Peel Sessions
On the 20th anniversary of Peel’s passing, a few words on John Peel Sessions taking in: Irish bands recording Peel Sessions, Irish Trad and Folk, Punk and beyond, Strange Fruit Records, The Smiths, The Go-Betweens, New Order, Joy Division, Microdisney, Jubilee Allstars, Billy Bragg, Stump, The Would Be’s, Finbar & Eddie Furey, LMNO Pelican, Na Filí, The Fall, Five Go Down to the Sea? and more.
It’s 20 years since John Peel passed away.
In those 20 years, due to allegations of sexual misconduct and old interviews in which Peel mentioned sexual contact with minors, the DJ has gone from National Treasure status in the UK to having the “John Peel” stage at Glastonbury Festival renamed the “Woodsies” stage.
According to the Independent in 2023, Emily Eavis, co-organiser of Glastonbury Festival, “confirmed the move was not related to a recent petition, that attracted less than 2,000 signatures, that called for the change due to Peel having married a 15-year-old girl when he was 25. The marriage was legal at the time in Texas, where they wed.”
The allegations and the DJ’s own comments about sex with minors were repugnant but I’m uncomfortable with the cancel culture that would seek to erase Peel completely from pop culture.
While putting this post together I read that Mute/PIAS have just announced a release of Laibach’s sessions for the DJ’s radio show. The Slovenian band’s The John Peel Sessions gets its first ever vinyl release on Black Friday.
Collections of songs recorded for Peel Sessions have been released on physical media since the mid-80s.
The Collection
Jonny Trunk recently visited the late DJ’s home.
“Last Saturday I went to the legendary shrine that is Peel Acres. A truly odd experience,” wrote the Trunk Records’ mainman. “It’s like John Peel has just popped to the loo and will be back in a few minutes. Quite extraordinary, especially the two rooms full of 12” singles and 7” singles.”
In mid September Fatboy Slim made the journey to Suffolk too for a guided tour of Peel Acres with John’s son and BBC Radio 6 DJ, Tom Ravenscroft. Fatboy Slim could hardly contain his excitment, writing on Instagram, “I spent a glorious day, rummaging at Peel Acres. I felt like a kid in a (very big, very legendary) sweet shop! John Peel is one of my biggest idols. A huge inspiration who shaped my musical taste. Thank you so much to the Peel family for having us and to Tom Ravenscroft and BBC Radio 6 Music for making this great show.”
The show he mentions is Ravenscroft’s BBC 6 Music programme The Collection. Different musicians are invited to Peel Acres to explore Peel’s, “vast music archive, which is comprised of more than 120,000 albums, collected over a lifetime and meticulously catalogued.”
Each guest picks out a few records and their choices are played on the programme.
It’s a fantastic programme.
Hatful of Hollow
I first became aware of John Peel Sessions in the late 80s when I read the sleeve notes to The Smiths’ Hatful of Hollow.
The album compiles three Smiths’ singles - ‘Hand in Glove’, ‘Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now’ and ‘William, It Was Really Nothing’ - along with their b-sides - ‘Girl Afraid’, ‘How Soon Is Now?’ and ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’. The other ten songs on the album are culled from four sessions recorded for the BBC in 1983: two John Peel Sessions and two David Jensen Sessions.
Between 1967 and 2004 over 2000 bands recorded over 4000 sessions for Peel’s BBC radio shows. Recording a session for Peel’s radio show became a rite of passage for new bands.
In The Peel Sessions: A story of teenage dreams and one man’s love of new music (BBC Books, 2007) Ken Garner writes that, “John Peel did not invent radio sessions. He did not produce or engineer the ones that bear his name. He made no money from their commercial exploitation.”
Garner continues: “Barring honourable exceptions in latter years, he was never present when they were made. They are called Peel Sessions simply because out of the many thousands of live BBC sessions broadcast on dozens of different shows by Radio 1 they happen to be the ones that Peel and his successive producers chose to commission and broadcast. It was Peel’s longevity and range of enthusiasms that made them pre-eminent.”
Maida Vale
I started listening to John Peel in the late 80s. It was almost impossible to tune into Peel’s nightly BBC Radio 1 programme from Cork, but I could get the BBC World Service on longwave and I always taped the weekly programme that Peel broadcast on that station. Hearing him introduce old session tracks from some of my favourite bands was always a thrill.
The vast majority of Peel Sessions were recorded at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios in Delaware Road, west London. In August 2023 the BBC announced that they had sold the studio complex to a partnership between Hans Zimmer and film producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Steven Kofsky.
