carr never returned to the airwaves and retired Willis the Guard. “It was a big blow to him when they let him go.” said David, who is the drummer for popular Atlanta Christian rock band Third Day. “I never heard him do Willis ever again.”

Carr was a lifelong movie buff with a special love for the Western “How the West Was Won,” “He loved the technical side of projection and the rawness of film,” David said. Even while working at 94Q. Carr would do projection work at the now defunct Columbia Theatre downtown.

After radio, Carr spent the next 17 years as a projectionist at the Midtown Cinemas (now called the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema) before lung disease forced him into early retirement.