John Peel's Top Gear - 27th. April 1969

Principal Edwards Magic Theatre

Probably the post of the year on the peel group was from user hills1902, who announced a couple of months back:

I have some old 7 inch reel-to-reel tapes of eight Top Gear
programmes that I recorded in 1969 and 1970, with sessions from the following bands:

26 Apr 69 - Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Eclection, Family
11 May 69? - Fleetwood Mac, King Crimson, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Bonzo Dog Band
Date unknown - Pentangle, Blodwyn Pig, Mandrake Paddle Steamer, John Dummer Blues Band
Date unknown - Ten Years After, Roy Harper, Third Ear Band
29 Jun 69 - Led Zeppelin, Pentangle, Idle Race,
6 Jul 69 - John Dummer Blues Band, Colosseum, Pretty Things, Imrat Khan
4 Jul 70 - Country Joe Macdonald, Fotheringay, Cochise
11 Jul 70? - Kevin Ayers, East of Eden, Son House

Well, the tapes have now been encoded and properly dated, and they're absolute gems, giving a real flavour of the Top Gear experience for those of us too young to have been there (well, I was technically 'there', but at 8½, hardly 'hip and happening' enough to set the dial for this). So over the next 8 weeks I'll be uploading these classic shows to the Karavan, starting with this one, which features sessions from, as stated above, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Eclection and (The) Family. There's only a slight glitch in Mr. Apollo, as indicated below, but otherwise this is a full two-hour show in very reasonable nick for its age. Manna for Peeliacs.

Many thanks to hills1902 for supplying these, to John for ripping and encoding them and to Phil for hosting them on his server.

Download (273Mb, 320Kbps MP3)

The file's too big for divshare, so I've switched to sendspace this week. Hope everyone's OK with that.

Session details

The Eclection
Family

(The BBC's Peel pages have no details for this particular PEMT session, but I expect Ken Garner's upcoming book will put that right. Oh, and while we're at it, the BBC lists the group as Principal Edward's Magic Theatre, but I'm reasonably sure that's wrong.)

Further Reading

Dandelion Records
Principal Edwards Magic Theatre
(This site includes an article by Peel about the band published in "Disc and Music Echo" earlier that month.)

Tracklisting

• Top Gear Theme
• The Byrds - Old Blue
• Canned Heat - Time Was
• The Eclection - Both Sides Now (session)
• Chicken Shack - I'd Rather Go Blind
• The Family - A Song For Me (session)
• Bonzo Dog Band - Mr. Apollo [skips back to end of the Family track, then continues and jumps a bit further into Mr. Apollo]
  
• News at 7:30
• The Eclection - Restitution (session)
• Bob Dylan - Country Pie
• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre - Lament For The Earth (session)
• The Family - Bring It On Home (session)
• Pentangle - Once I Had A Sweetheart
• Credence Clearwater Revival - Proud Mary
• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre - Ballad of a Big Girl Now (session)
• The Eclection - Charity (session)
• Leonard Cohen - Seems So Long Ago Nancy
• BB King - Sweet Little Angel
• The Family - Love Is A Sleeper (session)
• Coliseum (Colosseum) - Those About To Die
• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre - Third Sonnet To Sundry Notes Of Music (session)
• The Eclection - Earth (session)
• The Moody Blues - Send Me No Wine
• Gordon Smith - Instrumental No. 2 [Interrupted by a motoring flash]
• The Family - I Sung 'Um The Way I Feel (session)
• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre - Pinky: A Mystery Cycle (session)
• Doctor John - The Lonesome Guitar Strangler
• The Eclection - Put On Your Face (session)
• Top Gear Theme