- Peel's History of Traditional English Folk Music (PARTS 4 to 6)

As promised, here are the remaining three parts of the documentary series:


Part 4: Folk Rock (Fairport Convention et al)




Part 5: Celtic and Irish music




Part 6: Contemporary folk of the late 90s




Thanks once more to Chris for his efforts in mp3ifying these. If anyone has any more info on this series, don't hesitate to leave comments below.

- Peel's History of Traditional English Folk Music (PARTS 1 to 3)

I confess, I’ve never been the biggest fan of folk music. Having said that, I’ve often lamented the fact that there isn’t a stronger base of traditional English music in contemporary culture. As many of the regular readers of my irregularly posted blog will know, I live and work in Turkey. One thing that constantly amazes me is the ease in which a group of Turks will break out into song and that everyone will know all of the words. This is something I only ever really experienced around the time that Oasis released ‘Don’t look back in anger’ and ‘Wonderwall’, hardly the same.

This series of Peel-narrated documentaries, originally aired in August & September 1999, are bloody good. Chris, who sent me the end of year ’77 show, was also responsible for making these documentaries public, as well as permanently changing my perspective of this musical genre, for which I'm very greatful:

Part 1: The late Victorian era and the First World War



Part 2: To the fifties and the American influence



Part 3: The boom years of the late sixties and early seventies




There are another 3 parts, which I’ll post on the blog after I’ve given them a listen.

Thanks again to Chris for these.

- Nick Drake on John Peel's NIGHTRIDE show, 6th August, 1969

The best thing about mp3s and the like are that you can have a listen to music before you buy a full album. I wonder how many crap albums I’ve bought down the years, and how few times, in contrast, I’ve put on a record and been truly dumbfounded by what I’ve heard. One of those few times was when I first heard Nick Drake.



Highlights of Nick Drake’s performance on John Peel's NIGHTRIDE show, Wednesday, 6th August, 1969.

As far as anyone knows, no moving image of Nick Drake exists, hence the lack of video accompaniment. The music alone is enough, however. John Horne used to have this available for download over at Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Speed, pester him via email and it might return!