Margrave of the Marshes

John Peel was obviously an equable, natural sort of fellow who had, perhaps more than anyone a grasp of the spirit of the Pop/Rock Age. His ability to stay in touch with succeeding generations and feed them the music that they wanted is truly phenomenal. He did this in spite of the drawback, common to us all, of growing older by the day. Us lesser mortals rave about the new when we are teenagers and settle into a complacent unquestioning, numb-brained certainty that the music that we heard at the age of nineteen is necessarily the greatest. New music is for teenagers. This was even more the case in the sixties when the Rock scene was new and some truly superb acts, from Dylan to The Dead, did emerge and, what's more, lasted for decades. So it is even more remarkable that John was able to ride this wave of innovation in the sixties and seventies and yet still go on to discover new stuff right into his dotage. That he should be sifting through the good, the bad and the ugly demo tapes of acned kids from Newcastle, Lubeck and Warsaw when most of us have settled down to playing our old favourites and/or moved on to classical or jazz, shows a dedication that verges on the heroic. What kind of mind can do this hour after hour, day after day?
John must have retained some of the Eternal Teenager in his personality, and I mean this not unkindly, in order to have the focus to assess this incessant stream. Ordinary people, like me, take more than one hearing to assess good music and several hearings to 'get in' to anything vaguely complex. Did he have an instant faculty for assessing the good and the tripe? Most people who instantly dismiss a piece of music suffer from the Arrogance of Youth, sometimes of a terminally psychopathological nature, but John had a very level head and was famously modest, honest and unassuming and his taste in music was obviously sound or he would have sunk without trace along with Radio London and Paisley prints. That he was hung up in his youth is probably true, given the rejection of authority at school and in the Army; Scalextric; Finborough International Airport; fanatical support of Liverpool FC etc., but, all the same, he was not just a man of our times but an extraordinary man of our times.

Touching, Emotional and Full Of Great Stories (0/0 people found this helpful)

There's something that reaches the innermost of the soul when you know that the author of a book dies half way through. I knew it was going to happen, but I still felt a great sadness when I reached the chapter where John's voice stopped, and The Pig's voice took over.

As with all the best autobiographies, the story goes right back to the beginning and, poingantly, goes right to the end. I went to the same secondary school as Peel, albeit decades later, but the chapters that described his experiences, particularly a hideous assault in the school grounds, were particularly vivid to me.

In his rebellious years (most of them), we read of great stories of Mark Bolan and his contemporaries, and each passage of his life is recounted in colourful detail.

Sheila, his wife, picks up the story as John is working in America, but the tone remains the same, only the narrators voice changes. It is a testament to the writing skills of the rest of the family that there is no loss of pace or interest. While we might all wonder what the book would have been like, had John been able to complete it, we can at least be sure that it would have been something like this.

If you enjoy the music that John used to play, then go out and buy this book.

Uneven but worth reading (0/0 people found this helpful)

It was John Peel who we all listened to in our teenage years when Punk exploded and I can still hear the resonance of his voice as he announces the next offering from Scritti Politti ...
I particularly enjoyed the first part of the book written by john himself which captures his wit and personality but once sheila takes over (Its regrettable that he didnt get to finish it himself )it becomes more bland rambling and rather fawning with fewer nuggets of stories or insights into his personality.
He was a one off

Am I alone? Apparently so (1/1 people found this helpful)

I used to listen to John Peel on Radio London's Perfumed Garden, and, like many ageing hippies, had a great deal of warmth and affection for a man who blazed the trail for so many musicians through his radio shows.

But this book just didn't do it for me.

OK, I enjoyed the first half of the book in the main. There are some very funny bits in it, and some interesting anecdotes. But in all honesty I have to say that it was far from the best book I've ever read. Once Sheila takes over though it goes right down. I can understand why she's so praiseworthy of her husband, but it does rather pall after a while to keep reading "John was first to do this" and "John was so wonderful to do that". And Sheila doesn't have the same lightness of touch or humour that JP did.

There are lots of reasons to regret John's premature passing. The inability to finish his autobiography must rank as one of them.

John Peel honourably and entertainingly remembered (0/0 people found this helpful)

Talented radio DJ's are rather thin on the ground. There have been few that I have gone out of my way to tune in to and even fewer that I have ever wanted to know more about. JP was certainly one of the best - mostly because he played what he liked - when he liked - and somehow got away with it. Funny (in a dry way), self- deprecating (how many stories had himself as a the butt of the joke?) and modest. The kindly uncle that we would like to have had - but in my case didn't.

How good is this book as a testament to a man and how good is it as an education of his times? In the first case good - in the second rather lukewarm. Naturally you cannot encapsulate the history of music in a personal autobiography (although, in truth, it is only a semi-autobiography - his wife took over the writing) but the times shoot from the hippie era (I have heard him describe himself, on-air, as "King of the Hippie's!") to punk without reflection on how Peel become one of the biggest turncoats in music history.

(His letters to the Director General of Radio One - reproduced here - are full of "I got on the wave first" style creeping and crawling that only happens in show biz. A sportsman is given his cards in his early thirties.)

Don't tell me that he didn't regard the Pink Floyd, Yes, Led Zep (et al) as the centre of the universe at one time and don't tell me he wouldn't have kept on playing them if the punk/new wave revolution hadn't hit. Keeping in time with music fashion was also keeping him in employment.

Despite it all poses, he never stopped looking after Number One and his voice-overs/roadshow/TV and radio series (what was Radio 4's Home Truths other than pension insurance?) proved that he wasn't a man above being bought.

(Sadly he was a terrible interviewer. Maybe the worst I have ever heard. Every question seemed to take an age to form and leave his lips. He was far more at home in print.)

In paradox to many autobiographies I found his early days (the chapters he wrote himself) more fascinating than his later days. The public school and national service days as they really were. Terrible in the main.

Sure he played Joy Division first, but he do anything other than put the needle of the record? A lot his fame was by proxy. Equally how nice people (read musicians) are when you are a facilitator of fame or recognition. I bet if you are a meter reader who knocked them out-of-bed their true selves would emerge!

Despite being a love-in (Sheila is clearly a lovely person and an ideal wife), I emerged with a more jaded (rather than less) view of Peel. His record collection alone was worth a million quid and he was hardly ever out-of-work. Indeed never, according to this.

I also didn't realise how petty he was, not letting an Arsenal fan in to the house, for example (because they beat his team on a famous occasion). Football made him appear more working class than he really was - indeed even his Liverpool accent was adopted later in life. As his early US broadcast tapes prove.

Peel's relatively early death was the one stoke of bad luck he seemed to have had. Certainly you can't ask for much more out of life when your contribution to arts is that of a publicist. A talented publicist, but a publicist no less.

Those that didn't live through the Peel years will be hard pressed to get emotionally involved with this book - but I was and that makes the final chapter very moving. There is little detail of the final day, but maybe that is too painful for the family.

This book is an entertaining read - but I still think that most of the greatness in it was those he was playing, befriending and promoting rather than the droll Margrave himself.

John Peel, Sheila Ravenscroft

Reader Reviews:

Eternal teenager? (0/0 people found this helpful)

Touching, Emotional and Full Of Great Stories (0/0 people found this helpful)

Uneven but worth reading (0/0 people found this helpful)

Am I alone? Apparently so (1/1 people found this helpful)

John Peel honourably and entertainingly remembered (0/0 people found this helpful)

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