The music world has lost one of its best champions. John Peel, BBC DJ, agent provocateur and the force that launched a thousand careers, has gone to his reward. I mourn his loss more so than I have most individual musicians. While the individual musician takes a soul of talent with him, John Peel takes the springboard. David Bowie, The Sex Pistols, Joy Division, The Smiths … Peel launched them all. He leaves not a hole in the music world, but a giant gaping crater. As one fan put it, “Music is the water, John Peel was the quirky little man working the pumping station.”
Thanks, John. For all you did for music. For all you did for this listener on the other side of the pond. You will be sorely missed, and by bigger names than mine.
Rock on.