Chris Hewitt And The Late John Peel Present Peterloo

Chris Hewitt And The Late John Peel Present Waterloo is a 2011 compilation album of various artists covering songs about the Peterloo Massacre, an event that took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England on Monday 16 August 1819 when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. On its initial release, the album was sold at the People’s History Museum, Manchester, Vinyl Revival, Hilton Street, Manchester, and online stores.

Tracklisting

 * Tractor: Peterloo (Intro)
 * Tractor: Peterloo Is Nearly Here
 * Tractor: With Hunt We'll Go
 * Tractor: Massacre
 * Tractor: We Three Country Gentlemen
 * Tractor: Salute the Idiot
 * Tractor: Requiem
 * Tractor: Sam Bamford's Masses
 * Tractor: The Very Same Men
 * Tractor: Reprise
 * Geoff Higginbottom: Never Again
 * Mark Dowding and Chris Harvey: Meeting at Peterloo
 * Geoff Higginbottom: Peterloo
 * Mark Dowding: Peterloo
 * Geoff Higginbottom: Stand Up Proud
 * Geoff Higginbottom: The Mother's Lament
 * Oldham Tinkers: Peterloo
 * Geoff Higginbottom: Mill Owners Revenge
 * Geoff Higginbottom: If Only
 * Geoff Higginbottom: The Weavers March

Links to Peel
Chris Hewitt, manager and sound engineer for Tractor, had an idea in the early 70's for the band Tractor to do some kind of rock opera about the Peterloo Massacre. Hewitt told Peel about the idea, who was at the time involved with Dandelion Records and decided to fund equipment for the studio for the band to produce in Heywood.

Tractor Sound Studios in Heywood was born in 1973, and Hewitt got to work with Tractor guitarist Jim Milne and drummer Steve Clayton on the Peterloo album. But by 1975, the project had been put on a back-burner. In 1977, Hewitt and Tractor moved to another building in Kenion Street, Rochdale, where Cargo studio would record Factory music artists including Joy Division. Some of Tractor’s Peterloo songs were released as a work in progress on an album in the 1990s. But it was not until 2003 that Hewitt and Peel began talking again about a Peterloo album comprising Tractor’s original Peterloo suite of songs, new material from the band and recordings on the same theme by other artists.

Sadly, John Peel died before the project is finished, but Chris Hewitt continued to put the project together with a ten-page fold-out CD booklet detailing the history of the Peterloo Massacre. The album finally got it's release in 2011 and is titled as Chris Hewitt And The Late John Peel Present Waterloo.