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The Carol Concert. Peel is in the back row, second from the left.
This one-off recording by an aggregation labelled 'The Top Gear Carol Singers' featured a group of musicians commonly associated with Peel's Top Gear show, augmented by JP and Sheila ('Peel and The Pig'). Sheila recounted the event thus:
Top Gear was the venue for some inspired one-offs well loved by listeners, such as the 1970 Christmas Carol Concert, at which all the usual suspects - the Faces, Marc Bolan, Ivor Cutler, Sonja Kristina (of Curved Air), John Walters, Robert Wyatt, and myself - squeezed into the studio to contribute our own idiosyncratic versions of 'Silent Night', 'Away In A Manger' and 'Good King Wenceslas.' (Margrave Of The Marshes, p. 297.)
The Peel Sessions (p. 265) lists the personnel as: David Bedford (piano), and the vocalists Marc Bolan, June Child, Ivor Cutler, Sonja Kristina (& friend), Rod Stewart, Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Ron Wood, Ronnie Lane, Peel & Pig, Kenney Jones, and Ian McLagan. [1] Walters is listed by Ken Garner as being producer (although Sheila's comment leads one to deduce he sang as well), and the majority of the carols are played on an electronic organ, presumably again by Bedford. 'Away In A Manger' was sung by Stewart solo (although Walters remembered on Look Out, It's Alive! in 1991 that he was not keen to do this), backed by Bedford on the piano: 'Silent Night' was sung by Kristina solo, with the choir humming along: and 'Good King Wenceslas' featured solo lines by Lane and Wyatt. A 2024 release Faces At The BBC — Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings 1970-1973 includes two separate tracks (Disc 7) with 'Away In a Manger' accredited to Rod Stewart, while the medley of 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / Good King Wenceslas / Silent Night / O Come All Ye Faithful' is accredited to 'Faces & Choir'.
