Book description
John Peel is best known for his four decades of radio broadcasting.
His Radio 1 shows shaped the taste of successive generations of music
lovers. His Radio 4 show, Home Truths, became required
listening for millions. But all the while, Peel was also tapping away
on his beloved Olivetti typewriter, creating copy for an array of
patient editors. He wrote articles, columns and reviews for newspapers
and magazines as diverse as The Listener, Oz, Gandalf's
Garden, Sounds, the Observer, the Independent and
Radio Times.
Now for the first time, the best of these writings have been brought
together - selected by his wife, Sheila, and his four children. Music,
of course, is a central and recurring theme, and he writes on music in
all its forms, from Tubular Bells to Berlin punk to Madonna.
Here you can read John Peel on everything from the perils of shaving
to the embarrassments of virginity, and from the strange joy of
Eurovision to the horror of being sick in trains. At every stage, the
writing is laced with John's brilliantly acute observations on the
minutiae of everyday life.
This endlessly entertaining book is essential reading for Peel fans
and a reminder of just why he remains a truly great Briton.
John Peel was born shortly before the outbreak of the Second World
War in 1939. The influence of his thirty-eight-year career as a radio DJ
is well documented and the artistes he championed over the years too
numerous to mention - David Bowie, Roxy Music, T Rex, The Undertones,
Joy Division, The Fall, The Smiths, Pulp and the White Stripes are but a
few. He lived in Suffolk with his wife Sheila and their children
William, Thomas, Alexandra and Florence, plus various dogs and cats,
until his death in October 2004.
