John Peel, R.I.P. Truly one of the great figures of rock music.

And he got his start in Dallas, on WRR (back before it was classical). “WRR had a late night program that all the kids used to listen to called ‘Kat’s Karavan’ which was a rhythm ‘n’ blues program and played almost entirely black music. But the audience was almost entirely white in one of those kinda strange things that goes on in American culture, and the kids who listened loved the music but if any of the musicians had turned up on their front door they would have called the police, because it was quite a racist society at the time. But I had some records which were only available in Europe — some in this country, some in the Netherlands — and I took them to the radio station and they asked me to go on the program and talk about these records, which I thought they’d done because of my extraordinary knowledge of the music, but I think they probably did because they thought I had such an amusing accent — which by Texas standards I certainly did.”

Read the link for his own brief brush with Lee Harvey Oswald.

26 October 2004

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