Dave Pegg | |
|---|---|
 Pegg in 2005 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | David Pegg (1947-11-02)2 November 1947 (age 78) Acocks Green, Birmingham, England |
| Genres | |
| Occupations |
|
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 1960s–present |
| Labels | |
| Member of | Fairport Convention |
| Formerly of | |
| Website | fairportconvention |
Dave Pegg (born 2 November 1947) is an English musician, songwriter and record producer, primarily a bass guitarist. He is the longest-serving member of theBritish folk rock bandFairport Convention and has been bassist with a number of folk and rock groups including theIan Campbell Folk Group andJethro Tull.
David Pegg was born on 2 November 1947, atAcocks Green, Birmingham, England.[1] He began to learn guitar when 14 or 15, inspired byThe Shadows, and played in a school band atYardley Grammar School.[2]
After leaving school he worked as an insurance clerk for about a year while playing in a part-time bands the Crawdaddys and The Roy Everett Blues Band, who supported several performers from the Birmingham beat scene of the time, including theSpencer Davis Group andThe Moody Blues.[3] In 1966 he auditioned forThe Uglys, featuringSteve Gibbons and was beaten to the position by friend and guitarist Roger Hill, but was offered the job of bass guitarist and switched instruments.[3]
The Uglys cut one single before Pegg and Hill left to form a blues trio, The Exception, with singer Alan Eastwood. At this period he played withRobert Plant and in his next band, The Way of Life, the drummer wasJohn Bonham, later both went to formLed Zeppelin. In 1967 he joined theIan Campbell Folk Group, where he switched to stand-up bass, learnt to play the mandolin and acquired his affection for folk music. It was also where he came to the attention of local folk guitaristRalph McTell and former Campbell Group and future Fairport Convention memberDave Swarbrick.[3]
By early 1969 he had moved back to electric bass with The Beast, withCozy Powell andDave Clempson, before the latter left forColosseum. Soon after this he joined the Birmingham band Dave Peace Quartet, and played bass on their electric blues album "Good Morning Mr Blues" released on SAGA FID 2155.[4] One week after seeing Fairport for the first time on his twenty-first birthday he was called by Swarbrick to audition for the band after the departure ofAshley Hutchings, who was soon to foundSteeleye Span.[3]
Pegg joined Fairport Convention towards the end of 1969 and formed a strong playing partnership with drummerDave Mattacks and good relationships with the other members. Although Hutchings had been a solid and melodic bass player, Pegg played with greater virtuosity, complexity and energy.[3] Ashley Hutchings credits Pegg with being the musician who began the technique of playingjigs andreels on the bass, rather than just a supportive bass line, which was subsequently adopted by most British folk rock and evenfolk punk bassists.[5] All this was obvious on the 1970 tour of Britain and America (including support for Jethro Tull), recordings from which surfaced on theLive at the L.A. Troubadour album (1977). His first album with the group,Full House (1970), showed more technically accomplished playing from the band, showing Pegg's musical influence on the group.[6]
On joining the band Pegg had moved his family from Birmingham and into the former pub, the Angel in Hadham, Hertfordshire along with other group members and their families.[6] This became the theme for the title track of the next albumAngel Delight (1971), for which Pegg received his first writing credit. On the next albumBabbacombe Lee, a folk-rock opera masterminded by Swarbrick, he played a much greater role, contributing to seven of the fifteen tracks.[7] The next albumRosie contained three of his contributions, including the songPeggy's Pub a statement of a lifelong ambition.[8]
In 1971 whenSimon Nicol and Dave Mattacks left the band, Pegg and Swarbrick were the only remaining members and, as a succession of personnel came (or returned) and left again over the next five years, their partnership kept the band running.[9] Some of these performers, likeSandy Denny and her husbandTrevor Lucas, were acknowledged songwriters and as a result, although he still made contributions and took part in collaborations, Pegg's song-writing took a back seat to his instrumental and organisational skills.[10] After the financial disaster that followed theRising for the Moon (1975) tour, which prompted Denny, Lucas andJerry Donahue to quit the band, Pegg became increasingly determined for the group to take control of their finances and direction and took over a larger responsibility.[2] Pegg and Swarbrick renewed contact with Nicol in 1975 forming a low key trio, Three Desperate Mortgages, which toured student venues across Britain.[11][12]
