John Peel

• Bobby Friction
• 16 Oct 06, 10:13 AM

John Peel to me was the ‘Truth’ pure and simple. When you look back over your teenage years you remember just how passionate, truthful and heartfelt all your emotions were about friends, politics and especially music. As you get older things get in the way and start chipping away at the edifice until you find yourself in a position where you wish you could hear and feel music or life like you did back then.

John didn’t let that happen to him; he still had the same enthusiasm for music in his 60’s and would be just as excited by an unsigned Bhangra band or Grime MC as he did back in the 1960’s with Hippy music or Punk in the 1970’s.
During my first week at Radio 1, John communicated that passion to me in just a few days, and although he was name checking Nusarat Fateh Ali Khan, Bhangra Daytimers and Cornershop - he was even more interested in what the British Asian musical streets were saying there and then.
I gave him some remixed Bhangra and straight away he said “give me something newer – ive heard this stuff..is there anything that sounds more raw”.
Even in the 21st Century he deflated my ego, made me feel great about myself and got me back to that place in my head I was at when I was a teenager.
John Peel was “The Truth’.