Dallas is a major city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. The city's population ranks ninth in the U.S. and third in Texas after Houston and San Antonio. The city's prominence arose from its historical importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries, and its position along numerous railroad lines. The bulk of the city is in Dallas County, of which it is the county seat; however, sections of the city are located in Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties. According to the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 1,197,816. The United States Census Bureau's estimate for the city's population increased to 1,317,929 as of July 1, 2016.
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Links To Peel[]
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 John mentioned in the Irving Daily News Texan, published on 25th August 1964 |
Peel lived in Dallas for around four years, from his arrival in America in 1960 until his move to Oklahoma City. Sent by his father to learn the family business by working at the city's Cotton Exchange, he gained his first experience in radio in Dallas, at the local stations WRR (on the Kat's Karavan show) and KLIF (as a Beatles expert). He also met his first wife, Shirley Anne Milburn, in the city.
In Margrave Of The Marshes, Peel writes extensively about his time in Dallas, where he lived initially at the YMCA before moving to a boarding house on Gaston Avenue and later a house (and/or a "small wooden one-room shed"[1]) on Potomac Avenue. After leaving the Cotton Exchange, he took a job as an office boy with K.T. Martin Insurance, a specialist in crop-hail cover.
Stories familiar to generations of listeners to his shows include meeting John F. Kennedy at an election rally in 1960 and posing as a Liverpool Echo reporter after the president was later assassinated in the city, as well as his doomed romance with Nancy Bowling, membership of the Dallas County Cricket Club, and brief stay at Dallas County Jail in 1963 for traffic violations.[2] He also became a regular visitor to the city's Deep Elm (Deep Ellum) entertainment district, immortalised in many blues songs and located "on the black side of the Central Expressway."[1] He was a keen customer of a second-hand record shop in the area, where he found a large number of rare blues and R&B singles.
Peel later used the affectionate nickname Kat's Karavan for his own shows on Radio One and also often spoke fondly of nights in Dallas listening to KLIF DJ Russ Knight, the "Weird Beard." His final R1 show, on 14 October 2004, featured an artist Peel closely associated with Dallas, Jimmy Reed ("the big man on Kat's Karavan").[2]
Peel gave an account of his time in Dallas in two of his columns for Disc & Music Echo in January 1971, including a number of details which were omitted from his autobiography, including artists he'd seen in live gigs, people he knew and and his time with the Dallas Cricket Club ("composed of home-sick colonials"[3]).
On the show of 14 November 1972 he mentioned going to the city's Rubaiyat club[4], a beatnik-influenced folk coffee-house "very unusual for Dallas", where, among others, the singer Michael Murphey made his name. However, from his comments it doesn't seem likely that he was a regular visitor.
After his death, favourite singles in John Peel's Record Box relating to his time in Dallas included 45s by Arthur K Adams (Wildwood Flower / It's A Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild Wildwood Flower), Larry Bright (Mojo Workout / I'll Change My Ways), and Lightnin' Hopkins (Mojo Hand / Glory Be).
See Also[]
- Gigography 1954-1966: Unknown date, 1960: Sportatorium, Dallas: Etta James.[5]
- Disc & Music Echo: Peel Columns
External Links[]
- Footnotes
- ↑ Margrave of the Marshes, p.150.
- ↑ Peel, though, was unclear about whether he saw Jimmy Reed perform live in Dallas (see artist page).