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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. |
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