With only Pegg, Swarbrick and replacement drummerBruce Rowland left, they persuaded Nicol to rejoin the band during theGottle O'Geer album sessions. The remaining quartet signed up with Vertigo, and produced two albums,The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) andTipplers Tales (1978). Although well crafted these albums did not sell well and Vertigo bought them out of their contract.[13] With Swarbrick suffering acute hearing problems and with no recording contract the group decided to disband and played a final concert atCropredy in Oxfordshire on 4 August 1979, close to where Pegg lived.[14]
While with Fairport, Pegg had played on a variety of albums for other performers. Among them were:Nick Drake'sBryter Layter (1970); John Martyn'sSolid Air (1973) andOne World (1977), as well as work for current and ex-Fairporters, including several albums for Dave Swarbrick, on Sandy Denny'sLike an Old Fashioned Waltz (1973) andRendezvous (1977) and Richard Thompson'sPour Down Like Silver (1975). He appeared on three Ralph McTell albums, includingStreets (1973), andSlide Aside the Screen (1976), which Pegg also produced.
Although Fairport had disbanded they continued to play annual reunions at Cropredy, supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations and occasional larger European festivals.[15] Because no record label was interested in putting out recordings of the Cropredy concerts, Pegg and his wife Christine established their own label,Woodworm Records. They released the final concert as the albumFarewell, Farewell (1979) and subsequent recordings were issued as 'official bootlegs'. He had already established a small recording studio in his house and with the money from the end of the record deal with Vertigo, he was able to develop this and it was eventually moved to a nearby converted chapel. The result was that Pegg had his own recording facility and record label. Artists likeSteve Ashley began to record albums there from 1979. The Peggs established a mailing list of fans of the band, keeping interest in Fairport alive and, particularly Christine, took over the organization of the Cropredy Festival, which grew in size every year to reach about 18,000 attendees by the mid-1980s.[16]
In 1979Ian Anderson invited Pegg to stand in for the ailingJohn Glascock on the Jethro TullStormwatch tour. After Glascock's death, Pegg was invited to join the band, still one of the biggest in the world, and it provided paid employment for Pegg for the next fifteen years.[2] Pegg happened to join at a turning point for Jethro Tull. His first recording was intended as a solo album for Anderson, involving onlyMartin Barre from the band. The album,A (1980) was in stark contrast to the medieval and folk music inspired previous work, depending heavily on synthesizers for its sound. At this time all the other longstanding members left the band and the recording was put out as a Jethro Tull album. Pegg coped with this, and subsequent changes of style. The next album,Broadsword and the Beast (1982) had a heavier sound and more medieval theme and Pegg joined the band on stage in pseudo-medieval costume beside a Viking ship.[17] In 1983 Pegg recorded his first solo album,The Cocktail Cowboy Goes It Alone (1983). After the next Tull album,Under Wraps (1984), Anderson's vocal problems forced him to retire from touring for three years and Pegg had more time to pursue other projects.[18]
In 1981 Pegg joined Ralph McTell and ex-Fairport membersRichard Thompson and Dave Mattacks in the GPs (an abbreviation for the 'Grazed Pontiffs', after a comment by Dave Mattacks following theattempted assassination of the Pope). The aim was for a pub band, playing a few originals and blues, rock n' roll, soul and country standards. They only gave six performances, including the Fairport reunion festival in 1981 (atBroughton Castle, Oxfordshire), whichWoodworm Records released a recording of the performance asSaturday Rolling Around (1991).[19] In the 1980s he also appeared on several recordings by other folk artists, includingMurray Head andDick Gaughan, besides those by Fairport and ex-Fairport membersSimon Nicol and Richard Thompson.
