Night Ride

Night Ride was the name given in 1967 by the BBC to the show which went out nightly, between 12 midnight and closedown at 2 a.m,.on the combined frequencies of Radio One and Radio Two. It was an easy listening show designed for night shift workers and insomniacs, with "non-needletime" music and DJs drawn from Radio Two's presenters; they included Robin Boyle, Bruce Wyndham, Ray Moore and Jon Curle.

Then, in March 1968, a radically different Night Ride appeared on Wednesday nights, with the first hour presented by John Peel. According to Ken Garner's The Peel Sessions, the show had grown out of an original idea by producer John Muir for a programme of folk music, poetry and world music drawn from the extensive holdings of the BBC Archives. Muir met Peel's manager Clive Selwood, who told him that his client's future on Top Gear was still uncertain: Muir suggested that Peel do a pilot show, Peel did so and it was submitted to station controller Robin Scott, who described it as "a Perfumed Garden type show, which I am considering for a late night slot". As Radio One closed down at teatime and Radio Three - at the time a bastion of traditonal and modern "high culture" - was still hostile to anything resembling "pop", the only late-night slot available on the BBC was on Night Ride.

Peel's Night Ride contrasted with his other BBC show, Top Gear, in its concentration on the more esoteric and "minority" aspects of the late 1960s underground culture. While most 1967-69 Top Gear sessions were by pop or rock bands and singers, Night Ride focused on the acoustic music emerging from the more contemporary end of the folk scene. Each programme also featured a guest poet reading his or her work, BBC archive tracks of rare music from around the world, and various studio guests. Peel had mentioned, in his International Times column, the need for compromise in his work for the BBC, at one stage advising his listeners, who had hoped for a show resembling the Perfumed Garden, to "be patient". Night RIde seemed at first to be a continuation of the Perfumed Garden; the first record on the first programme was by PG favourites The Misunderstood, and the session guests were the Incredible String Band, whose music he had also featured heavily on his Radio London late-night show. Yet Night Ride differed from the Perfumed Garden in several respects: it was a "non-needletime" show, so Peel had little chance to play his favourite records; it was only 55 minutes long, so there was no time to read out long passages from listeners' letters; and instead of being alone in the studio he was obliged to interview, often somewhat awkwardly, a succession of studio guests.

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