Record Collection

(Related page: John Peel's Record Box)

John in a typical pose with part of his collection as backdrop.

"I have bought far, far too many records, even having two rather artfully chosen collections stolen in their entirety, and still spend between £25 and £30 a week on the blamed things. Much of this money is squandered in minuscule specialist shops physically and spiritually at several light years removed from the glossy houses where cowed customers line up to buy whatever is currently the subject of extensive television advertising." (Record Shops, Punch, 1980-01-16, reprinted in Olivetti Chronicles, Corgi edition, p. 343.)

Peel was a self-confessed vinyl junkie who filled Peel Acres with all manner of obscure and one-off recordings. His preferred format was vinyl: he was never a fan of compact discs, and would only purchase a CD of an album if there was no vinyl equivalent. He once incurred the wrath of his family and show staff by spending hours in Groningen searching for a record shop that turned out to be directly opposite the hotel where he was staying. He would frequently beseech listeners to send him copies of records he did not have and beg friends and acquaintances going on holiday to exotic parts of the world to bring him back recordings from those places. He was loath to part with any of them, instituted a card index system in 1969 to catalogue them, and even had a shed built at his home to accommodate part of the groaning mountain of ephemera.

Despite all this, it appears his appetite for amassing recorded music remained undimmed and that he could never have enough: for example, he was put out on hearing that Mike Read was given an entire collection by a fan.

"What I want to know is, why doesn't this happen to me?" (12 February 1980)

Moreover, his obsession did not go unnoticed by others, even at the start of his BBC career. On 31 December 1967, he remarks that he is short of money and the show's co-presenter Tommy Vance observes that Peel spends some of his earnings on "the most way-out album collection in London". Much later, he told his listeners:

"I('ve) got a very small part in a film....called Five Seconds To Spare....The part I play (I don't know what on earth gave them the idea for this) is that of a grumpy bloke who spends most of his life filing records at a radio station. What an imagination." (07 February 2000 (BFBS))

According to The John Peel Centre For Creative Arts (JPCCA), the collection comprises over 26,000 LPs, 40,000 singles and thousands of CDs.

The Space / John Peel Archive

In April 2012, an online virtual museum (The Space) was created with the purpose (in part) of outlining Peel's collection. It was organised and funded by the Arts Council and the BBC: the driving force behind the project were Sheila, Eye Film And Television and the JPCCA. Copyright difficulties precluded direct access to the music: instead, at the rate of 100 LPs a month, chosen alphabetically, were highlighted by specially filmed video interviews with the artists concerned and a limited online listening facility provided via Spotify. In addition, previously unseen Peel footage, including home movies, was provided to view. The project ran for 26 weeks until the initial grant ceased, after which further funding was sought.

Supplementary information on the project was released via other sites:

• YouTube | Blog | Flickr | Soundcloud | Facebook | Google+

At the end of February 2013, johnpeelarchive.com resumed the online release of details of the collection, with the first 100 LPs by artists whose names start with numbers. Material originally released via TheSpace can now be found at the JohnPeelArchive site.

A-Z (John Peel Archive)

A-Z (Lists)

Links

• EADT24 article
• Can It Really Be Happening?: JPCCA introductory article
• John Peel Archive on Twitter
• Guardian feature
• The Independent article
• Radio Times article
• Feargal Sharkey article (from The Sun)
• Behind The Amazing John Peel Digital Archive (fastcocreate.com)
• Gizmodo: Inside the Project to Immortalize John Peel’s Record Collection
• Mixcloud: Slow Thrills: Plundering the John Peel Archive
• BBC News: John Peel's online record collection re-launched

Footnotes