Quotes About John Peel

If it wasn't for John Peel, there would be no Joy Division and no New Order. He was one of the few people to give bands that played alternative music a chance to get heard, and he continued to be a champion of cutting-edge music throughout his life.

Probably the biggest influence on me, strange though it may sound, was the 70s, a decade of invention. Growing up then had a huge impact on me. People wanted to experiment and were hungry for change. I was influenced by the literature and art of the time; listening to John Peel and Annie Nightingale and watching 'Monty Python.'

I greeted his posting with the sort of enthusiasm that would have followed the news that King Herod had been chosen to supervise the crèche. Very early on in our working relationship I ventured the notion - on air - that clouds were, if you like, poems in the sky, and he greeted this outbreak of loveliness with spluttering disbelief. here, I felt, was a singularly crass man.

John Peel made his reputation with his radio show and his record label, Dandelion, by championing the underdog.