not dead, am doing a book

[ken_garner]

thanks, that's terrific. Now all we need, as my old news reporting 
training would have it, is for two more people who listened that week 
to confirm that Peel said it was a Festive '50' (the number is 
crucial for my interpretation of the nightly scripts, as I'm sure 
everyone can work out) and we have the truth triangulated, and we're 
off. Those records you mention will surely be the clincher, though. 
Ain't this fun? - ken


--- In peel@yahoogroups.com, "dunelm61" <dunelm@...> wrote:
>
> Hello again, Ken.
> 
> Point taken about the 29/08/07 show. I realise you don't have the 
> luxury of being able to devote much space to any one show.
> 
> 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!
>