Five songs made better with John Peel
John Peel (born John Ravenscroft) was a man that most of us remember as a BBC DJ — and a fine one at that. However, a little known fact is that the Liverpool-born broadcaster began his career working in the cotton industry in the US in the early 1960s. While living in Dallas, Texas, Peel found himself speaking with the presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and his running mate, Lyndon B. Johnson, who had been touring the city during the 1960 election campaign. Following JFK’s assassination in 1963, Peel passed himself off as a journalist working for the Liverpool Echo to shoulder his way into the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald, the US Marine veteran accused of the assassination. Peel can be seen in the famous footage from Oswald’s press conference, and he wired information back to the Echo in the UK, marking his first exploit in the media.
Peel’s first dabbling with radio came in the mid-1960s, just as Beatlemania had taken off in the States. He found a job working with the Dallas radio station KLIF as the official Beatles correspondent, thanks to his connection to Liverpool. He later moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to work at KOMA station before moving to KMEN in San Bernardino, California, using the shortened name John Ravencroft to present the breakfast show.
In 1967, Peel moved back to the UK with his newfound knack for radio broadcasting and began working for the offshore pirate radio station Radio London. During his short stint with the station, he developed a late-night programme, The Perfumed Garden, which he used to bring his passion for blues, folk music and psychedelic rock to the nation. He found his niche in introducing some of his favourite acts from America to the ears of Britain.
After Radio London closed down in August 1967, Peel joined the BBC’s new station, BBC Radio 1, which began broadcasting on September 30th 1967. Over his long career with the BBC, Peel made a name for himself for his acute musical and cultural knowledge. He became known for helping aspiring musicians by giving them that all-important airtime and public exposure, especially over the late 1970s during the punk explosion.
His famous Peel Sessions began as a feature where John would introduce four bands through songs recreated by a covers group of session musicians. The intention was to give the audience a flavour of the music while creating employment and forcing people to buy the records instead of listening to them free of charge on the air. Such rules were later abandoned, but Peel kept the feature and used it to play new songs from some of his favourite artists that would be recorded live in the BBC studios. These BBC exclusive versions were noted for their raw qualities as they were often recorded and processed in one day with minimal overdubbing or sonic manipulation.
Below, we have picked out five Peel Session recordings that were better than the original album versions.
Five songs made better with John Peel:
The Smiths – ‘Back to the Old House’
This beautiful B-side shows Johnny Marr trying his hand at a fingerstyle acoustic while Morrissey laments over a long-lost house, perhaps symbolising the one-way traffic on the passage of time. ‘Back to the Old House’ was originally released in 1984 as the B-side to ‘What Difference Does It Make?’.
The version that most of us in Britain are familiar with is the John Peel version which was recorded in September 1993 and released on the popular early compilation album, Hatful of Hollow. The version is, at least for me, superior to the B-side version that appeared on the later compilation albums, Louder Than Bombs (1987, Sire USA) and The World Won’t Listen (1987, Rough Trade).
The Stranglers – ‘Hanging Around’
Surrey post-punk royalty, The Stranglers, began as a pub-rock project in 1974, but their success began to take form in 1977 with the release of their masterpiece debut album, Rattus Norvegicus. The LP was home to a host of early hits, including ‘Peaches’, ‘(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)’, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Hanging Around’.
While the album was near-perfect in its refined punk splendour, the group took ‘Hanging Around’ up another notch during their session with John Peel on March 1st, 1977. While both recordings are brilliant, there’s something in the rawness of the John Peel session that better suits Hugh Cornwell’s almost angered delivery.
The Teardrop Explodes – ‘The Poppies in the Field’
After a short-lived stint performing alongside Pete Wylie and Echo and the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch in The Crucial Three, Julian Cope formed his first stable band, The Teardrop Explodes, in 1978. With a run of moderately successful singles that saw them become the cream of Liverpool, the group set about recording their debut album, Kilimanjaro.
Kilimanjaro, released in 1980, was a critical and commercial success for the band thanks to the buoying single ‘Reward’. The album was a launchpad for Julian Cope’s later success and displayed his potential for writing a range of music, from pop hits to strange neo-psychedelic poetry-based classics. One of the most intriguing tracks on the album was ‘Poppies In The Field’, which was perfected in one of the group’s Peel sessions in the early 1980s.
Mogwai – ‘Hunted by a Freak’
Scottish post-rock group, Mogwai, formed in 1996 and gradually rose to prominence approaching the turn of the century. During their rise to success as a moody cult group, one of their key advocates was John Peel. Following Peel’s death in 2004, Mogwai decided to dedicate their compilation album, Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996–2003, to the late DJ.
The album contained a selection of their songs recorded at the BBC studios, many of which with Peel himself. The first track on the album, ‘Hunted by a Freak’, was preceded by Peel’s voice announcing, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mogwai!”. The song was originally released on Mogwai’s soaring 2003 album, Happy Songs for Happy People, but was elevated to a new level of brilliance in the studio with Peel.
Arab Strap – ‘The First Big Peel Thing’ (The First Big Weekend)
Falkirk duo Arab Strap brought something unique to the table in the late 1990s. Their marriage of bass-heavy music and spoken word lyrical delivery was first offered up in 1996 with the fantastic ‘The First Big Weekend’, a single that would later be included in their 1997 debut album, The Week Never Starts Round Here.
Arab Strap drew a lot of attention from the BBC, with DJ Steve Lamacq giving ‘The First Big Weekend’ ample airtime. He described the single as the “best of the decade” and “the most perfect pop song ever”. Indeed, the track was something of a creative triumph and, had it fallen under the nose of filmmaker Danny Boyle, would surely have made it onto the Trainspotting soundtrack. While the studio version is brilliant, the duo somehow topped it with John Peel at the BBC. The superior version was renamed ‘The First Big Peel Thing’.
