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JOHN PEEL 1939-2004 The very first John Peel Day will take place on Thursday October 13th 2005. The day will be a celebration of John’s life and massive contribution to music and broadcasting with as many venues as possible staging gigs across the UK under the banner of Peel Day. John died on October 25th 2004. Prior to this there will be a very special London gig organised by Radio 1 with details to be confirmed nearer the time.

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roadcaster John Peel was the champion of British music for nearly 40 years on his late-night Radio 1 show. He led the way in promoting new acts, from David Bowie, through Joy Division to the White Stripes. John Peel was, at first sight, the antithesis of many of the bands he loved. Balding, bearded, softly – if hilariously – spoken, he was more like a favourite uncle than a rock fan. Yet Peel’s uncompromising encouragement of new talent transformed the face of music all the way from hippy to house. His Radio 1 show ran three nights a week and in 1998 he became the presenter of Radio 4’s Home Truths, which won four Sony Radio Awards in 1999. He also presented a programme on the BBC World Service, taking his passion for new music to the wider world.

He was born John Robert Parker Ravenscroft in Heswall, near Liverpool, in 1939. The son of the owner of a cotton mill, his childhood was blighted by his distant parents and he was brought up mostly by a nanny. He attended Shrewsbury public school, which he hated, an ordeal which was offset by the moment he first heard Elvis Presley singing Heartbreak Hotel.

“Everything changed when I heard Elvis,” he later reflected. “Where there had been nothing there was suddenly something.” After National Service between 1957 and 1959 he went to America. With Beatlemania in full swing, John Peel and his Liverpudlian connections proved irresistible and he soon became a DJ for WRR

radio in Dallas. He once said: “They’d got this idea that if you lived in the UK there were probably only a couple of hundred people and they were all bound to know each other.”

Returning to England in 1967, he joined the pirate station, Radio London, before transferring to the BBC’s new national pop channel, Radio 1. He was to remain there for the rest of his life, the only survivor of Radio 1’s first line-up.

CHANGING STYLES: Right from the outset, Peel changed the rules.

He played every track without interruption, to the delight of those wishing to tape his show, while providing a witty and knowledgeable running commentary, seemingly a million Marc Bolan miles away from the transatlantic platitudes of many of his colleagues. In the early days Peel championed acts like Marc Bolan, David Bowie and Captain Beefheart, as he did throughout his career, by giving them studio-time to record legendary “Peel sessions”. But, in the mid-1970s, John Peel moved away from the mainstream rock of Jimi Hendrix and The Who to a new and radical sound, punk. Bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash paved the way for new Peel discoveries like Joy Division and the Undertones, whose

“IN THE AUTUMN OF 1978, SOMETHING HAPPENED THAT WAS TO CHANGE MY LIFE FOREVER  JOHN PEEL PLAYED TEENAGE KICKS ON THE RADIO FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.”FEARGAL SHARKEY Teenage Kicks was his all-time favourite single. The 1980s brought further joy, most notably in the form of The Fall and The Smiths, both refreshing counterblasts to the increasingly bland fare of the charts. More recently, Peel had branched-out, presenting Home Truths, an eclectic programme about family life, and provided typically droll interjections for BBC TV’s Grumpy Old Men. He received an OBE in 1998 and earned a place in the Radio Academy Hall of Fame.

He continued to remain at the cutting-edge of popular taste, featuring ‘world’ music and rap alongside good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. A lifelong fan of the Archers and a dedicated follower of Liverpool football club, how he would have loved that match in Istanbul in May 2005 when Liverpool became Champions of Europe yet again! He lived in Suffolk with his wife Sheila.

Tributes poured in from the music world Members of The Smiths, The Undertones, The Manic Street Preachers, Radiohead, Blur and Joy Division have spoken about Peel’s influence and legacy.

Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr said the band’s early success was “largely due to the John Peel show”. Prime Minister Tony Blair also paid tribute to the BBC Radio 1 DJ. Peel, whose radio career spanned 40 years, was on a working holiday in the city of Cuzco with his wife Sheila when he suffered a heart attack.

Radiohead singer Thom Yorke said Peel was his “inspiration” since the age of 14. “Who am I going to listen to now? I’m thinking about you. Thanks John Peel.” Blur singer Damon Albarn said the world would be a poorer place without Peel. “I will miss him deeply,” he said. “I want to send my heartfelt

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was “amazing” and his influence was felt far outside his home country.

Tony Blair’s spokesman said the Prime Minister was “genuinely saddened by the news”.

He added: “His view is that he was a unique voice in British broadcasting and used that voice to unearth new talent and different subjects and make them accessible to a much wider audience.”

“WHO AM I GOING TO LISTEN TO NOW? I’M THINKING ABOUT YOU. THANKS JOHN PEEL.” THOM YORKE sympathy to his lovely family. John’s memory will never be forgotten because he had the spirit of music in him.” Feargal Sharkey, former front man of The Undertones, described Peel as the “single most important broadcaster we have ever known”. ‘He changed my life forever’ the band’s single Teenage Kicks was Peel’s favourite song and he championed the track and the band on his show in the late 1970s. Sharkey said: “In the autumn of 1978, something happened that was to change my life forever – John Peel played Teenage Kicks on the radio for the very first time. Today, it just changed again, forever.”

