Name drop # 87 – I briefly played in the Dunbartonshire County Concert Band with Danny Thompson’s cousin, tuba player Albert !

I’ll just let that sink in for a moment.

What ? The Dunbartonshire CC Band met on a Saturday morning at Bearsden Primary School in the early seventies…………

Oh ! Who is Danny Thompson ?

Have you heard of Alexis Korner, Cliff Richard, T. Rex, Roy Orbison, Ronnie Scott, Ralph McTell, Richard Thompson, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Billy Bragg or Paul Weller ? These are just some of the people double bass supremo Danny T  played with in his long and illustrious career.

I want to talk about his connection to three seminal albums, influential in the folk/rock and folk/jazz scene of the late sixties and early seventies that were part of the Allan household record collection.

If you think folk music is all about hirsute blokes clad in Aran sweaters with their fingers in their ears singing ‘Hey Nanny-No’ then you have to check these out.

Danny was the driving pulse of the acoustic quintet Pentangle and their 1969 album  ‘Basket of Light’ was a classic. The interplay between guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourne behind the pure clear voice of Jacqui McShee and the subtle brush work of drummer Terry Cox was a sound not heard before in the folk/acoustic music genre.

Also in 1969 ‘Unhalfbricking’ was Fairport Convention‘s third album and introduced the best female voice in folk, Sandy Denny. The album marked a moving away from the American style folk to a more English sound although there are three Bob Dylan songs included. ‘A Sailor’s Life’ morphs into a psychedelic bucolic jam session that you can lose yourself in. The standout track though is Denny‘s ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes ?’ Although Danny Thompson is not directly involved in this, he later teamed up with Fairport guitarist Richard Thompson (no relation) to form a successful duo.

Move forward a few years to 1973 and Danny is prominent on John Martyn‘s ‘Solid Air’. The title track was written about singer/songwriter Nick Drake, another of Danny’s collaborators. ‘May You Never’ is one of the many classics from this landmark album.

Just as an aside, my nearest and dearest Pauline was fairly active in the Scottish folk scene of the seventies regularly playing with the likes of The McCalmans, The Clydesiders and Alastair McDonald. She did a gig on the PS Waverley, a paddle steamer that chugs up and down the Firth of Clyde where she performed ‘May You Never’. After her set she was introduced to an Ian McGeachy who wanted to know all about the tune. Pauline told him the origin of the song and songwriter to, you guessed it, John Martyn !

So, well done Danny Thompson. Still playing at 86. Cousin Albert and I are proud of you.

(Post by John Allan from Bridgetown, Western Australia.- July 2025)