John Peel- Desert Island Discs (1990)

On last week's Morrissey Desert Island Discs post we acknowledged the difficulty of selecting just eight records after a lifetime of following pop music. If it is hard enough for us mere mortals imagine the difficulty faced by John Peel when he was castaway in January 1990 (20 years ago? ridiculous).
I was going to write a bit here about how the teenaged Lonnie Donnegan fan's fetish for records led to him becoming the most revered figure in British popular music, but it would be superfluous.

Handel: Zadok the Priest
Roy Orbison: It's Over
Jimmy Reed: Too Much
Misty in Roots: Mankind
The Undertones: Teenage Kicks (overall choice)
Rachmaninoff: 2nd piano concerto
The Fall: Eat Y'self Fitter
The Four Brothers: Pasi Pano Pane Zviedzo


Here's the programme, first broadcast on January 14th 1990.

The Four Brothers- Makorokoto (1988)

John Peel once described The Four Brothers as the best live band in the world, and chose one of their songs a one of his eight Desert Island Discs (UK readers will know what I mean)- quite an accolade from a man who had heard more records than most.
The Four Brothers were from Zimbabwe (they formed in 1977 when it was still Rhodesia), and their clean melodic Jit style put them at the forefront of the World Music boom in the 1980’s.
This is the Cooking Vinyl ten track version, itself a reissue of an early 1980’s Zimbabwe release. The title Makorokoto was applied to expanded reissues of this LP and also to a best of collection.

Line up:
Marshall Munhumumwe - drums, lead vocals
Never Mutare – bass, vocals
Aleck Chipaika – rhythm guitar, vocals
Edward Matiyasi – lead guitar , vocals