Music

Ahead of Bridget St John’s gig at The Trades Club, we zipped back in time to 1969 – the year John Peel fell in love with Bridget’s velveteen folk voice and launched a label to pro…

There are many words you could use to describe the late broadcaster and DJ John Peel. Passionate. Obsessive. Instinctive… One thing’s for sure, he was a man who knew his own mind. When Peel liked something, he went all-in.  He had the gumption to commit.

On its release in 1978, Peel famously played The Undertones’ Teenage Kicks twice in a row on his radio show, hailing it “the perfect pop song”. The opening line – “Teenage dreams so hard to beat” – is etched on his gravestone in Great Finborough, Suffolk.

Peel was always fiercely devoted to the subjects of his admiration. He granted 24 BBC Peel Sessions to his most treasured band of all time, The Fall. And his gushing promotion helped boost a catalogue of other artists in their raw infancy, not least The Smiths, Marc Bolan, The White Stripes, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Kanda Bongo Man, Joy Division and, of course, Half Man Half Biscuit.

In the late 60s, when he moved from pirate radio to the BBC, Peel stumbled across a young folk singer, Bridget St John, and instantly became a colossal fan. So much so, in fact, that he felt the burning desire to start his own record label, largely in order to capture Bridget’s work and get it distributed to a wider audience.

Speaking years later he explained “nobody else was going to record her stuff.” Through artistic endeavour, he felt he had to.

So, in 1969, Peel set up Dandelion Records – named after his pet hamster – with business partner Clive Selwood. The label’s first release was Bridget’s debut album Ask Me No Questions, recorded in just 10 hours and produced by Peel himself.

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