In 1985 Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks were also free and the trio decided to make an album of new material for the band to play at the Cropredy Festival, using the Woodworm studio and label. The result wasGladys' Leap (1985), which was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members.Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalistMaartin Allcock.[20] Pegg was now in two major bands at the same time. The reformed Fairport produced an instrumental albumExpletive Delighted (1986), mainly designed to showcase the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock.[21]
In 1987 Jethro Tull produced their first album for three years,Crest of a Knave, to which Pegg contributed and this was to be followed by an American tour, on which Anderson invited Fairport to support Jethro Tull. Needing an album to promote, Pegg negotiated financial support fromIsland Records and Fairport put togetherIn Real Time (1987).[2] This was presented as a live album, but was actually a studio recording (albeit with all the songs recorded "as live" with all the musicians playing at the same time) with dubbed audience reactions.[22] Although the tour was musically rewarding, it was unproductive financially and Pegg, being in both bands, left the stage with one band to return after a few minutes with the other, and the process was inevitably exhausting.[2] Pegg played on three more Jethro Tull studio albums:Rock Island (1989),Catfish Rising (1991) andRoots to Branches (1995). In the same period he contributed to three studio albums by Fairport Convention:Red and Gold (1989) theFive Seasons (1990) andJewel in the Crown (1995).[23] Fairport's popularity and the scale of their tours were growing throughout this period and the strain of undertaking two jobs, plus his other commitments, was becoming too much and he decided to leave Tull and focus on Fairport.[24]
Part of the result of this change was a higher output of albums for Fairport Convention, with five studio albums from the acousticOld New Borrowed Blue (1996) toOver the Next Hill (2004), beside four live albums and compilations. Pegg also released his second solo albumBirthday Party (1998), which combined recordings from a celebratory concert for his fiftieth birthday atDudley Town Hall with studio recordings.[25]
In 1998, Pegg formed The Dylan Project, aBob Dylantribute band withSimon Nicol, PJ Wright,Steve Gibbons, andGerry Conway. In 2006, Nicol was replaced by Birmingham keyboard player Phil Bond. They tour annually in the autumn and have produced two studio albums and a live album recorded at Cropredy Festival.[26]
In 2002 Dave Pegg shared with other Fairport Convention members a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' at the 2002BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
In 2004 Pegg and his wife Christine divorced. The Woodworm studio was sold, and a new record label,Matty Grooves was established for the band and the group as a whole now organises the Cropredy Festival, now calledFairport's Cropredy Convention.[27]
Pegg also formed Peggy & PJ, a duo with guitarist PJ Wright, who had been lead guitar with theSteve Gibbons Band, touring smaller venues and producing an albumGalileo's Apology in 2007, a collection of pop and folk-rock songs and instrumentals.[28] Pegg also had a second 'birthday bash' at Birmingham Town Hall, released asDave Pegg's 60th Birthday Bash (2008).[29]
In 2007 a retrospective of Pegg's career was launched.A Box of Pegg's contained four CDs, summarizing his work withFairport Convention,Crawdaddy,Richard Thompson,Mike Heron,Steve Ashley,Jethro Tull,The Ian Campbell Folk Group and others.[30]
From 2010 to 2013 he appeared in France with the Breton bandRed Cardell.
Pegg lives inBanbury, Oxfordshire.[25] He has a daughter, Stephanie, who works as aPR consultant; his son,Matt Pegg, is a bassist who has played withProcol Harum andFrancis Dunnery[31] and has also stood in for Pegg live with Jethro Tull when Pegg was committed to touring with Fairport Convention.[32]
For Fairport Convention albums seeFairport Convention discography
For Jethro Tull albums seeJethro Tull discography
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
