Peel Moment
Just remembered my own favourite John Peel moment. He was presenting Top Of The Pops and Aretha Franklin and George Michael had taken the number one spot with their duet “River Deep, Mountain High”. As the video fades out and the programme credits begin to roll, Peel does his best deadpan look direct to camera and says, “Good old Aretha - she can make any old rubbish sound good.”
There should be a site to record all of Mr Peel’s best bon mots. In downloadable audio form, natch, as it’s often his tone of voice that made him so spot-on. Gathered together from all the bedroom-made master tapes of Peel Shows across the nation, it would be huge.
I remember my dad (my dad!) telling me he once listened to Peel who took a record off mid play and said “I’m sorry, I just can’t listen to this rubbish anymore”. It might be an apocryphal story, but it always seemed to me to capture the essence of what he was about.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
