Planet Peel


 * (See also John Peel Around The World}

It wasn't all wonderful BBC Radio One or even only UK radio. This page is an attempt to track our man's shows around the globe. Below is a first attempt at a preliminary listing of some of the material available online.

America
Peel started his radio career in the United States in the early 1960s and worked successively for KLIF in Dallas, KOMA in Oklahoma City and KMEN in San Bernadino, California, under the his real name of John Ravenscroft (shortened in California to John Ravencroft). The DJ marked the 40th anniversary of his radio career on his BBC Radio One programme of 11 October 2001, although he admitted he was unclear about the exact date of his first appearance on the Kat's Karavan show on station WRR in Dallas, where he was an unpaid "blues expert". A brief extract is available on the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame tribute page. Very few clips from Peel's US career remain, although some were aired on Radio Radio and other documentaries.

Radio Luxembourg
Back in 1971-2, JP had a series of shows on Radio One's competitor. A selection of tracklistings are now available.

Finnish Radio

 * John Peel Shows From Finnish Radio Pt. 1
 * John Peel Shows From Finnish Radio Pt. 2
 * John Peel Shows From Finnish Radio Pt. 3
 * John Peel Shows From Finnish Radio Pt. 4

Initially made available via three dedicated torrents. Nowadays, appear to be most commonly available via John Peel Torrent Compilation 16 of 17 (2004 & Shows from Finnish Radio). A fourth torrent was also available, but it does not appear on the above compilation.

A selection of Radio Mafia Peel tracklistings from 2002 are available at the station's homepage from the pulldown menu marked "Biisilista-arkisto".

Ö3 (Austria)
Main article: Nachtexpress

Peel presented a monthly series of programmes called 'Nachtexpress': recordings of several of these have recently come to light. According to the original taper, these shows went out between 12 and 1 a.m. every first Monday of the month.

Peel Out In The States
Twenty-four shows taped at Peel Acres for distribution to US stations in 1993 via 12 promo CDs. Some of these are available as audio streams at Pates Tapes.
 * Peel Out In The States (Program 01)
 * Peel Out In The States (Program 02)
 * Peel Out In The States (Program 03)
 * Peel Out In The States (Program 07)

Radio Eins
Several shows available via John Peel Torrent Compilation 17 of 17 (Various).

Full online tracklistings of shows from 1999 to 2003 were available here, but the document appears to have been removed. In the meantime, here is a snapshot of that page from Wayback Machine which at least gives show dates. A request for the complete tracklistings at the Peel Mailing List met with more success, and various downloaded versions of the Peel pages at Radio Eins are available, please see this message.

BFBS
Main article: BFBS

JP recorded many two-hour weekly shows for the Forces' network. Some of these from the early 90s are avilable on John Peel Torrent Compilation 8 of 17 (1967-1993) and John Peel Torrent Compilation 9 of 17 (1994-2001), but more are gradually becoming available from the later part of the decade.

Already in the mid 70s JP hosted a one hour show on BFBS, called "Rock Today". In Germany this show was aired on early Sunday mornings, or late on Wednesday night. In the early 80s (81?) JP then got the two hour show we all loved, called "John Peel's Music", still cursed by impossible programming times. In Germany there was a large following of local teens and twens at the time.

VPRO
Dutch station. Homepage mentions a three-hour streamed tribute, including mid-eighties show during first hour, following introduction in Dutch. Links for this appear to be broken at the time of writing. This included this incomplete version of 29 January 1986 (VPRO).

BBC World Service

 * Peel broadcast a half-hour weekly show for many years. All available shows can be found on BBC World Service page, see also Calendar. All available pages, including shows, can be found in category: BBC World Service (see categories below).
 * There is also a World Service tribute edition of Music Biz from 20 October 2005 (thanks to Peel Mailing List user dunelm61).(file deleted)