Peel live sessions

[Martin Wheatley]

Keith Hawley
>>actually, as i understand it, it's not radio1's insistence, but the
>>musician' union. the MU came to an agreement in the 60s that all of the bbc
>>channels must play a certain proportion (2% or something) of live or
>>commisioned music (hence sessions).

and Stuart McHugh replied
>Thats spot-on, there was something called 'need;e-time' which was intended
>to limit the amount of records played. I'd thought it wasa way of saving
>money in royalties, but now you mention it, it soulds like exactly the kind
>of thing the MU would do!


Spot of history required here I think.  Apologies to those of you who
already know all this

Before the days of pop music the BBC used to finance a lot of orchestras and 
bands, both in the classical and light music fields and these provided a
lot of
output for the Light Prog (now Radio 2) and Third Programme (now Radio 3)
When pop music arrived and the BBC wanted to play more records the Musicians 
Union were very concerned about the jobs of their members and since all the
musicians who appeared on the BBC had to belong to the MU they had a fair
bit of power.  After some initial attempts to get the BBC to play mostly
their bands versions of current hits they came to a compromise.
The BBC would restrict the number of records they played per hour and the 
rest of the music output would be 'live' as distinct from on record.  This
was the origin of the session because anything recorded in the BBC studios 
counted as live whether it went out then or later.  So groups and singers
would come into the BBC and record note-for-note copies of their records
which were then put out instead of the records often without the public being 
aware that they weren't records.
When Radio 1 came in suddenly there were many more hours to be filled and the
needletime restrictions were eased and gradually over the years the more
and more recorsds coule be played.
There were two exemptions from the needletime limits - soundtrack recordings
and record reviews - these counted as promotional.  This is why in Peel's
70s shows there are many instances of him playing groups of tracks from new
albums
- it didn't count toward needletime if done as soon as it came out
Needletime finally faded away when commercial radio arrived and everyone
could 
play what they liked.

There was one show that didn't make having to use sessions an unfortunate
neccesity
but instead turned it into a positive asset.  I refer to Top Gear - later
the John
Peel Show.  A place for bands to play new material and for new bands to play.
It became the main feature of the prog and so it remains I'm pleased to say.

Nowadays there is no required for the BBC to broadcast session or live
material.
That is except self preservation!    In the later days of the Thatcher
government
they were looking for things to privatise and there was a big campaign to
privatise
Radio 1.  As these things normally are the campaign was led by those
standing to make
money out of the privatisation.  The argument was why should a station be
financed
out of the licence fee when it was in competition with and providing a similar
service to commercial stations.
The BBCs argument was that Radio 1 provided 3 things that wouldn't happen
on commercial
radio.  Specialist shows (Peel, Kershaw etc), radio sessions for new bands
(an argument
backed up by the record companies - Lamacq and Peel sessions save them a
fortune in 
A & R costs!), and live broadcasts.   
Thatcher was replaced by the more BBC-friendly John Major and Radio 1 was
saved.  This
is why we get specialist progs in the evening all of which are encouraged
to have 
sessions of one sort or another and to do live stuff.  If you've wondered
why the BBC
spend money on sessions for things like Kershaw and the Breezeblock that go
out after
midnight when it would be cheaper to play records that is why!


>>peel also championed Pulp for a bit, despite having said he hated them...
>>it's good that he's willing to be seen to change his mind...
>I never knew that, I assumed he liked their first session (now that's
>something I still have on tape - I liked that too). There were always
>stories about him giving them money to make records, getting them gigs
>etc...

Actually Peel ignored them completely after the first session until their
re-emergence
10 years later.  Even the mighty get it wrong sometimes

martinw