Editing John Peel (section)

=== Dandelion Records and Strange Fruit ===
In 1969, Peel founded [[Dandelion Records]] (named after his pet hamster) so that he could release the debut album by [[Bridget St John]], which he also produced. The label released 27 albums by 18 different artists before folding in 1972. Of its albums, ''[[There is Some Fun Going Forward]]'' was a [[Sampler (record)|sampler]] intended to present its acts to a wide audience, but Dandelion was never a great success, with only two releases charting nationally: [[Medicine Head]] in the UK with "(And the) Pictures in the Sky" and [[Beau (guitarist)|Beau]] in [[Lebanon]] with "1917 Revolution". Having had an affinity with the Manchester area from working in a cotton mill in Rochdale in 1959, Peel signed Manchester bands [[Stack Waddy]] and [[Tractor (band)|Tractor]] to Dandelion and was always supportive of both bands throughout his life. It is alleged that Peel spotted a Rochdale postmark on the envelope containing the tape sent to him by Tractor, then called "The Way We Live".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/northwest/series11/week2_tractor_bands.shtml|title=BBC Inside Out -|website=Bbc.co.uk|access-date=16 July 2017}}</ref>

As Peel stated:

<blockquote>It was never a success financially. In fact, we lost money, if I remember correctly, on every single release bar one. I did quite like it but it was terribly indulgent. Not as indulgent as it would have been had I not had a business partner, admittedly{{nbsp}}... I liked having a label. It enabled you to put out stuff that you liked without, in those days, having to worry about whether it was going to work commercially. I've never been a good business man.</blockquote>

Peel appeared on one Dandelion release: the [[David Bedford]] album ''[[Nurses Song with Elephants]]'', recorded at the Marquee Studios, as part of a group playing twenty-seven plastic pipe twirlers on the track "Some Bright Stars for Queen's College".

In the 1980s Peel set up [[Strange Fruit Records]] with Clive Selwood to release material recorded by the BBC for Peel Sessions.