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Comment by spatulon | Hacker News Reader

For those who don't know of him, John Peel was a presenter/DJ on BBC Radio 1 from the 60s until his death in the mid 00s.

For as long as I've been aware of it, Radio 1 has followed a format of playing mainstream pop music during the day, with more specialised and esoteric programming in the evening. When I was a teenager, Peel's show was on at 10pm on weeknights, and his main focus was on championing new and undiscovered bands, across many genres. The Peel sessions were part of this show, where a band would come in to record a live performance of a few songs.

I imagine a lot of bands can credit their success to John Peel playing their records and inviting them to record a session.

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>I imagine a lot of bands can credit their success to John Peel playing their records and inviting them to record a session.

That dramatically understates the importance of Peel during his heyday. Before the internet, Peel was the way for bands to find an audience outside of their home town. For an entire generation of musicians, sending off a demo tape to Peel was a peculiar act of secular benediction, a message in a bottle cast into the waters in the hope that someone might read it.

His death in 2004 left a void that has never quite been filled. Despite the stalwart efforts of Tom Robinson and the BBC Introducing team, nobody has been able to replicate Peel's unique eclecticism and his remarkable ability to sniff out new talent. His peculiar alchemy attracted a wide audience while also offering an open door to the unknown, the unsigned and the unhinged.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/how-john-peel-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPYkQi8olPo

I see Mark Riley's show on 6 music as at least a partial fulfilment, not least the amount of live sessions he does.

... and to underline the diversity of the genres Peel championed: he was both one of the main early radio promoters of punk, but just a few earliers had championed Tangerine Dream's Phaedra as one of his favorite albums of the year.

I think that if you wanted to try and come up with a simple way to describe what connected all the music that Peel championed over his long career, it would have to be something like "new energy". He didn't seem as interested in what a band actually sounded like as where their energy came from and what level it was on.

Looking over a list of Peel sessions:

http://www.thepeelsessions.co.uk/bands.html

I am struck by (a) what a range of extraordinary stuff there was and (b) just how many times he had his favourites on! I don't think i have ever heard of Loudon Wainright III outside the context of John Peel. I don't think i'd ever heard of The Fall outside of John Peel, and that's despite the fact that i was a regular listener to Mark and Lard!

One thing I love about the internet - a couple of years ago I googled some half-remembered lyrics to a song I'd heard a long time ago on John Peel's show, and eventually found it was called Hey Gravity by M.A.S.S., and that someone had uploaded it to YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SOTqFNDhYI).

That was near the top of my favourite festive fifty and as such I often listen to that along with other favourites from that time such as Ballboy. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct1_3mKnutU )

Love that noughties guitar sound.

And Ultravox! At least in the U.S. the Foxx-fronted band flew under the radar. We were too busy grooving to Hall & Oates. ;-)

> Loudon Wainright III outside the context of John Peel

He was a regular guest on Jasper Carrott's UK show in the late 80s. It was most strange context-switching from a genial Brummie comedian to an acerbic American singer.

He also performed several times in MASH, one of the biggest sitcoms of all time.

Edit: Song for Loudon Wainwright III by his daughter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdvk7O3Tz6A. Don't know if he deserves it or not, but it's a remarkable song.

Didn't he do "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu5hzc2Mei4

Apparently!

FYI, I appreciate your use of “acerbic”. Thank you for making the Effort to use a “fancy” word.

I liked that he would play everything ranging from electronic stuff, drum & bass etc through to industrial and metal. He was truly open minded about music. Back in the 90's his Radio 1 show was followed by Mary Ann Hobbs' The Breezeblock. Another source of great sessions from the electronic music world. She is now on BBC 6 Music, which is probably where Peel would be if he were still with us.

His son Tom is on 6 Music (John Peel's name was John Ravenscroft) and has a good ear.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/5gqg7lDzj9n7mJWsJs...

I never knew that. It does explain why I enjoy his show on 6Music though.

Don't know if they would actually qualify as bootlegs, but some of the most coveted tapes being traded in my highschool days were Peel session recordings. This was in the heart of BFE Texas in the 90s. I still don't know where these tapes came from, but these were my saving as everything else was country <shuddersDownSpine>

He had worked in Texas so it seems appropriate that he should have had fans there.

He was also present when the authorities paraded Lee Harvey Oswald in front of the press (and Jack Ruby): https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/John_F._Kennedy

I vividly remember a track referencing him called "John Peel Is Not Enough", by CLSM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dhs3K_pECY

Apparently, the brief of exploring more esoteric music was somewhat foisted on him by the BBC and he was initially dubious about it. Maybe in an alternate universe we'd be poring over The Tony Blackburn Sessions.

Tony Blackburn has an massive knowledge of soul and years ago used to do a great show on London Radio.

He also married a 15 year old. He's "fortunate" he passed away before Operation Yewtree [1] got going.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peel#Personal_life

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yewtree

My understanding is he didn't realise she was 15 and the marriage ended when he found out.

There's more to the story than that: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/john-peel-allegations-m...

I didn't realise :( He joins a rather long list of people from my childhood and adolescence who have suddenly been diminished.

Sadly he got abused himself as well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1500254/In-his-own-w...

As well as music, he also broadcast Home Truths [0] where he interviewed non-celebrities who happened to have interesting stories to tell. This could be extremely poignant at times and although I didn't specifically plan to listen to it, when I did hear it I always liked it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Truths

Cool with some background, thanks. I came across some John Peel Sessions for Thin Lizzy a couple of years ago, awesome material, never really took the time to figure out who this "John Peel" was.

Virgin Records seem to have based their entire 70s/80s A&R strategy on "Find out which bands John Peel is playing and sign them."

I recall Hearing Dire Straits on Peel back when they where this London independent pub rock band - I though oh id love to book them for 18 Plus ( a youth organisation like Rotaract).

He was also present at the JFK assassination :/

To be precise, he was at Lee Harvey Oswald's press conference: https://usvsth3m.tumblr.com/post/98894544278/did-you-know-dj...

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