The BBC broadcaster John Peel, who has died of a heart attack while on a working holiday in Peru, was perhaps the only British media figure admired by readers of both the NME and the Radio Times. When he turned 65 last August, it was noted that he was the sole senior citizen employed by Radio 1, and his laconic delivery made him popular not just with fans of rock music but also as a presenter of Radio 4's Home Truths and several TV programmes; his wide appeal also brought him voiceover work on commercials. However, he will be remembered above all for his almost religious devotion to seeking out and broadcasting unconventional rock music.
Born John Robert Parker Ravenscroft in Heswall, near Chester, he was the son of a successful cotton broker. He went to Woodlands school in Deganwy, north Wales, and Shrewsbury school, and became enamoured of Elvis Presley and rock'n'roll. Indeed, throughout his time on Radio 1 he enjoyed slipping a 1950s tune by Gene Vincent or Roscoe Gordon into his playlist.
Peel spent his national service (1957-59) as a B2 Radar operator in the Royal Artillery, and then worked in a mill in Rochdale. In 1960 he moved to Dallas, Texas, and got an office job at radio station WRR. There, in 1963, he covered the assassination of President John F Kennedy for the Liverpool Echo, by attending the press conference at which the police produced Lee Harvey Oswald, about to be charged with the killing.
Peel obtained part-time work as a disc jockey on WRR - while he hoped this was because of his musical knowledge, he suspected that it was really due to his accent. As America embraced Beatlemania, Peel found his voice in demand: an Oklahoma City radio station hired him as a full-time DJ. He worked there for 18 months, and then shifted to radio KMEM San Bernardino, California, for another 18 months.
Returning to England in 1967, he settled in London, and was initially unable to find work. But an introduction to Alan Keane found Peel installed on pirate station Radio London. His midnight to 2am show, The Perfumed Garden, allowed Peel to broadcast the new album-oriented rock music he had returned from California with, so introducing the likes of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa to UK listeners. Listener response was strong, and from then on, Peel continued to broadcast his own leftfield taste.
It was at Radio London that he adopted the name John Peel, and when he shifted to the new BBC pop music network, Radio 1, to present his Top Gear programme in late 1967, he kept it. Initially, Peel enjoyed recalling, he had a contract guaranteeing just six weeks' work.
Peel's BBC contract specified that each show should feature two or three performers who had been recorded in BBC studios. Peel used this as a springboard to record young bands he favoured. The Peel sessions have since given several thousand bands free recording time and guaranteed airplay.
Peel's devotion to promoting new music made him the DJ of choice for several generations of young British rock fans. After the hippies of the 1960s came the progressive rock fans of the early 70s. When punk rock erupted in late 1976, Peel was its radio champion. Punk divided Peel's listeners, and he received abusive, even threatening mail, yet he continued to champion non-mainstream music. He was the first BBC DJ to regularly play dub reggae, and through the 1980s and 90s he would embrace New York hip-hop, Chicago house, Detroit techno, Pakistani qawaali, Congolese soukous, ambient electronica, death metal and alternative country music - broadcasting at its most challenging and innovative.
Peel's enthusiasm for new music meant that he helped launch several careers. In 1973, he played the electronic album Tubular Bells, by the then unknown Mike Oldfield, in its entirety: the album subsequently topped the UK charts, so giving Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin Records a massive boost. Peel's enthusiasm for Manchester's the Fall and Derry's the Undertones - whose Teenage Kicks (1978) remained his favourite - helped both win loyal followings. More recently, he was the UK champion of the White Stripes, from Detroit.
In 1998, Peel was awarded an OBE: he summed up his work with the words, "You get free records, you get paid for playing them on the radio, I choose all the music for my own programmes ... it seems to me to be almost the perfect life, really."
He is survived by his wife Sheila and their two sons and two daughters.
· John Peel (John Robert Parker Ravenscroft), disc jockey, born August 30 1939; died October 25 2004
