Country

But I lived, you know, in country places – in Dallas, which is a huge place, but as country as you get, and Oklahoma City – and I kind of feel it is part of me, in a funny way. JP on country music, on his show of 09 July 1998

Country music was featured in John Peel's radio programmes during much of his BBC career. As he says in the above quote, he lived in two American cities where country music had a strong following, and this experience undoubtedly had an influence on his musical taste. Growing up in Britain in the 1950s, he had become a fan of early rock and roll, a music which was a combination of black rhythm and blues and white country music, but like most British listeners (and musicians) he paid more attention to the blues and R&B side of the music than to the white rural tradition, which was an equally important inspiraton for performers like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.

to be continued.....