Announcing the sale Lorna Clarke, Director of Music at the BBC, said “Maida Vale has played such an important part in the BBC’s history, and its significance in popular culture is huge. We are so pleased to secure a sale which looks to continue the bright, vibrant future of music making in this iconic building.”
In the sleeve notes of The Complete BBC Peel Sessions (2006, Chemikal Underground) The Delgados recall recording at Maida Vale: “Arriving at Maida Vale for the first time and descending into the studios is like entering a nuclear bunker: unasuming and characterless from the outside, nothing prepares you for the miles of labyrinthine corridors that snake and weave their way underground.”
The Delgados continue: “Everything is dull and grey and bottle green and beige - it reeks of 50s austerity and of a time when sound engineers and producers turned up for work in a shirt and tie. We turned up absolutely convinced that we’d get found out: five chords in and the producer would stop the tape, lean over into the talkback mic and tell us, that we were really quite terrible and would we mind not wasting his fucking time.”
The Phone Call
Getting a call from Peel or one of his producers with an invitation to record a session at Maida Vale was understandably a huge moment for many bands. On Episode 28 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited Fergus McCormack of Dublin’s Jubilee Allstars recalled getting a telephone call from Peel:
“It was the day Mark Kennedy had signed for Liverpool; he was the most expensive teenager at the time, and John [a Liverpool fan] was wondering what Kennedy was like. He said, ‘he’s a Dub isn’t he, is he any use?’ I told him he was alright. I ended up talking about football with John Peel. He gave me his home address and asked me to send him our latest single.”
Jubilee Allstars subsequently recorded a session for Peel’s show on 15 December 1996.
Jubilee Allstars wasn’t the only Irish band that Peel telephoned out of the blue.
In April and May 1993 Peel played ‘Spine’ from Cork’s LMNO Pelican a few times on his radio show. He declared the second track on side B of the band’s brilliantly named Boutros Boutros EP as his favourite. I’ve have stumped for ‘Call Yossarian’ - Track 1, Side A - but then what the hell do I know?
Peel rang the band’s drummer, the late Brendan Butler. Brendan wasn’t home but a family member took the call. Brendan rang the BBC back but failed to get Peel on the line. Was Peel going to offer the band a session?
We’ll never know, but I reckon if the gregarious Butler had managed to chat to Peel for a just a minute then LMNO Pelican would most definitely have been on their way to Maida Vale.
Irish Peel Sessions: Folk/Trad
Lots of Irish bands recorded sessions for Peel.
I always associated Peel with Punk, Post-Punk and Indie music from the 80s and 90s but a load of folk and trad artists recorded sessions for his shows in the 70s.
Boys of the Lough recorded seven sessions and The Chieftains recorded five. The Bothy Band, Horslips, Planxty and Finbar & Eddie Furey all recorded three sessions.
Years later in 1993 before introducing ‘Violence to Violence’ from Rollerskate Skinny’s session, Peel back-announced ‘Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway’, Finbar & Eddie Furey’s cover version of the great Gerry Rafferty song saying, “that always gets roars of approval in the Peel household, no questions about it.”
Now, that’s a great juxtaposition of songs!
Na Filí, the traditional Irish band featuring Tomás Ó Canainn, Matt Cranitch and Tom Barry, were also favourites of Peel’s and they recorded three sessions for his shows between 1974 and 1976.
Presumably, when Peel was playing tracks from Five Go Down to Sea?’s Knot a Fish EP on his show in 1983 he had no idea Úna Ní Chanainn, the band’s cellist, was the daughter of Na Filí’s Ó Canainn.
Paul Brady, De Danann, Dr Strangely Strange, Christie Hennessy, The Johnstons, Tír Na nÓg, Gay & Terry Woods all recorded a session each for Peel’s show.
Irish Peel Sessions - Punk and Beyond
Punk changed everything, not least Peel’s own programme. In 1989 on the occasion Peel’s 50th birthday Music Week published a 12 page tribute. “How did Peel become a Radio 1 DJ and stay there for more than 20 years despite a fickle audience and even more fickle industry?” asked Hugh Fielder.
“By the summer of ’76 punk was starting to emerge as a musical and social force. The first semi-genuine UK punks to record were The Vibrators, who did a Peel Session in October, but the first real punk band to appear were The Damned, who did their first session in November. The whole nature of the programme was changing,” wrote Fielder.
