JOHN PEEL DEAD

[Diamond Dog]

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned...sorry if it has...but Michael Eavis has said that he will name the New Bands tent at Glastonbury the John Peel Stage

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3957699.stm

Should have been the main stage.

Sorry to disagree, old boy, but I dont think so.
Im sure he would have been much more at home with the obscuros on the little stages, than with Macca, Muse and Radiohead up on the main.
He would have loved the idea that the cache of his name alone would pull folks to see smaller acts on a side stage.

Good answer and well thought out Andy. I bow to your intelligence!

[Sea Of Tunes]

By the way, Eavis could then name the main stage:

The Black Cat Bone Stage

for good measure.

[glammorgan55]

How did he come up with the name 'Peel' anyway? I've just read his real name was Ravenscroft. What will be on his stone?

I was watching an old video of 'The John Peel night' from several years ago and he said that they were discussing possible alternative names for him in the Radio London offices when a typist in the office said why don't you just call yourself John Peel (as in the traditional song 'D'ye ken John Peel'), so he did.

[Sea Of Tunes]

How did he come up with the name 'Peel' anyway? I've just read his real name was Ravenscroft. What will be on his stone?

I was watching an old video of 'The John Peel night' from several years ago and he said that they were discussing possible alternative names for him in the Radio London offices when a typist in the office said why don't you just call yourself John Peel (as in the traditional song 'D'ye ken John Peel'), so he did.

Who is this 'trad' John Peel? I was wondering about that during the Newsnight tribute...

[glammorgan55]

How did he come up with the name 'Peel' anyway? I've just read his real name was Ravenscroft. What will be on his stone?

I was watching an old video of 'The John Peel night' from several years ago and he said that they were discussing possible alternative names for him in the Radio London offices when a typist in the office said why don't you just call yourself John Peel (as in the traditional song 'D'ye ken John Peel'), so he did.

Who is this 'trad' John Peel? I was wondering about that during the Newsnight tribute...

It's an English traditional song from the 18th or 19th century and is something to do with foxhunting - that's all I can say. I could hum the tune but you're too far away to hear.

[Errant Panda]

For forty long years have we known him,
A Cumberland yeoman of old,
And thrice forty years shall have perished,
Ere the fame of his deeds shall grow cold.
No broadcloth nor scarlet adorned him
Nor buckskin that rivals the snow.
But of plain Skiddaw gray was his garment,
And he wore it for work, not for show.

Chorus
For the horn of the hunter 's now silent,
On the banks of the Ellen no more,
No in Denton you'll hear its wild echo,
Clear sound o'er the dark Caldew's roar.
When darkness at night draws her mantle,
And the coal round the fire bids us still,
Our children will say, “Father tell us
Some tales of the famous John Peel.”
We'll tell them of Ranter and Royal,
Of Britain and Melody too,
How they put up our fox at Keswick
And chased him from scent to full view.

Chorus

From Denton to Brighton to Skiddaw,
Through Isel, Bewaldeth, Whitefield,
We galloped like madmen together,
To follow the hounds of John Peel.
So long may we hunt with each other,
Till the hand of old age you can feel,
And men feel like sportsmen and brothers,
So remember the hounds of John Peel.

Chorus



So remember the Sounds of John Peel...

[Diamond Dog]

Follow the link for some wonderful Peelisms and links:

http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=5178027

Courtesy of an MP3 blog, forwarded to me by a certain editor of another music website some of us know quite a bit about. Thanks Martin.

[andymacandy]

Follow the link for some wonderful Peelisms and links:

http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=5178027

Courtesy of an MP3 blog, forwarded to me by a certain editor of another music website some of us know quite a bit about. Thanks Martin.

Awesome stuff, especially the Aretha/George and the David Cassiday ones.

[Diamond Dog]

Follow the link for some wonderful Peelisms and links:

http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=5178027

Courtesy of an MP3 blog, forwarded to me by a certain editor of another music website some of us know quite a bit about. Thanks Martin.

Awesome stuff, especially the Aretha/George and the David Cassiday ones.

