The Olivetti Chronicles: Three Decades of Life and Music
by John Peel

John Peel isn’t remembered primarily for his writing but it’s something he did a lot of. He wrote almost-weekly columns for 30 years, for various publications from Disc to the Observer to BIKE. He wrote in much the same manner as he spoke on the radio – warm, funny and not shy of a little vitriole.

The writing in this collection was selected by his family and his son William writes a touching introduction explaining the project, the title (Peel wrote almost exclusively on an old Olivetti typewriter) and his own reaction to his father’s writing (“well observed and entertaining”). The topics are pretty varied. Obviously music is well covered (classical as well as rock) but there’s also football, television, trips abroad, family life, friendship, comedy, hangovers and some ramblings that don’t seem to have any real subject at all. Not that that matters.

There is a difference in tone between Peel’s writing from the early 1970s – which is often surreal and generally has him referring to himself in the third person – and the writing from the last ten years of his life – which tends to be more sentimental. But it is all undeniably Peel, with a love of music and his family and friends shining above everything else.

The gig reviews are a treat. They are not something I usually enjoy reading unless I am familiar with the band in question but Peel’s reviews are a wonder. He invokes the atmosphere of the crowd, the quality of the venue and the performances with astonishing vividness. Whether enthusing, pouring scorn or withholding judgement, the depth of his music knowledge is clear and you feel sure you would agree, had you been at the same gig. In fact, to test this (and also because I was a fan of his Radio 1 show some years ago) I compiled a Spotify playlist of records that he recommends in these columns. Hopefully it will work if you click here (though there’s a chance it won’t outside the UK – apologies for that). It’s a pretty mixed bag, as anyone familiar with John Peel would expect. As he says himself, “The programmes I do for Radio 1 have always been (roughly) based on the principle that what you’re buying, listening to and enjoying is all very well but there exists also something else, less favoured, but equally worthy of your attention.”

The funniest columns are, in my view, those in which he lays into something – be it a famous person, TV show or reader’s letter – with gusto. Peel was not a man to pussyfoot over opinions. He compares Eurovision to a long-drawn-out car crash, describes John Denver and the Carpenters as “cake-mixers” and Billy Joel as “Elton John without the costume, the sense of the preposterous or the tunes”. But this is balanced by the almost-as-harsh words he has for himself: fat, boring and bald being his favoured adjectives.

Peel’s astonishing honesty and openness made him an excellent writer, if his grammar and typing skills did not. It was a real joy to hear his voice again and I will definitely be dipping back into this book from time to time.

Published 2008 by Bantam Press