Tuesday 24 October, 2000
Revealing Mr Peel
Whilst many DJ’s might claim to love their music, there can be few that are as devoted as John Peel. Renowned for his eclectic taste, Peel has a distinctive musical ear and an enthusiasm that is hard to match. Having held a regular late night slot on BBC Radio 1 since its launch in 1967 and regularly filling the Radio 4 airwaves with his Saturday morning chatter, the vanguard of pop, now returns to The Alternative slot on BBC World Service to play his unique selection of music.
John Peel once said that whenever his family saw him appear on television they would shout "Yeah! New shoes" in recognition of the pay cheque soon to drop through the letterbox. If this story is true then over the past year the Peel family must be hoarse and safe in the knowledge that they will never go barefoot.
In fact last year was an odd time for the laconic and determinedly self-effacing radio presenter. He was showered with awards and shoved centre stage. It is not, he insists, a place he especially likes to be:
‘Celebrity is not a natural state and it doesn’t seem something worth aspiring to. It has been strange because I’ve had a higher profile. It has not been a deliberate career move – there have been things like getting the OBE and last year being awarded Broadcaster of the Year. But there is an element in all these things that it is your turn because you’ve been doing things for long enough.’
People-centric radio
John Peel’s voice is one of the most distinctive in broadcasting: a low monotone, Liverpudlian grumble. He is a family man (much-loved wife Sheila and four children), who enjoys rural home life in ‘Peel Acres’, Suffolk, in the South East of England. Passionate about music and Liverpool FC, Peel is also interested in everyday people-centric radio. Home Truths, Peel’s Radio 4 magazine series, is, he expresses with satisfaction, ‘a celebrity-free zone’. Detractors have sounded shrill and unconvincing. The odd columnist has tried to sling mud at him, but it hasn’t stuck. The much-liked ‘Peely’ is still indisputably cool.
And British people love this kind of understated cool. He laughingly recalls how when he received one of three prestigious Sony awards for Home Truths, what most pleased him was that the show had won 325,000 new listeners.
‘I was really proud of that. When I tried to make an oblique reference to this in my script I was asked not to because it seemed rather like boasting.’
Musical eclecticism
Peel is one of BBC Radio’s longest-serving and best-known voices. He works across a variety of output, and is the pioneer of alternative sounds and new bands. Many a successful pop band owes its success to an early “demo” session on one of his Radio 1 shows. And his musical eclecticism isn’t confined to pop as he explains:
‘I’m interested in anything I’ve not heard before, or in witnessing an extraordinary performance of something that is familiar to me. My wife Sheila is interested in classical music too and we go to the Proms. But the most feared words for me as a listener are “Especially commissioned by the BBC”. You think “Oh God, it’s going to be a-bunch-of-musical-instruments-thrown-down-a-lift-shaft job”. Which is odd, because in popular music I like things that are regarded as experimental. But I don’t seem to be able to cope when the same sort of thing is done with orchestral instruments.’
| ‘When I first heard Elvis Presley, it was like being plugged into the mains and electrocuted’ | |
Love of music
The love of music dates from childhood. A fellow Shrewsbury schoolmate, the actor Michael Palin, recalls a young Peel lying in his study listening to the blues. It presents a solitary image:
‘I was a rather withdrawn English schoolboy. You can’t imagine the impact on me when I first heard Elvis Presley. It was absolutely extraordinary, like being plugged into the mains and electrocuted. You’d never heard anything so raw and elemental and frankly – so sexy – in your life. Little Richard had the same sort of galvanising effect.’
Raise the topic of music today and the enthusiasm slumps:
‘It’s as bland as ever I’m afraid, the marketing people are more profoundly in control. We could do with an Elvis right now,’ he sighs. ‘It’s all about repackaging – vinyl to CD, CD to Minidisc. You can sell people what they already have. There’s so little experimentation. So people go out and by those all-important Simply Red LPs on a different format.’
As an Elvis fan, has he any highly-prized memorabilia?
‘You want me to say I’ve got a sweat-stained shirt that Elvis wore the day he died. Alas no, but I did once get a friend to bid on my behalf for an Elvis Presley record. It was a seven inch single on the Sun label, so that’s fairly unusual in itself. But on the sleeve the band has signed: “Bill Black on bass”; “Scotty Moore on guitar” and “DJ Fontana, drummer”. And then Elvis Presley has signed and put underneath in brackets “Singer”. I felt that record belonged in my house, but I was outbid, and I’m not really into that sort of thing.’
The schoolboy fan though, still shines through and he describes his career as:
‘A fortuitous accident. When I was young I wanted people to listen to the music I liked – that’s how Palin would have heard me in my study. But now I’ve reached a point where all that I dreamt of as a child has happened. I’m lucky enough to have a little studio rigged up at my home and every week I do a programme live from there. It barely looks like a studio, more a rather overstated domestic stereo. But I can sit there on my own, which is what I did as a kid, wishing that other people could listen; and now I’m doing the same thing knowing that other people are listening too.’
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| Easy Peel |
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Real name:
John Ravenscroft
Date of birth:
30 August 1939
Marital status:
Married to Sheila (nick named The Pig due to her laugh) for 25 years. They have four children.
Favourite song:
Teenage Kicks, The Undertones.
Favourite album:
Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.
Favourite band:
The Fall.
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| When can I hear The Alternative? |
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The Alternative with John Peel can be heard on BBC World Service radio for four weeks from 24th October 2000 at the following times:
West Africa: Sun 1015
Europe: Wed 0305 rpt Sun 2130
East and South Africa: Sun 1001
Middle East: Sun 0705
South Asia: Tue 1705 rpt Sat 0805
East Asia: Tue 0805 rpt Sun 1505
Americas: Wed 0305 |
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