[peel] Digest Number 221

[Tom Roche]

At 7:28 AM -0400 5/20/0, peel@egroups.com wrote:
>>It includes a chapter on Peel's show plus
>> entertaining coverage of Walters/Peel's relationship with the
>> more 'celebrity' DJs.  For those who lived through the dark years of
>> DLT, Bates, Gary Davies - the horror, the horror - there's some
>> wonderful moments.

When I first visited Radio One in around 1988 as just a World Service letter-writing Peel fan from the States, John gave my wife and I a little tour. It was in during this dark period. Peel said he was only barely tolerated by the staff, and when people passed him in the R1 corridors they would "avert their eyes as if they might catch some sort of John Peel disease" if they looked or said hello, he said at the time.

This came a quite a surprise to me. I sort of felt like those little Japanese girls in "Mystery Train" visiting Memphis and amazed the local radio isnt playing Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf non-stop.

I  also remember thanking him for spending the time to show us around, saying something like "you must be an incrediby busy man with all sorts of bands wanting to buy lunch." On the contrary he said "With the bands I play I usually have to buy *them* lunch."


tom in atl