“Over the next few months he still played The Eagles, ZZ Top, et al, but as more indie/punk singles were released the proportion of new wave to old wave shifted proportionally,” continued Fielder.
“Many old listeners couldn’t handle it, but a generation took their place - the average age of the audience allegedly dropped from 25 to 15 in a matter of months.”
Garner writes about the changes wrought by Punk to Peel’s sessions, “Spring and summer 1977 would bring the final sessions from many old retainers. Medicine Head and Caravan’s ten each and Thin Lizzy’s eleventh.”
John Walters, Peel’s longtime producer told Garner, “We carried on booking a punk band and a straight band each week for quite some time.’ said Walters. In the last week of April in Maida Vale 4, for example, The Adverts recorded their first on Monday, The Jam their first the day after, and Medicine Head their last on the Wednesday.”
Plenty of Irish bands recorded Peel Sessions from the late 70s to the mid-80s. Stiff Little Fingers recorded four sessions, while Boomtown Rats, The Outcasts and The Pogues all recorded two sessions. The Moondogs, Protex, Rudi, The Undertones, The Tearjerkers, The Vipers and Xdreamysts recorded one session each.
In the 80s Microdisney recorded six sessions while The Stars of Heaven and Stump recorded four each (more on these three bands below).
A House recorded two sessions and Big Self, In Tua Nua, Zerra 1 (Andrías Ó Grúama’s pre-Fatima Mansions band), Eleven (Damian O’Neill and Michael Bradley’s post-Undertones band), That Petrol Emotion and Hey Paulette all recorded one session each.
In the 90s even more Irish bands recorded sessions for Peel:
Ash and Tunic recorded four sessions each and Portadown band Joyrider recorded three. The Fatima Mansions and Pet Lamb recorded two apiece.
Backwater, Cane 141, The Cranberries, The Frank & Walters, The Hitchers, Larne industrial-metal band In Dust, Luggage, My Bloody Valentine, Rollerskate Skinny, Rumble, The Sewing Room, The Sultans Of Ping FC, Therapy?, The Would Be’s and Jubilee Allstars all recorded one Peel Session.
The Would Be’s session was recorded on 25 February 1990 and, like hundreds of others, was produced by former Mott the Hopple drummer Dale Griffin.
Garner writes in The Peel Sessions that, “their debut (and only) session astonished Dale Griffin with its charm, accomplishment and humour (the trombone is not often a lead instrument in rock): ‘Paul Finnegan on guitar, only 14 years old!’ Dale wrote admiringly to Peel on the sheet.”
The Would Be’s Peel session was released in 2015 by Fifa Records on the the band’s ‘Bittersweet’ 12” single. The 12” is still available to purchase from Bandcamp.
Two other Irish bands that were played on Peel’s show a lot were Whipping Boy and Revelino. Peel played Whipping Boy in the early days of the band’s career but once they signed to Sony the airplay stopped - this wasn’t unusual for Peel at the time.
Revelino received a lot of airplay on Peel’s show particularly for their single ‘Step On High’. Peel once declared on air, “I love that record to the point of madness”. A copy of Revelino’s ‘Step On High’ 7” was found in Peel’s wooden record box after his death alongside his favourite sevens - a great honour for the Ballinteer lads in fairness. Brendan Tallon talks about this and more on Episode 8 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of Irish bands who recorded Peel Sessions, I’m sure I’ve left some names out.
Phil Lynott and Rory Gallagher are of course the biggest Irish names to record sessions for Peel. As mentioned earlier Thin Lizzy recorded 11 sessions, the most by any Irish band. Taste recorded one session and Rory Gallagher recorded two.
In 1994 Strange Fruit released Thin Lizzy - The Peel Sessions, a 15 track compilation of the band’s sessions.
Strange Fruit was established in 1986 and other Irish bands to release sessions commercially through the label include: Microdisney, Stump, The Undertones, Stiff Little Fingers and That Petrol Emotion.
Strange Fruit
On 15 March 1986 Cash Box, the American music industry trade magazine, announced that, “A new record company called Strange Fruit has been set up which will feature the infamous John Peel’s Radio 1 programmes and the artists who have been in session with him. His programmes have been going since 1967 and have had many session recordings made by aspiring artists often months before they were discovered by record companies. Such unknowns as T. Rex, David Bowie, Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Human League, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and The Smiths had their first breaks on his show.”
