are peel sessions good?
Mar 29, 2010 at 9:01 AM Post #2 of 19
They were short acoustic sessions of about 4 songs recorded at the bbc's studios as part of John Peel's radio show. There were about 4000 of them recorded between the 60's and 2004.

From the wiki article:
A feature of Peel's BBC Radio 1 shows were the famous John Peel Sessions, which usually consisted of four pieces of music pre-recorded at the BBC's studios. The sessions originally came about due to restrictions imposed on the BBC by the Musicians' Union and Phonographic Performance Limited which represented the record companies dominated by the EMI cartel. Because of these restrictions the BBC had been forced to hire bands and orchestras to render cover versions of recorded music. The theory behind this device was that it would create employment and force people to buy records and not listen to them free of charge on the air. One of the reasons why all of the offshore broadcasting stations of the 1960s were called "pirates" was because they operated outside of British laws and were not bound by the needle time restriction on the number of records they could play on the air.

The BBC employed its own house bands and orchestras and it also engaged outside bands to record exclusive tracks for its programs in BBC studios. This was the reason why Peel was able to use "session men" in his own programs. Sessions were usually four tracks recorded and mixed in a single day; as such they often had a rough and ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished recording. Peel remained on BBC Radio 1 for 37 years, until his death in 2004. During that time over 4000 sessions were recorded by over 2000 artists. Many classic Peel Sessions have been released on record, particularly by the Strange Fruit label.

Have a look at the artists that have recorded a peel session:
List of Peel sessions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Mar 29, 2010 at 9:44 AM Post #3 of 19
If you're a fan of the bands in the sessions, it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot.

I wish I were born earlier so I could experience one of John Peel's shows and his contribution to underground music.
 
Mar 30, 2010 at 10:11 AM Post #8 of 19
Were they broadcast live
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Mar 30, 2010 at 7:25 PM Post #12 of 19
It came on every Sunday afternoon in the UK, from 3pm to 6pm (i think).
To hear John gushing about underground music was to realise his immense enthusiasm for it, which in turn influenced thousands of us to go out and hear the bands. Without Peel there would have been no Jethro Tull (whatever you think of them) and many of us would never have heard our first Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Leonard Cohen (and many many others) songs.
The sessions were 4 or 5 songs that were recorded live in the BBC studios and were played back at intervals during each show. My favorite memory of the show was Peel having Love Sculpture (Dave Edmonds) on the show. The first song was "Saber Dance" which is basically a guitar solo on a classical piece by Kakachurian (spelling?). When the piece finished there was a 30 second silence followed by 3 or 4 exhausted pants of "that was incredible".
Guess you had to be there but the man loved his underground music and had amazing enthusiasm for it.
He died of a heart attack while on vacation in Peru. RIP.
 
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