McPeakes 1969

Tape

 * Name
 * Night Ride


 * Station
 * BBC Radio One


 * YYYY-MM
 * 1969


 * (Background of tape, including who made it, theme if any, notable songs, interesting Peel comments, etc)
 * Ripper's notes:
 * The McPeake Family from Belfast made commercial recordings from 1959 into the 70s. This fragment from a reel-to-reel tape finds John Peel introducing 'another one' from the McPeakes on his Night Ride show early in 1969 (the date being known from other identified off-air items, mostly exclusive sessions for the show, on the same reel. The track played, 'The Coolin', was only recorded twice on commercial releases by the McPeakes - on their 1962 Topic LP and on their obswcure 1965 DTS LP 'Welcome', in both cases using the Irish 'An Coolin'. To my ears, this isn't the Topic recording. I don't klnow the DTS one. However, an added intrigue is that by that stage (1965), the McPeakes were a six-piece - not the three-piece described in John's intro. Night Ride was known for featuring recordings from the BBC's sound archive, so could this be a tune from an old BBC sound archive recording? Not exactly - fellow Irish piper Seamus Ennis had recorded specifically for the BBC sound archive in the late 40s, but the McPeakes never did. Although they appeared numerous times on Home Service, Light Programme, and regional services from the early 50s onwards, these were mostly live on-air broadcasts. There are two possibilities (assuming it isn't the DTS LP version): a recording from a March 1969 'Country Meets Folk' session (where the group were booked as a trio) that John re-broadcast on his own show - which seems odd, as CMF was generally a live broadcast - or a rebroadcast of tracks from an August 1966 episode of 'Folk Song Cellar', which (alone in the McPeakes' BBC canon) had been cut to transcription disc. On nthat occasioon, BBC files reveal that the group were indeed booked as a trio. During the 60s, their BBC bookings could be anywhere between three- and six-piece versions of the act, whereas the LPs were always the full group. Intriguingly, at this point - early 1969 - the McPeakes were being represented by the Beatles' Apple Corps, John Lennon having taken to the group after a joint appearance on BBC TV's 'Late Night Line Up' in 1967. As BBC Written Archives memos reveal, the Apple connection may have been good for the CV but it was terrible for business - with BBC booking requests getting lost down the sofas in Apple's chaos. A McPeake's BBC sessionography and discography up to 1972 appears in 'The Wheels of the World: 300 Years of Irish Uilleann Pipers' (Jawbone, 2015) by Colin Harper with John McSherry.
 * The McPeake Family from Belfast made commercial recordings from 1959 into the 70s. This fragment from a reel-to-reel tape finds John Peel introducing 'another one' from the McPeakes on his Night Ride show early in 1969 (the date being known from other identified off-air items, mostly exclusive sessions for the show, on the same reel. The track played, 'The Coolin', was only recorded twice on commercial releases by the McPeakes - on their 1962 Topic LP and on their obswcure 1965 DTS LP 'Welcome', in both cases using the Irish 'An Coolin'. To my ears, this isn't the Topic recording. I don't klnow the DTS one. However, an added intrigue is that by that stage (1965), the McPeakes were a six-piece - not the three-piece described in John's intro. Night Ride was known for featuring recordings from the BBC's sound archive, so could this be a tune from an old BBC sound archive recording? Not exactly - fellow Irish piper Seamus Ennis had recorded specifically for the BBC sound archive in the late 40s, but the McPeakes never did. Although they appeared numerous times on Home Service, Light Programme, and regional services from the early 50s onwards, these were mostly live on-air broadcasts. There are two possibilities (assuming it isn't the DTS LP version): a recording from a March 1969 'Country Meets Folk' session (where the group were booked as a trio) that John re-broadcast on his own show - which seems odd, as CMF was generally a live broadcast - or a rebroadcast of tracks from an August 1966 episode of 'Folk Song Cellar', which (alone in the McPeakes' BBC canon) had been cut to transcription disc. On nthat occasioon, BBC files reveal that the group were indeed booked as a trio. During the 60s, their BBC bookings could be anywhere between three- and six-piece versions of the act, whereas the LPs were always the full group. Intriguingly, at this point - early 1969 - the McPeakes were being represented by the Beatles' Apple Corps, John Lennon having taken to the group after a joint appearance on BBC TV's 'Late Night Line Up' in 1967. As BBC Written Archives memos reveal, the Apple connection may have been good for the CV but it was terrible for business - with BBC booking requests getting lost down the sofas in Apple's chaos. A McPeake's BBC sessionography and discography up to 1972 appears in 'The Wheels of the World: 300 Years of Irish Uilleann Pipers' (Jawbone, 2015) by Colin Harper with John McSherry.

Tracklisting

 * Peel intro
 * McPeakes: The Coolin

File

 * Name
 * The McPeakes - an unknown BBC session? - John Peel's Night Ride, early 1969
 * Length
 * 1:43


 * Other


 * Many thanks to Colin H


 * Available
 * Youtube