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John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004.
Peel was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of many genres, including pop, dub reggae, punk rock and post-punk, electronic music and dance music, indie rock, extreme metal and UK rap. Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important single person in popular music from approximately 1967 through 1978. He broke more important artists than any individual."
Peel's Radio 1 shows included the regular "Peel Sessions", which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist in the BBC's studios, often providing the first major national coverage to bands that later achieved fame. The annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year was a notable part of his promotion of new music.
Peel appeared on television occasionally as one of the presenters of Top of the Pops in the 1980s, and provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives.
Peel was born John Robert Parker Ravenscroft at a nursing home in Heswall on 30 August 1939, the son of Joan Mary (née Swainson) and cotton merchant Robert Leslie Ravenscroft. He had two younger brothers and grew up in the nearby village of Burton. He was educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School, where future Monty Python member Michael Palin was his contemporary. In his posthumously published autobiography, Peel said that he was raped by an older pupil while at the school.
Peel was an avid radio listener and record collector from an early age, firstly of music offered by the American Forces Network and Radio Luxembourg. He recalled an early desire to host a radio programme of his own "so that I could play music that I heard and wanted others to hear". His housemaster, R. H. J. Brooke, whom Peel described as "extraordinarily eccentric" and "amazingly perceptive", wrote on one of his school reports, "Perhaps it's possible that John can form some kind of nightmarish career out of his enthusiasm for unlistenable records and his delight in writing long and facetious essays."
Peel completed his national service in 1959 in the Royal Artillery as a B2 radar operator. Afterwards, he worked as a mill operative at Townhead Mill in Rochdale and returned each weekend to Heswall on a scooter borrowed from his sister. While in Rochdale during the week, he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in the area of Milkstone Road and Drake Street,[citation needed] and developed long-term associations with the town as the years progressed.
In 1960, aged 21, Peel went to the United States to work for a cotton producer who had business dealings with his father. He took a number of other jobs afterwards, including working as a travelling insurance salesman. While in Dallas, Texas, where the insurance company he worked for was based, he conversed with the presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, and his running mate Lyndon B. Johnson, who were touring the city during the 1960 election campaign, and took photographs of them.[citation needed] Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Peel passed himself off as a reporter for the Liverpool Echo in order to attend the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald. He and a friend can be seen in the footage of the 22/23 November midnight press conference at the Dallas Police Department when Oswald was paraded before the media. He later phoned in the story to the Echo.[citation needed]
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004.
Peel was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of many genres, including pop, dub reggae, punk rock and post-punk, electronic music and dance music, indie rock, extreme metal and UK rap. Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important single person in popular music from approximately 1967 through 1978. He broke more important artists than any individual."
Peel's Radio 1 shows included the regular "Peel Sessions", which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist in the BBC's studios, often providing the first major national coverage to bands that later achieved fame. The annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year was a notable part of his promotion of new music.
Peel appeared on television occasionally as one of the presenters of Top of the Pops in the 1980s, and provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives.
Peel was born John Robert Parker Ravenscroft at a nursing home in Heswall on 30 August 1939, the son of Joan Mary (née Swainson) and cotton merchant Robert Leslie Ravenscroft. He had two younger brothers and grew up in the nearby village of Burton. He was educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School, where future Monty Python member Michael Palin was his contemporary. In his posthumously published autobiography, Peel said that he was raped by an older pupil while at the school.
Peel was an avid radio listener and record collector from an early age, firstly of music offered by the American Forces Network and Radio Luxembourg. He recalled an early desire to host a radio programme of his own "so that I could play music that I heard and wanted others to hear". His housemaster, R. H. J. Brooke, whom Peel described as "extraordinarily eccentric" and "amazingly perceptive", wrote on one of his school reports, "Perhaps it's possible that John can form some kind of nightmarish career out of his enthusiasm for unlistenable records and his delight in writing long and facetious essays."
Peel completed his national service in 1959 in the Royal Artillery as a B2 radar operator. Afterwards, he worked as a mill operative at Townhead Mill in Rochdale and returned each weekend to Heswall on a scooter borrowed from his sister. While in Rochdale during the week, he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in the area of Milkstone Road and Drake Street,[citation needed] and developed long-term associations with the town as the years progressed.
In 1960, aged 21, Peel went to the United States to work for a cotton producer who had business dealings with his father. He took a number of other jobs afterwards, including working as a travelling insurance salesman. While in Dallas, Texas, where the insurance company he worked for was based, he conversed with the presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, and his running mate Lyndon B. Johnson, who were touring the city during the 1960 election campaign, and took photographs of them.[citation needed] Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Peel passed himself off as a reporter for the Liverpool Echo in order to attend the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald. He and a friend can be seen in the footage of the 22/23 November midnight press conference at the Dallas Police Department when Oswald was paraded before the media. He later phoned in the story to the Echo.[citation needed]
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