The article continued: “Strange Fruit Records has reached an agreement with BBC Enterprises for the commercial release of these recordings. Each three or four track 12 inch single will feature a selected artist. Peel is particularly keen to include recordings by artists whose influence and contribution were not always recognized commercially. Four sessions will be released each month, the first group of artists are as yet to be named. And it is hoped that Strange Fruit will do much to stop the legions of bootleggers who have pounced upon the broadcasts throughout the years. Strange Fruit Records will be owned and operated by Clive Selwood, a former director of CBS, Pye, Elektra and Dandelion Records.”
In September 1986, Music & Media reported that, the first six EP releases on Strange Fruit, “are by New Order, The Damned, The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Stiff Little Fingers, Sudden Sway and Wild Swans, with more to follow month by month.”
In March 1987 RPM, the Canadian music weekly, reported that, “Through the Strange Fruit label, Canada is now the only other country, outside of the UK, to have domestic releases of The Peel Sessions EPs. PolyGram recently released 6 more titles including The Primevals, June Tabor, The Specials, Stump, The Birthday Party, and The Slits.”
RPM continued, “John Peel, who this year is celebrating two decades with BBC's Radio One, is the host of his own weekly radio show of which over the years, the likes of Pink Floyd to Dire Straits have appeared. These shows were taped, and last January the first “sessions” were introduced. Previously released from the Peel Sessions were The Damned, Stiff Little Fingers, New Order, TWA Toots, Joy Division, Gang of Four, and The Ruts.”
Some of my own favourite bands released Peel Sessions on Strange Fruit Records and below I detail some of these releases.
Joy Division/New Order
Joy Division and New Order both recorded two Peel Sessions each. Joy Division’s second Peel Session was first broadcast on 10 December, 1979. I’ve always preferred this rawer version of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ to the Martin Hannett produced version that the band recorded in January 1980.
New Order’s second Peel Session, first broadcast on 01 June 1982, was the first session to be released by Strange Fruit Records.
Two of the songs from this session - ‘We All Stand’ and ‘5-8-6’ - were re-recorded for Power Corruption & Lies. The other two songs - ‘Too Late’ and ‘Turn the Heater On’ - were never re-recorded or played live.
‘Turn the Heater On’ is a cover version of the Jamaican reggae artist Keith Hudson. The song originally appeared on his 1975 album, Torch of Freedom. The song was one of Ian Curtis’ favourites and New Order’s cover version was in tribute to their former bandmate.
The Smiths
The Smiths’ Hatful of Hollow included three of the four songs that the band had recorded for their first Peel Session: ‘Handsome Devil’, ‘Reel Around the Fountain’ and ‘What Difference Does It Make?’
In 1988 Strange Fruit released all four songs from the session, including the unreleased ‘Miserable Lie’ thereby ensuring that this particular 12” became a collector’s item among fans of the band.
Microdisney
In 1989 Strange Fruit moved beyond the single session 12” EPs and released a series of albums of Peel Sessions. The earliest of these had titles by The Only Ones, Buzzcocks, Wire, The Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers.
Microdisney, who had split up the previous year, got their own Peel Sessions Album too.
Mike Lyons, an old school friend, bought Microdisney’s The Peel Sessions Album on cassette in 1990 and it was the second album by the band that I ever heard - the first being a discounted cut-out Crooked Mile LP that I bought in Golden Discs on Patrick Street in Cork in early 1990. Mike taped the Microdisney album for me and years later I found a copy of it on vinyl in a secondhand record shop.
It’s probably my second favourite Microdisney album, after The Clock Comes Down the Stairs.
Microdisney recorded six Peel Sessions between August 1983 and July 1986.
Most of these session tracks have been officially released apart from a few exceptions: Peel Session 2 (‘This Liberal Love’, ‘Escalator In The Rain’ and ‘Dolly’), Peel Session 5 (‘People Just Want To Dream’) and all of Peel Session 6 (‘Armadillo Man’, ‘Half A Day’, ‘Soul Boy’ and ‘And He Descended Into Hell’).
Both Cathal Coughlan and Sean O’Hagan mentioned the importance of the Peel Sessions for Microdisney when I interviewed them for Iron Fist in Velvet Glove - the story of Microdisney.
Sean O’Hagan — We initially came over to London because John Peel asked us to record a session, we thought that’s our cue to go to London and give it a go. So that’s what we did.
