A true giant among bass players – Danny Thompson – has died, aged 86.
The news was announced via his Instagram account yesterday (September 24). It read: “Legendary acoustic bass player Danny Thompson died peacefully yesterday at his home in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, UK.”
“A musician who was both beloved and admired by everybody he worked with, his body of work is unparalleled in its quality and also in the incredibly varied number of musicians he worked with.”
'Varied’ is something of an understatement. Thompson’s career started off in blues – the first album he played on was Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated’s Red Hot From Alex in 1964 – touched on jazz, before he became a key figure in the British folk revival.
He co-founded Pentangle, alongside Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn, Bert Jansch and Terry Cox, a group that – much to the horror of the folk purists - mixed traditional music with blues, jazz, gospel and psychedelia. Also during this period he worked with John Martyn, appearing with on Martyn’s run of early 70s albums, most notably 1973’s Solid Air.
By that time, Thompson had carved out a reputation as a session player par excellence. The list of artists he worked with and records he appeared on could fill out this entire piece.
Here are just a few of them to give you a flavour: ABC, Kate Bush, Graham Coxon, Nick Drake, Everything But The Girl. Marianne Faithfull, Peter Gabriel. Really, we could go through the whole alphabet...
Thompson summed up his approach in an interview with Louder Sound last year: “I never say I’m not going to play with someone because they’re working in a different kind of music to me. I’ll always have a play, and it’s that which has led into all kinds of different things.”
“Back in the '60s I used to get a lot of grief from jazzers, asking me why I was bothering to play all that folk stuff. But I was never bothered what type of music it was. It was music, you know? Plain and simple.
"The only thing I cared about was if I liked it or not, and if I liked it, then I was going to play it. Simple as that.”
Tributes have been coming in this morning. Tony Visconti wrote: “I just heard the sad news that one of my dearest musical mates, Danny Thompson has passed yesterday. He was one of the best upright bass players I’ve ever worked with.”
“We were good friends who hung out together regardless of music work. His sense of humour was off the charts. We put each other up in our homes when it was too late to go home (or drive home, really).”
Meanwhile, Graham Coxon posted simply: “Very sad to hear that Danny has left us. He brought greatness to everything played on.”
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