[peel] Re: not dead, am doing a book

[John Bravin]

Lurking in the background, reading this interesting thread, motivated me 
to listen to my Peel tapes from 1977. One thing is clear, in 1977 Peel 
devoted a week (and may be more) to a series of programmes with 
playlists selected by listeners to represent the "best of the last ten 
years of these programmes". I seem to recall these were played in the 
run-up to Christmas as a alternative to the boringly predictable Festive 
Fifty from 1976, but I might be wrong. Among others, I have the 
selections of Barry Wright (aka Rudolf Vaselino) whose choice include 
Elvis Costello, Junior Delgado, Matching Mole, Rod Stewart and Hendrix 
(back to back versions of Angel), Steven Cook of Salisbury with Captain 
Beefheart, Ivor Cutler, Ranking Trevor and Sex Pistols and a snippet of 
the intro to the programme by Neville Thorner. I have Peel saying these 
were all broadcast in one week (obviously in the second half of the year 
as it includes God Save the Queen). These listeners must be have been 
picked by Peel and Walters as a results of a competition,and in one 
sense they come closer to capturing the essence of the programmes than 
any of the Festive Fifty's - many of the tracks were not well known, but 
are nevertheless deserving of replaying (for example House on the Hill 
by Kevin Coyne). One track was included in two playlists - Truly by 
Ranking Trevor.

If any of these budding DJs are reading this maybe they can remember 
more about the eventual Festive Fifty.

I will listen to the other tapes and see if I have included the BBC News 
after the credits, a sure way of identifying the events of the day and 
hence the date. Probably sometime after October which was when he 
started Top Gear in 1969.

John

dunelm61 wrote:
>
> Hello again, Ken.
>
> As regards the 1977 Festive Fifty, I may be able to point you in the
> right direction. First of all, there definitely was a Festive Fifty
> broadcast that year. Stories that Peel was overburdened with work so
> didn't broadcast one, or that he only broadcast a top 13, are myths.
> The only oddity was that Peel chose the records himself � there was
> no listeners' vote. This is hardly surprising. He had spent most of
> 1977 alienating his old audience, but hadn't got rid of them
> completely. He probably feared that a listeners' chart would be full
> of the type of music he no longer played (I won't bother to name
> names!), so he put together a chart based on his own favourite
> records for the year. But he did definitely refer to it as the
> Festive Fifty.
>
> It's nearly thirty years ago, so my recollection of the chart is a
> little unsure. There were one or two surprises in there, eg Dave
> Edmunds' I Knew The Bride. Bowie's Heroes was almost certainly in
> there, plus maybe tracks from Pink Floyd (Animals) and Be-Bop Deluxe
> (Live In The Air Age). Otherwise the chart would have read like a
> selection of the best of early punk.
>
> My guess is that if you find a few shows broadcast towards the end of
> December 1977, the first part of each show comprising repeated
> sessions and the second part of each show comprising what is
> evidently a best of the records of the year, then you can have a fair
> stab at reconstructing the chart.
>
> Best of luck!
>
>