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Tributes Pour in for Veteran British DJ
10/26/2004 10:37 PM, Reuters
Britain's music world heaped tributes
upon the late John Peel, crediting the maverick BBC disc jockey
with transforming the country's popular music scene.
The 65-year-old Peel, who died of a heart attack on Monday,
was lauded as a legendary influence on rock-and-roll fans over
four decades with his rejection of the mainstream in favor of
introducing listeners to more offbeat and eclectic acts.
"He stuck up for the 'sore thumbs' of the music scene and I
really can't think of anyone who could have done it better or
who's going to do it now he's gone," Pulp frontman Jarvis
Cocker said in a statement.
Musicians such as Elvis Costello and Blur's lead singer
Damon Albarn said they, like countless other acts, owed their
careers to the longtime Radio One DJ.
Peel was "one of the most significant things that happened
to us in our careers," Albarn said. "He will never be forgotten
because he had the spirit of music in him."
Costello called the champion of alternative rock, punk,
reggae and hip-hop acts "a great man, a fabulous curmudgeon, he
was as rare as the music that he loved."
Prime Minister Tony Blair also said he was "genuinely
saddened" by Peel's death.
Blair's spokesman said the prime minister considered Peel
"a unique voice in British broadcasting who used that voice to
unearth new talents and different subjects and make them
accessible to a much wider audience."
Oasis's Noel Gallagher praised him as a "rare breed among
radio DJs" and singer-songwriter Billy Bragg said Peel's
listeners around the world had lost "a true friend."
Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer of the Northern Irish
band The Undertones, praised Peel as the "single most important
broadcaster we have ever known," and recalled how his life
"changed forever" the day Peel played his band's 1977 song
"Teenage Kicks."
Peel has been quoted in the past as saying he wanted the
song -- one of his all-time favorites -- played at his funeral.
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