Johnny Marr, who played with The Smiths on live sessions on Peel’s show, said he was always the best DJ on the radio. “We would try out new songs on the sessions and these often were the definitive version,” he said. Pulp front man Jarvis Cocker said: “In a world that is becoming ever more homogenised and preprogrammed, John Peel stuck up for the ‘sore thumbs’ of the music scene and I really can’t think of anyone who could have done it better or who’s going to do it now he’s gone.” Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher called Peel “a rare breed amongst radio DJs”. The Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield told the BBC News website: “It was because of him I got to hear some of the most obscure but influential music I ever heard. “He was a lifeline to hearing music I would never have heard otherwise.” ‘Dreadful shock’ was the reaction from Bernard Sumner of Joy Division and New Order added, “If it wasn’t for John Peel, there would be no Joy Division and no New Order,” he said. “He was one of the few people to give bands that played alternative music a chance to get heard, and he continued to be a champion of cutting-edge music throughout his life.”

Kurt Wagner, of US band Lambchop, said Peel

‘DEVASTATED’ Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt said Peel’s death “absolutely devastated everyone”. “We’re stunned and bereft. He’s irreplaceable because what he had was 37 years of commitment to young music.” Mr Parfitt told Radio 1’s Newsbeat Peel had been on a holiday of a lifetime when he died. “He had gone on holiday with his wife Sheila to a place where he had always wanted to go.”

Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq said: “He was groundbreaking for me. He just broke the rules the whole time. He did things that just weren’t done. He was a maverick and he got away with it. “You have to have trust with a DJ, and everyone built that trust with John. BBC 6 Music’s Liz Kershaw said he was “the least musically snooty person we know”. She said: “He was utterly sincere in what he was doing, not because he wanted to be famous but he though he was on a mission to bring stuff to people’s ears. ‘Great joy’ “He really did trawl through mailbags of demo cassettes. That’s why we had Pulp and T-Rex, because he’d been discovering bands like that since 1967.” Singer Laura Cantrell, who was championed by Peel in recent months, said he had an “unabashed love for music”. “I really treasure that I got to know the man and his family, to hear his stories, and to be welcomed by he and Sheila to Peel Acres.

“To experience his sense of humour, the great joy that he took in his life was inspiring.”

WHAT HE MEANT TO ME: What the fuck do you know about John Peel?

Do you feel you know more than me; do you feel you know less? Do you even know what he did? Or are you a ‘personal’ friend? Whatever you feel you know or don’t know really matters not now, does it?

John Peel was a Broadcaster, a ‘Radio DJ’ for those who want a cliché, but unlike so many he had charisma and style that never went out of style because it was never in style! The fact that he started at BBC Radio 1FM in the 60’s yet was still there at the time of his death really should tell you all you need to know, especially as other dj’s have come and gone from the station, some of them in various opinions better ‘broadcasters’ than JP. Many of them probably were, but Radio like what it plays ‘Music’ is open to discussion, one band better than another, one vocal stronger, and one guitar louder, it’s complicated, yet it’s simple.

All I know is that during the late 70’s John Peel was playing music that to me seemed from another planet, I had come out of the glam rock years with Bolan gone and Bowie lost in Berlin, music seemed lost in a wave of mediocrity that seemed to last all through the long hot summer of 1976, then bang, The Ramones, The Clash, The Pistols, Fuck Yeah, someone was talking to me, you talking to me, Punk! So between 76’ – 82 the only radio I listened to was John Peel who took me down the New Wave with The Undertones, The Boomtown Rats, and strangely for I hated the whole ska / mod movement The Specials at the same time I was switched

onto the Friday Rock Show, Tommy Vance introduced me to the world of Van Halen, AC/DC and Thin Lizzy, so I was caught between the Rock and the Alternative, in 2005 I still am!

John moved into the strange world of Joy Division, Bauhaus and the Birthday Party, which really tuned me into some very strange roads where I found the NewYork Dolls,The Stooges amd Hanoi Rocks, Rock had melted into Metal with Iron Maiden, Judas Priest & Motorhead, so I was out of my brain on the 5:15 annoying all my friends with music they just did not understand or in fact many of them could not even listen to what I had on my stereo, but Tommy and John, they knew the score, and every time I went to gigs and met up with people, they all felt the same, it was tribal, it was a gang, I moved on into other things & left John behind from the mid 80’s on, catching his show more by chance than by desire, but a whole new generation of bands were coming through because of his show, but that initial period with John and Tommy lived with me forever, because you see what ever period of music defines your life between the age of 14 –21, it NEVER leaves you, it shapes your future without you even knowing it, then years later a song on the radio, a clip on the TV, meeting an old friend in a bar reminds you of what you had, what you lost, I’m incredibly lucky, I got a job out of rock ‘n’ roll, most don’t, I’m one of the lucky few.

That ‘Lost’ moment for so many people was brought back to the surface when they heard the news of John Peels death, they remembered why, where & when, the incredible thing that surprised so many was how many people were touched by John Peel, not just ‘normal’ people but those in the industry, but while we sit and watch a show on the TV called the ‘X Factor’ John’s death reminded us that influential talented people are born, not made, JP had that XFactor, it’s inherent in their blood, JP was a big Liverpool fan & as I sat watching that team come back from 3:0 down to win the European Cup for the 5th time & then days later in Liverpool where 500,000 people lined the streets, one man was missing, one man’s voice was not heard, Liverpool is a sadder place without him.

I will close this piece & I will say that from Liverpool to London to the World, John Peel challenged the listener at all times, he was often hard work because for every great song their was a shit one, but you stuck with him through the shit one because there was a great one on the way, John played as much shite as he did great music, but one mans treasure is another mans trash, but when you sat there listening to his show, if a trash song came on, you never switched the dial, for you knew that the next song on the way was treasure, you took the bad with the good, and often that trash became your treasure in later years, the man was just really good at what he did, he had passion, he had a deft delivery, but most of all he had open ears, There will never be another, support Peel day this year & every year and lets use it & remember a great man, fantastic broadcaster and as a reminder of not just how radio used to be, but ought to be.

John Peel is Dead, Long Live John Peel.

JJ – Zero 2005.

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