Comments on: John Peel is dead

By: urban_terrier

urban_terrier — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 23:20:48 +0000

Peel and Cooke both gone in the same year. We have lost some truly legendary broadcasters in the past few months. Shows what a treasure trove the Beeb, and Radio 4 especially, is.

By: Jonathan Vincent

Jonathan Vincent — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 14:09:41 +0000

Apart from being a clever, witty, thoughtful, kind and thoroughly decent human being, John Peel’s legacy is towering. So many artists, so much diversity and such good music may never had reached the charts but for him and his Radio 1 show. Only through listening to him (almost at accident at first when revising for my exams in 1976) did I discover punk, reggae & dub, gothic, trance and other cutting edge music, largely ignored at the time by both commercial radio and the Beeb with their mind-numbing “playlists”. Please, all you radio stations out take note: We don’t all want commercial record company, exploited, mainstream pap or golden oldies!

By: Gillian Russell

Gillian Russell — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 03:23:10 +0000

I remember when they switched Peel’s programme from after the Evening Session to, well, Saturday afternoon or something wierd. His voice came on the air the first time and he said “Now that we have a new timeslot, regular listeners might notice a change in programming…and then he played Simply Red. I felt like…well, like…I had NO IDEA…it just didn’t make any sense. He let it go 30 seconds and then he said, “Bugger that, here’s Pulp.” Bastard. Rest in Peace, John Peel.

By: Miranda

Miranda — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:46:23 +0000

A legend has been lost in this world but there is a new star shining brightly in the Heavens tonight. Rest in peace John Peel.

By: Sandriana

Sandriana — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 12:37:46 +0000

For those of us of a certain age, John Peel has always been there, first on Radio 1 and latterly on Radio 4’s Home Truths programme on a Saturday morning. He was a lovely lovely man who openly adored his wife and children and had an amazing empathy with people. I can’t imagine not hearing his voice anymore: I hope the BBC will do what they did for Alistair Cooke and rerun the best of his programmes. I never thought I’d cry for a DJ, but I feel as though I’ve lost my favourite uncle, the cool one who always made you laugh. RIP.

By: ian

ian — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:33:40 +0000

I heard the news last night as I switched on the radio in the car to hear Led Zeppelin ‘Communication Breakdown’ on Radio 2. As I was thinking how things have changed since the Light Programme, on came the news of his death. His open mindedness and dogged persistence in searching out the new will I am sure be impossible to replace.

By: Jimmy Doyle

Jimmy Doyle — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:12:08 +0000

I remember him playing out his show with Joy Division’s “Decades,” unannounced, on the first anniversary of Ian Curtis’s death. That was real eloquence, of a sort.

By: dave heasman

dave heasman — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 09:44:26 +0000

In 1968, on a Saturday afternoon Top Gear, Tim Hardin did a “live” “Hang on to a Dream” that was unforgettable. In 1967 in the summer Peel had Love’s “The Castle” and the Misunderstood’s “I Can Take You To The Sun” on constant play. It’s astonishing that people across multiple generations have similar memories of life-changing songs he introduced us to.

By: spacetoast

spacetoast — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 05:20:10 +0000

The Stiff Little Fingers’ Strange Fruit/Peel Sessions set is one of the best early UK punk records of all time, imo. It’s all about the barbed-wire love, man.

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 23:18:54 +0000

John Peel was the soundtrack to my youth. Finding the obituary on guardian.co.uk was very shocking indeed. You will be missed John, both by ‘the youth’ for your music and the middle classes for Home Truths.

By: Cryptic Ned

Cryptic Ned — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 22:23:26 +0000

This is the first obituary that I’ve been both surprised and saddened by since…Kurt Cobain, I guess. And I was born in 1982 and have never been to the UK. He just inspired so much respect with his openmindedness and refusal to stick with what must have been the comforting music that he first discovered or grew up with.

By: joel turnipseed

joel turnipseed — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:48:23 +0000

Checked to make sure Ira Robbins , Paul Westerberg and Bob Mould were still alive: whew! Even here in Minnesota, where you could only get the Peel Sessions on LP, I acquired a fondness for Peel that was inordinate in scope to any actual influence. Later, over the years, I would stir with joy when hearing him on BBC World Service during insomniac nights—and no more. Sad, sad—and yet more cause for early-onset S.A.D.

By: Keven Lofty

Keven Lofty — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:24:20 +0000

Irreplaceable

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:11:24 +0000

Er … because they were all relatively old and George Michael’s not? But what Harry said. It renews my commitment to listen to Bob Harris all the more. Not the same, but he does also find some gems.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:05:41 +0000

Crap. So sorry. The man primarily responsible for keeping UK rock & pop on the cutting edge. If you wanted to hear something that wasn’t like anything you’d heard before, he was the man to listen to. Bugger. Peel, Cash, Ray Charles. Why are they dead while George Michael still lives?