Cathal Coughlan — The Peel Sessions had an inestimable effect. I suppose it’s fairly commonly spoken about but there is no equivalent these days, and there hasn’t been for a long time, the fact that there was only one cool DJ on Radio 1 who seemingly could do exactly what he wanted meant that you were guaranteed this platform if he took an interest. It really changed my life. Nothing would have happened for us if it wasn’t for the fact that he played ‘Pink Skinned Man’, ‘The Helicopter of the Holy Ghost’ and gave us those sessions.
Stump
Stump recorded four session for Peel’s show, the first of which was released by Strange Fruit in 1987. That session has ‘Down On The Kitchen Table’, ‘Orgasm Way’, ‘Grab Hands’ and probably my favourite version of ‘Buffalo’.
The band re-recorded ‘Orgasm Way’ and ‘Grab Hands’ for their debut EP - Mud on a Colon (1986, Ron Johnson Records). Re-recorded versions of ‘Kitchen Table’ and ‘Buffalo’ appeared on their debut mini-LP - Quirk Out (1986, Stuff Records).
Stump’s other three Peel Sessions have never been officially released which is a pity because there are some great versions of songs that appeared on their debut LP, A Fierce Pancake. They did a pretty good cover of the Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction’ for one of these sessions.
Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg recorded 11 sessions for Peel’s show. The first of these was released by Strange Fruit in 1987. This six song session was first broadcast on 03 August 1983 and along with a version of ‘A New England’ it contains three songs (‘Strange Things Happen’, ‘This Guitar Says Sorry’, and ‘Love Gets Dangerous’) which he’d rerecord for his second album - Brewing Up With Billy Bragg (1984, Go! Discs). This session also has ‘A13, Trunk Road to the Sea’, Bragg’s reworked version of ‘(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66’. The real gem on this session is Bragg’s version of John Cale’s ‘Fear is a Man’s Best Friend’. Bragg’s cover of the opening song from Cale’s 1974 album Fear was my introduction to the Welshman’s solo work. It was a revelation.
The Go-Betweens
The Go-Betweens recorded three sessions for Peel and it was the third of these that was released by Strange Fruit in 1989. The session was first broadcast on 29 October 1984. It features a much rawer version of ‘Five Words’ from the one that is on the band’s third album Spring Hill Fair which had been released a few weeks before the session. The other songs from this session - ‘The Power That I Now Have’, ‘Secondhand Furniture’ and ‘Rare Breed’ were added to the second disc of the 2002 reissue of Spring Hill Fair. The four tracks from this session also turned up on G Stands For Go-Betweens: The Go-Betweens Anthology Volume 1.
Loads of artists in my record collection have released albums of their Peel Sessions including: Curve (Radio Sessions - 1997, Anxious Records), Th' Faith Healers (Peel Sessions - 2005, Ba Da Bing!), Cinerama (The Complete Peel Sessions - 2007, Castle Music), The House of Love (The Complete John Peel Sessions - 2006, Mercury), The Delgados (The Complete BBC Peel Sessions - 2006, Chemikal Underground), Stereolab (ABC Music - Radio 1 Sessions - 2002, Strange Fruit), Tindersticks (BBC Sessions - 2007, Island Records), Julian Cope (Floored Genius 2 - Best Of The BBC Sessions 1983-91 - 1993, Nighttracks) and Múm (The Peel Session - 2006, Fat Cat).
The Stars of Heaven’s debut album - Sacred Heart Hotel, 1986, Rough Trade Records - is actually made up of their debut session for Peel’s programme on Side A and a Dublin recording session with producer Chris O’Brien on Side B.
They released their debut 7” single on Hotwire Records in 1985. Peel started playing the single on his show and one night as ‘Clothes of Pride’, the single’s A-Side, faded out he asked, “If any of the Stars of Heaven are listening I should like to know more about you.” Word reached the band and they were offered a BBC session.
I don’t know of any other albums that mix session tracks for Peel with extra recordings and repackage them as an actual album. It seems an anomaly. Stan Erraught talks about this and more on Episode 7 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited.
When Echo & the Bunnymen reformed in 1997 and released Evergreen I was hesitant to buy it. Initial copies of the album came packaged with a second free CD of the band’s Peel Sessions. This was a no-brainer. I picked up a copy for the Peel Sessions and quickly fell in love with Evergreen - possibly the greatest comeback album of all time.
And I couldn’t write a post about Peel Sessions without mentioning the mother-lode. The greatest physical release of Peel Sessions of all - The Fall’s The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004. The 6 CD boxset contains all 24 sessions that The Fall recorded for Peel’s programme.
Over seven hours of pure, raw, unadulterated MES.
Without doubt, the greatest boxset EVER released.
