Mojo - The Music Magazine

It was John Peel's birthday on Monday - he would have been 71 - and around this time of year I often think of him.

It was just after his birthday in 1996 that I first met him. Peel had agreed to give me an interview for a book I was writing about David Bowie. It was - for me at least - pre-email days, and I had written to him at the BBC, explaining that my PhD was in David Bowie, and that I was turning the thesis into something slightly more readable, an actual book.

I knew Peel had been Bowie's friend and had hosted a number of early-period Bowie radio sessions, but I hadn't expected a reply. Most major media figures have PRs and managers, and people to fob you off, sometimes rudely. But just a few days afterwards John left a message on my answerphone. I was shocked and flustered, and so chuffed that I refused to erase the message.

John agreed to meet me but confided that he was in a bit of a state, as his wife, Sheila, was recovering from a brain haemorrhage. 'I don't know what I'd do without her,' he said. So, the interview was delayed until the late summer, when my big brother Harry drove me to Peel's house near Stowmarket. Peel told us to park at a particular junction; rather than give the address and directions to possible nutters, he would arrive and chaperone us. Risking assassination he turned up, looking a bit tired and pale under a Gene T-shirt and shorts, and our little convoy wound its way through the Suffolk countryside to Peel Acres.

Once there, Peel explained his schedule, as if keen to impress how industrious he was. "It's not like working at the coal face," he added. "But sometimes when you're listening to stuff you suddenly realize that if somebody rushed into the room and said, 'Take that record off! Right, fat boy, tell me if that's a male or female singer, or you die!' it might make you aware that you're not actually listening to the record. I don't know how you tell the difference between house and garage. I just either like the record or I don't."

He was on a roll, almost immediately. "Marketing people put labels on things. I mean, how can you tell if it's Britpop or folk? The sort of stuff Bowie was doing when he was at his best, and the stuff Oasis and Blur are doing now, particularly Blur, is folk music, because it's music by the folk, whereas the stuff that's described as folk music is done by sociology lecturers at Leicester Polytechnic."

Peel liked to talk - with a voice like that, why ever not? But he also had an Achilles heel. He was immediately defensive about Peel Acres' tennis court, which lay in the grounds beside the house. "That Andrex advert paid for that," he told me, before I could mention it. He seemed mildly embarrassed about it, as if he had sold out just a little bit, the high priest of punk earning some extra dosh doing voice-overs for toilet paper.

For reasons I cannot recall, me and big brother Harold declined the offer of a beer, and instead Sheila made us a pot of tea. Peel's wedding anniversary-cum-birthday cake was then cut into slices and shared out as the interview commenced.

Peel recalled the trials of the pre-Space Oddity, mime-influenced Bowie: "I remember seeing him backstage at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. He was doing all that 'man-imprisoned-in-a-phone-box' kind of thing. He was a very edgy lad. But then again, he could have been edgy because he thought what he was doing was a load of piss."

It was obvious, back in 1969, that Bowie needed Peel more than Peel needed Bowie. The singer wrote to the DJ, asking for funds for his new venture - an Arts Lab in Beckenham. John showed me a letter from the summer of that year. 'We dance a furious boredom,' writes the future rock superstar, depicting pre-fame life in the wilds of Beckenham. He sent plans for the Arts Lab, which John said he'd lost. They'd be worth something now.

"David Bowie would certainly be in the top half of any table of people who have done stuff over the years which have given me pleasure', he added, more generously, a little later. John was also touched that Bowie recorded a message for Peel's own This Is Your Life TV programme. But Peel was still a bit grumpy. The last time he had tried to say hello to Bowie had been on the 1983 Serious Moonlight tour, when he had been physically barred by the 'Karate-style' security. "You can still function as an artist and go down the pub, and lead a normal life," insisted Peel.

There were other marvellous, non-Bowie anecdotes to follow. Marc Bolan, his close friend, he described as "cunning". "I know that sounds a bit hard, but he was always an ambitious lad. I was always conscious of that." "Was he beautiful?" I asked. "I suppose he was really. Yes, people used to assume we were having an affair." He said their friendship ended when an acetate of Hot Love was brought to Broadcasting House. "I thought, well, if this wasn't Marc, I wouldn't play it, and so I didn't. In effect, he never really spoke to me again."

There would be more hilarious pieces of commentary, on progressive rock, Radio 1 DJs, and his "overnight conversion" to punk. "I saw the first punk girls on the street and I thought they should be arrested in case they hurt themselves. A week later, you'd see the same person and, having heard the music, you'd think, 'This is great!' I don't see anything at all admirable in being consistent in one's taste."

But the Peelquote that has always stuck in my mind was this one: "I live in fear of a religious conversion. Or waking up one morning and liking Dire Straits. May as well be dead in my opinion."

Interview over. He showed me around his astonishing music library and the small recording studio which PJ Harvey would be using the day after. We compared notes on a shared passion - Liverpool Football Club - and said goodbye. In my Filofax he had written "Cheers, John Peel. 57, fat and fun."

I kept in touch a bit with John after that. I offered him the chance to edit the quotes from the interview I would use in my Bowie book, Strange Fascination. He faxed back and said, "No, I trust you." He also gave me his address and, I must admit, I did use it, about three or four times. Peel had always said that his hero was Kenny Dalglish, and that he sent him a Christmas card every year (without reply, apparently). And, I have to admit, for a few years at least, I sent one to Peel Acres.

I am critical of my heroes. A lot of what Peel played was modishly unlistenable, and people tend to forget that. But his effect on the British music scene was massive, and his candour, wit and patronage of so many important talents were unequalled. Now there's a huge void in the British media. There's no one with Peel's enthusiasm, depth of knowledge and sheer devilment, although that doesn't stop a few middle-aged commentators trying to ape his style.

Happy birthday John Peel. I'll have that beer now, if you don't mind.

By David Buckley