John Peel

John Peel, the balding, self-deprecating Liverpudlian with the wilfullybscure taste in music, was an unlikely national institution. Yet with aioneering radio career that spanned almost forty years, in which hehampioned left-field sounds from Captain Beefheart to Siouxsie and theanshees, that is exactly what he became. When he died suddenly at the age ofixty-five in October 2004, millions mourned the loss of this quirky,nfluential figure. Now in this new biography, Michael Heatley traces Peel'sareer from his early counter-culture days on pirate radio through hisaverick career at Radio One, right up to his later years where he found aew audience on Radio Four's popular Saturday morning show, Home Truths.