BBC - Radio 1 - Keeping It Peel - Biography (original) (raw)
PEEL
BIOGRAPHY
1960 - We gotta get outta this place!
After 'doing time' in the National Service, John jumped on the first plane out of Liverpool and headed straight for the United States.
It was 1960, rock 'n' roll was causing convulsions all over the world and adults were in uproar about the devil's music corrupting their children. Naturally, John just had to see what it was all about. So he headed to Dallas, Texas where he worked under the pretence of finding out more about cotton mills in order to impress the folks back home.
For nearly a year he worked in the Dallas Cotton Exchange, progressing to selling crop insurance in West Texas. But sure enough, it wasn't long before the lure of music pulled him in other directions and before he knew it, he'd bagged his first ever job as a radio presenter!