The Perfumed Garden (radio show)
| Genre | Music, Poetry |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | Radio London |
| Hosted by | John Peel |
| Recording studio | North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England |
| Original release | May 1967 – August 1967 |
The Perfumed Garden was the title given by John Peel to his 1967 late-night programme on the British pirate radio station, Radio London.
After several years of work in US commercial pop radio, Peel joined the station in March 1967, on returning to the UK from California. As well as various slots on Radio London's usual three-hour daytime shows, he was allotted the midnight to 2 a.m. programme, then called London After Midnight.
His experience of the Los Angeles music scene had made him more aware than most of his colleagues of the dramatic changes taking place in pop music in 1966-7. These were accompanied by significant changes in 1960s youth culture, with the fashion-led teenage consumerism of the mid-1960s Swinging London era being challenged by the more reflective, less materialistic outlook of the San Francisco hippies. Peel, having had first-hand experience of the emerging hippy scene - he had seen many of the new bands and performers in California - found himself in the right place at the right time, with a parallel movement developing in London under the influence of the Beatles. The period saw the emergence of the underground papers International Times and Oz, and of music venues such as the UFO club. He was intent on reflecting the emerging new directions in his programmes and, within the existing Radio London framework, adapted his playlists accordingly.
The Perfumed Garden began quietly, in May 1967; the name-change (which had nothing to do with the celebrated erotic book, he maintained) occurred when Peel realised that no-one else on the station was listening to its late-night programmes, the after-midnight slot being unpopular with DJs and advertisers alike.
Departing from the station's heavily commercial "Fab 40" playlist, Peel began broadcasting a mixture of folk, blues, psychedelic and progressive rock tracks that he happened to like, announcing them in a shy, laconic drawl which contrasted sharply with the fast-talking, upbeat presentation of most pirate radio disc-jockeys. The first the Radio London management knew of his programme was when it began to gather glowing reviews in the music press - and when the station's London office received an appreciative letter from The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein.
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