I thought the Nik Kershaw one was pretty special too. Brilliant read.

[atomic loonybin]

It's all very well the Controller of Radio 1 rolling off all the platitudes and what-have-you, but shunning him to an 11pm-1am slot is hardly the treatment you give to someone so legendary, is it?

Yes. I saw someone last night, Andy Kershaw? being interviewed, and he'd seen him recently, and Peel was not at all happy at being further marginalised, and in fact said it was killing him!! I don't suppose he meant it, but what a thing to say. That said, as Slider pointed out earlier, what the fuck was he doing at that altitude in apparently not-the-best-of health. Can't knock it though, it was something he wanted to do, and even in ill-health, I'd like to think I would still strive to get to see Machu Pichu or whatever.

Here's Kershaw in today's Independent - see the last but one para:

'He was the most important person in British music since the birth of rock 'n' roll'
By Andy Kershaw
27 October 2004


It was like I had been hit by a hammer. Jenny Abramsky, the BBC's controller of network radio, called me and said: "I've got some bad news for you, and I think you ought to sit down." As soon as she said that, my mind just raced and in a flash, before she had said it, I thought "Peel's dead".

John had died of a heart attack, in Peru, aged 65. It was like being thumped. If I were a 16-year-old kid tonight in a band, dreaming of making it big, I would be thinking my chances were far less than they were yesterday. This is a huge cultural loss. John Peel was the most important figure in British music since the birth of rock'n'roll. Full stop. He is more important than any artist because he was the enthusiast who discovered so many of those whom we think of as the big figures of pop over the past 40 years.

Everyone was talking yesterday about how John was the only surviving member of the original Radio1 line-up. His legacy is far bigger than just having been a veteran DJ. It's not the longevity - it's what he did. He was forever championing bands and being ridiculed for being weird. Those bands became mainstream, from Pink Floyd to The Clash.

I consider myself lucky to have known him and to have been his friend. But I was also hugely fortunate, right at the start of my career, to have been put in an office with him and John Walters. What better education? What better comrades when you are starting out?

Since my early teens, John Peel had been my great musical influence. He shaped my tastes as a kid, giving me a breadth of enthusiasms. Then suddenly, blow me, I was sharing his 10ft by 10ft office space, having to sit on an upturned litter bin as there wasn't a third chair. It was the summer of 1985 and I had arrived at Radio 1 as a rather wild young thing. At first, I think Peel saw me as some kind of threat.

Once he realised I was a huge admirer and that we shared many of the same tastes, we became big pals. We had a lot in common. We enjoyed a breadth in music that covered everything from punk to country, reggae to African.

We used to go together to Stern's African record shop, just behind Broadcasting House in London, and buy piles and piles of records on spec. We'd come back to the office and have a wonderful afternoon finding out what we'd bought, like a couple of kids in the playground swapping bubble-gum cards - even though there was a 20-year age gap between us.

We would go to the TT races in the Isle of Man together. I remember John stood in the drizzle with an Eccles cake in one hand and a cup of red wine in the other. He was like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, stood behind a dry-stone wall in the corner of a field.

John was immensely good company. He was avuncular and protective. He was also the most natural broadcaster I have known and he taught me to talk to listeners as though you're talking to one person.

The last time I saw him he looked absolutely worn out. We went to a café near Radio 1 and I said: "John, you look terrible." He said: "They've moved me from 11pm to one at night and the combination of that and Home Truths (his Radio 4 show) is killing me." He felt he had been marginalised.

Since we heard the news, people have asked me: "What was John Peel like away from the microphone?" I'll tell you. He was exactly the same as he was when he was in front of it.

Just another memory that cropped up. He very rarely started his programme with anything but Grinderswitch. However I do remember an occasion in either the late 1970s, early 1980s. There had been a fire in a Dublin disco over the weekend, killing loads of kids. The Monday programme just started with a traditional piece of music played on Irish pipes. Brought tears to my eyes, so simple, but effective.

[Narada Parker 3.14159]

There had been a fire in a Dublin disco over the weekend, killing loads of kids. The Monday programme just started with a traditional piece of music played on Irish pipes. Brought tears to my eyes, so simple, but effective.

