Dave Pegg

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 the British folk rock band Fairport Convention and has been bassist with a number of folk and rock groups including the Ian Campbell Folk Group and Jethro Tull.

David Pegg was born on 2 November 1947, at Acocks Green, Birmingham, England. He began to learn guitar when 14 or 15, inspired by The Shadows, and played in a school band at Yardley Grammar School.

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 the Spencer Davis Group and The Moody Blues. In 1966 he auditioned for The Uglys, featuring Steve Gibbons and was beaten to the position by friend and guitarist Roger Hill, but was offered the job of bass guitarist and switched instruments.

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 with Robert Plant and in his next band, The Way of Life, the drummer was John Bonham, later both went to form Led Zeppelin. In 1967 he joined the Ian 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 guitarist Ralph McTell and former Campbell Group and future Fairport Convention member Dave Swarbrick.

By early 1969 he had moved back to electric bass with The Beast, with Cozy Powell and Dave Clempson, before the latter left for Colosseum. 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. 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 of Ashley Hutchings, who was soon to found Steeleye Span.

Pegg joined Fairport Convention towards the end of 1969 and formed a strong playing partnership with drummer Dave 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. Ashley Hutchings credits Pegg with being the musician who began the technique of playing jigs and reels on the bass, rather than just a supportive bass line, which was subsequently adopted by most British folk rock and even folk punk bassists. All this was obvious on the 1970 tour of Britain and America (including support for Jethro Tull), recordings from which surfaced on the Live 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.

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. This became the theme for the title track of the next album Angel Delight (1971), for which Pegg received his first writing credit. On the next album Babbacombe Lee, a folk-rock opera masterminded by Swarbrick, he played a much greater role, contributing to seven of the fifteen tracks. The next album Rosie contained three of his contributions, including the song Peggy's Pub a statement of a lifelong ambition.

In 1971 when Simon 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. Some of these performers, like Sandy Denny and her husband Trevor 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. After the financial disaster that followed the Rising for the Moon (1975) tour, which prompted Denny, Lucas and Jerry 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. Pegg and Swarbrick renewed contact with Nicol in 1975 forming a low key trio, Three Desperate Mortgages, which toured student venues across Britain.