John Peel - would reggae have taken off in the UK without him?

[leggo rocker]

For me, the late and very great John Peel was the champion of reggae in the UK.

Without him, and his late night show which played mainly punk in 1977 and then more and more reggae, I probably would never have heard the stuff.

Any other UK reggae fans concur?

[nacho]

Hi.
Yes I agree with you John Peel was THE MAN behind the promotion of the reggae on the Uk he put passion to spread reggae across UK and worldwide thanks to the BBC and off course the heavy caribean influence during late 70' and 80' all this was thanks too the Great Bob marley he stard this, thanks to his hipnotic beats and the couciusness lyrics he captured blacks,whites,chinese,indian, europeans, worldwide ....
am 32 but my uncle used to live in the Uk during late 70' and 80' he was a huge tape trader of punk and reggae music specially of PEEL SESSIONS am still have some tapes with eek a mouse, aswad, culture the tapes are in the worts condition I save some shows
Every single time when I heard those shows I ask to myself WHERE ARE THE ORIGINAL VIDEOS OR REELS OF THOSE SHOWS... Hopefully one day the will be released.

[leggo rocker]

I have heard there are plans to release more sessions but there's something of a legal issue involved to be sorted first.

[6anbatte]

I must admit my first memories of hearing reggae were via my little portable transistor radio whilst playing football over the rec. I can vividly remember hearing "Double Barrel" and "Monkey Spanner as they were riding high in the National charts in 1971 (I was 12). Consequently, I would assume that reggae had a pretty large following over here even then.

I did listen to John Peel and I definitely heard The Revolutionairies on his show for the first time, but I think there were a number of other sources for me.

I am pretty sure I was listening to the B&B Show on Radio London at that time.

I am sure someone might pull me up on this and am happy to be corrected.

[nacho]

By the way is not the peel sessions only is all this live music tv shows like Top of the pops and many others the BBC is plenty of reggae roots in all the sources possible Radio, Video, recordinds, memorabilia...

[peter levi]

i think he reached a new set of people at that time , but reggae was there from the late 60ts, a dj mike raven would play a few tunes,more as world music,tony blackburn played pop reggae as did emperor rosko ,i think steve barnard,was the first black dj who played reggae in the early 70ts on radio london after him was tony williams who first got rodigan a spot on his show ,john peel played some great roots tunes ,he would buy his tunes in daddy kools, big respect for that ,and you could talk to him .Between him and don letts the reggae nights at the 100 club with silver camel sound , the punk reggae think took of, in london anyway.

[leggo rocker]

You have to remember the following:

Most other reggae played on the UK radio or TV was pop reggae.

While London had some radio stations that strayed away from the normal diet of pop or rock, for those of us in the far flung provinces this wasn't an option, it was only by staying awake very late to listen to Peel that you could hear Punk, and of course Roots Rock Reggae on the radio.

And the key thing is that Peel played reggae to people like myself who were into Punk and didn't listen to black music (soul, funk etc) at all.

But we had alternative tastes, like he did, and he exploited and developed that.

[leggo rocker]

peter levi wrote:

"john peel played some great roots tunes ,he would buy his tunes in daddy kools,"

I hope Peeley got a warmer reception in there than we did!

We (a bunch of reggae mad teens) used to make regular pilgramiges to Daddy Kools in Dean Street, spending all our meagre wages (or dole cheques!) on the train fair and his reggae stock. Despite this enthusiasm we were made to feel about as welcome as a stinky dog poo on his shoe!

It was very hard for us to ignore the very hostile vibe while flipping through the racks of great music.

So we were relieved when our local stores responded to demand and started stocking real roots reggae disks. He lost out on many many sales as a result.

[JP]

John Peel was also sent all the hottest hand picked hits of the day & the best of the re-issues on a regular basis by Dub Vendor, the best Reggae mail order specialist throughout the 80's & 90's.

[leggo rocker]

JP's record collection. Oh how I wish that was mine!