My parents were in that club the week before it burned down.

[The Slider]

I predict that the majority of comps at the next Jolly-Up will be Peel themed ones. All starting with a few minutes of Grinderswitch's "Pick Of The Blues", then featuring around 50 minutes of session tracks, Altered Image's "Song Sung Blue" featuring the man himself on backing vocals, and ending with Teenage Kicks.

Don't forget his reading of the Kingsley Mole story on Tyrannosaurus Rex's My People Were Fair album.

I put 'Let's Go Trippin' on my Springtime Surprise jolly up disc last April as a tribute. So much nicer to do that when they are still with us.... he said smugly.

[JQW]

Don't forget his reading of the Kingsley Mole story on Tyrannosaurus Rex's My People Were Fair album.

Of course - forgot that one. Can't remeber if I've got the album or just a compilation of early sides, though.

The cover will have to contain some of those bizarre sleevenotes he did early on into his Radio 1 carreer, when albums still had sleevenotes. There's some strange ones on Fleetwood Mac's "Mr. Wonderful".

[The Slider]

Don't forget his reading of the Kingsley Mole story on Tyrannosaurus Rex's My People Were Fair album.

Of course - forgot that one. Can't remeber if I've got the album or just a compilation of early sides, though.

Would you like me to send you a copy?

And there is that wonderful conversation with Robert Plant on the BBC bootleg (i can't remeber if it is on the official release) where Plant jokes about his leather trousers and Peel says how knocked out he is that 'so many people came to see me tonight'. At which point Page rips into the most savage version of Whole Lotta Love I have ever heard.

[JQW]

Of course - forgot that one. Can't remeber if I've got the album or just a compilation of early sides, though.

Would you like me to send you a copy?[/quote]

If I don't have it, I'll get it from t'internet. I do remember hearing it at home, and not on the radio, so I must have it somewhere.

[K]

I remember him once saying that he was involved with some early Tyrannosaurus Rex tours and that David Bowie was the support act (during his mime phase).
John was some sort of compare and he would say, 'Ladies and Gentemen, here is Daivd Bowie' and (in Peel's words) Bowie would spend ten minutes miming a man stuck inside a telephone box.
Great image, well put.

[Billybob Dylan]

A quote from Mark Radcliffe: "People used to ask him how he kept going, but it never occurred to him to stop."

Isn't that a great thing to say?

[BIBLE JOHN]

I was really upset when i heard the news.
there is countless great musc we shall never hear now'

[Neil Jung]

This is a link to John's Desert Island Discs
http://www.vacant.org.uk/interviews/peeldid.html - hopefully it hasn't been posted already.

What a pity that they interviewd that utter twat from The Fall on Newsnight. I wanted to throw something at the tv... Tosser.

[Bucolic Old Sir Henry]

I come to this late, because I was away from the web yesterday. First: my condolences to Sheila and the children.

I don't want to get into any specious arguments about how important Peel was to music. He was, and remains, a profound influence on the way my musical education developed. For that I will always be grateful.

I rarely listened to Radio London, being more of a Johnny Walker on Radio Caroline person, but when Peel arrived on Radio One he quickly became a staple. It was Saturday afternoons, wasn't it (not Sundays, as Bill Nelson asserts)? He was a champion of all things Bonzo, even "giving" his show to Stanshall and Moon for a chaotic four weeks in the late 60s (some of those shows will be available on my BCBonzos collection, whenever it's finished). His (and producer John Walters) love and respect for Viv stimulated the creation of Sir Henry At Rawlinson End, and many of the "Peel Sessions" tales include snippets of Peel's marvellous voice. At the end of "Aunt Florrie Remembers" he says "That was Viv Stanshall at his unmatchable best. How nice it would be to have that, and more besides, on an album, or a double album, or a triple album if you like." And so it was.

Someone earlier described listening to Peel as listening to a favourite uncle - one with sometimes inexplicable musical taste, but always interesting, relentlessly honest and friendly.

The world is a poorer place without him.

Pip pip!