David Peel

New York street musician penned series of hippie anthems

Born 3 August, 1942. Died 6 April 2017, in New York, age 74

David Peel, a longtime New York street musician whose song I Like Marijuana became a hippie anthem in the 1960s, and who collaborated with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the early ‘70s, died on Thursday in New York.

Thecausewascomplications of a heart attack, said Joff Wilson, a friend who performed with Peel’s band, the Lower East Side. Peel, an anarchist and marijuana evangelist, began performing in Washington Square Park in the late 1960s. He was equipped with three guitar chords, a screaming vocal style and an endless stream of provocative lyrics.

Danny Fields of Elektra Records, who later signed the Stooges and the Ramones, heard Peel and signed him to the label. Peel was recorded live in the park with a portable tape machine, singing I Like Marijuana, Here Comes a Cop, Up Against the Wall and other songs released in 1968 on the album Have a Marijuana.

I Like Marijuana, with its happy, insistent refrain — “I like marijuana, you like marijuana, we like marijuana too” — became his signature. In 1971, Lennon and Ono stepped out of their limousine at the park, joined the audience being entertained by Peel and began singing along and clapping. Lennon signed Peel to Apple Records, the Beatles’ label, and produced his album The Pope Smokes Dope.

“We loved his music, his spirit and his philosophy of the street,” Lennon said on The David Frost Show in 1971.

Peel wasborndavidmichael Rosario. According to his FBI file, he was born in Manhattan to Puerto Rican parents. Heleavesnoknownsurvivors. His final album, released in 2015, was titled Give Hemp a Chance. ©New York Times 2017 Distributed by NYT Syndication Service