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in: 1969, Peel shows, Top Gear,
and 3 more

08 November 1969

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Show[]

Name
Station
YYYY-MM-DD
  • 1969-11-08
Comments
  • Tracklisting below is from Volume 1 of the Decktician Logs. Many thanks to Decktician, Ken Garner for copying and additional information, and Rocker for acting as central HQ.
  • Peel’s intro to the Wild Man Fischer track suggests he’s only just obtained a copy of the double LP. As with a few other things in this week’s show, he calls it “very interesting”.
  • There is a session from Texas bluesman and one-man-band Juke Boy Bonner (1932-1978), who had toured Britain and Europe as part of the 1969 American Folk Blues Festival. Among the other artists on the package tour were Earl Hooker and Clifton Chenier, both of whom gained airplay on Peel's shows.
  • The short-lived (1968-1970) Manchester band Sweet Marriage were one of the more obscure outfits to have recorded a Peel session in the late 1960s, As well as the songs on the album mentioned below, there are said to be eight unreleased tracks by Sweet Marriage produced by Peel and Walters in 1968-9. More about the band here
  • It appears that, for the session aired on this show, King Crimson didn't record another version of "The Court of the Crimson King" and instead opted to re-utilize the one recorded during their first session (first broadcast on 11 May 1969, recognizable by its early different lyrics). Although the song is listed on session logs, a page from band member Ian McDonald's diary, dated 19 August, the recording date of the session, indicates that the band only recorded "Epitaph" and "Get Thy Bearings" at Maida Vale. [1]
  • The surviving file, fairly lo-fi in quality with some distortion and an audible hum, shows how medium wave reception of Top Gear tended to deteriorate in late afternoons/early evenings, especially in winter. After the show had been moved to an evening slot, some Peel listeners wrote letters of complaint to the BBC and the pop music weeklies and TG was moved to Saturday afternoons from 3-5 p.m.(hence Peel's comment on Liverpool's latest result), but it didn't altogether solve the problem of poor reception in some areas of the UK.

Sessions[]

(Please add details of session number, recording date, etc, plus any commercial releases)

Tracklisting[]

File[]

Name
  • J P Top Gear 08 Nov 1969.mp3
Length
  • 28:45
Other
  • Many thanks to Tim for acquisition and digitisation.
Available

References[]

  1. ↑ DGM Live - 19 Aug 1969 - TOP GEAR B.B.C London [1]
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