04 July 1970

Show

Name

• Top Gear

Station

• BBC Radio One

YYYY-MM-DD

• 1970-07-04

Comments

• (Duff Paddy) We fast-forward nearly a year from the previous show to mid-1970, and find music-loving Johnny Plee introducing sessions from Country Joe McDonald, Fotheringay and Cochise. It all gets a bit Pete Frame at this point, because Country Joe had recently stopped working with The Fish (as he told John Walters while recording the session), Fotheringay was Sandy Denny's project after leaving Fairport and Cochise are probably best known for being Mick Grabham's main band before he joined Procol Harum. By coincidence, Peel even plays a Procol Harum track right before one of Cochise's session tracks. Hope you're all taking notes: there'll be a test after class.
• Peel explains that the Country Joe session tracks will all go out together in a batch in the middle of the show - but says there's "no particular reason" for this.
• After a "discussion" during the first Fotheringay session track, Peel, John Walters and the Pig agree that Sandy Denny is Britain’s best female singer 
• At the end of the show Peel lists the session guests, "along with Eddie Lee Beppeaux". He also mentions that Nellie the Elephant will be doing a session next week, and then says "I get more like Noel Edmonds each week" 

Sessions

• Country Joe McDonald #1 first broadcast, recorded 1970-06-29. No known commercial release.
• Fotheringay Recorded 1970-04-13. First broadcast 25 April 1970. The Sea on Nothing More (The Collected Fotheringay) 3xCD+DVD, 2015 (Universal 471 848-2).
• Cochise #1 recorded 3rd March 1970, repeat, first broadcast 14 March 1970. No known commercial release.

(Please add details of any commercial release of these sessions)

Tracklisting

• Files 1 & 3 begin at start of show
• File 3; End of Noel Edmonds show, followed by Peel’s intro – sounding as if he’s speaking with his mouth full 
• Free: Mr. Big (album - Fire And Water) Island ILPS 9120
• American Dream: Credamphels (album - The American Dream) Ampex / Bearsville A 1010 (JP: "quite a jolly LP but not released here"; It would be another 41 years before a UK release) 
• Fotheringay: The Sea (session) (“for Release, for all the work they did at the Bath Festival”) 
• Wilbert Harrison: Blue Monday (album - Let's Work Together) London SH 8415 / Decca HA 8415
• Cochise: Woodland Light Irons (session)
• Pretty Things: Scene One / The Good Mr.Square / She Was Tall, She Was High (album - Parachute) Harvest SHVL 774 ("The Pig's Choice, from the LP Parachute, which you doubtless own")

News (edited out on File 3)

• Fotheringay:The Ballad of Ned Kelly (session)
• David Bowie: Memory Of A Free Festival (7") Mercury 6052 026 (Peel plays this for the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind, the only two bands who played for free at the “far from free” Bath Festival) 
• Tape flip during above track on File 3
• File 2 begins
• Country Joe McDonald: (session)

1. Hold On It's Coming
2. Balancing On The Edge Of Time
3. It's So Nice To Have Love
4. Maria
5. Tell Me Where You're Bound

• File 2 ends
• Medicine Head: Coast To Coast (And Shore To Shore) (7") Dandelion S 5075
• Fotheringay: Banks of The Nile (session)
• Asks cinema owners on behalf of Walters and himself to show W.C. Fields’ The Fatal Glass of Beer, "the best film ever made"
• Procol Harum: Your Own Choice (album - Home) Regal Zonophone SLRZ 1014
• Tape flip during above track on File 3
• Cochise: Past Loves (session)
• Wild Man Fischer: The Wild Man Fischer Story (album - An Evening With Wild Man Fischer) Bizarre/Reprise 2XS 6332 swear words edited out
• Mike Cooper: Watching You Fall (Parts 1 & 2) (7" - Your Lovely Ways (Parts 1 & 2)) Dawn DNX 2501
• Tape flip during above track on File 3
• 4.30 News with Humphrey Walwyn – Northern Ireland government bans all marches; slight relaxation of curfew in Belfast; Queen expresses sympathy for families of 112 victims of previous day’s Comet air disaster in Spain[1]. PM Edward Heath tells Tories not to expect miracles 

• Grateful Dead: New Speedway Boogie (album - Workingman's Dead) Warner Bros. WS 1869
• American Tourist photo competition now closed – after only “5 or 6 entries”. Result to be announced next week 

• Disinterred 33 1/3 jingle
• Soft Machine: We Did It Again (album - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
• Fotheringay: The Way I Feel (session)
• Cochise: Velvet Mountain (session)
• Mississippi Fred McDowell: 61 Highway (album - I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll) Capitol SM-409
• Malaysian Girls: Hydro Percussion (v/a album - John Peel's Archive Things) BBC Radio Enterprises REC 68M 

        (JP: And there's one for Jimmy Savile. Sounds like a communal shower actually)

• Chicken Shack: Never Ever (album - Accept Chicken Shack) Blue Horizon 7-63861
• End of show

File

Name

• 1) (Torrent) JOHN PEEL'S TOP GEAR - 8 SHOWS FROM 1969 & 1970
• 1) 1970-04-07 John Peel Top Gear BBC Radio 1.mp3
• 2) CountryJoe1970-06-29TopGearLondonUK
• 3) J P Top Gear 04 July 1970 complete.mp3

Length

• 1) 01.57.31
• 2) 00:18:38
• 3) 01:52:48

Other

• 1) (Duff Paddy) This torrent is a re-upload of the 8 classic Top Gear shows that appeared on my Peel blog Kat's Karavan and have now expired onMost of them are full (or nearly full) shows, encoded as 320K MP3s from 7-inch reel-to-reel tapes.
• 1) Many thanks to hills1902 for supplying the tapes, to John for ripping and encoding them and to Phil for originally hosting the MP3s on his server.
• 2) A slightly better quality recording of the Country Joe McDonald session. Full details at SugarMegs
• 3) Many thanks to the original taper, and to Tim for purchasing from eBay and digitisation.

Available

• 1) part of the JOHN PEEL'S TOP GEAR - 8 SHOWS FROM 1969 & 1970 torrent. Also re-upped at Mooo Server
• 2) SugarMegs
• 3) Mooo