I’ve been to many great gigs, but the one that I still come back to as my favourite was the Richard Thompson Band at Hammersmith Palais in November 1986. One of the performers that night, Danny Thompson (no relation), died this week at the end of a long and fruitful music-filled life.

Thompson started in the skiffle boom of the fifties on tea-chest bass, and despite backing Roy Orbison on electric bass on a 1963 tour that featured the Beatles on the supporting bill, the rest of his career was spent playing an acoustic upright bass. He threw himself into the London scene, playing jazz and blues with the likes of Tubby Hayes, Little Walter, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Stan Tracey and Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, but it was his part in expanding the parameters of folk music as part of Pentangle from 1967 to 1973 that he is most remembered for today. He has said that he has no time for prejudice of any kind, whether racial or musical. He didn’t care if he was playing jazz, or folk, or blues, or African music. He was just playing ‘music of the heart’ and doing it exceptionally well. As an in-demand session player in the 60s and 70s, he featured on records by acclaimed artists such as Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Tim Buckley and even Cliff Richard. He also enjoyed a long association with John Martyn, one which Thompson subsequently described as his greatest experience in music, with both performers ready to enjoy total freedom to express themselves and push at musical boundaries to create something new. He once said that if he had only ever worked with John Martyn, their time together would have satisfied all of his musical ambitions. The pair were also notorious hell-raisers, as well-matched taking a drink as taking a bow.

Thompson cleaned himself up in the 1980s, going sober and continuing to work widely for many years, with session work for acts as diverse as Donovan, Kate Bush, ABC, Graham Coxon and many more besides. What each of those paymasters got for their money was a unique sonic presence, one who always devoted his playing to the service of the song, but who remained distinctively himself in every performance, even every note.

Going back to my first experience of Danny Thompson, one memory from that Hammersmith Palais show was Richard teasing Danny about the fact that if he played an electric bass guitar, it would be so much easier to transport his instrument. Danny gave the notion short shrift, pointing out that you couldn’t get the same tone on an electric instrument. He then went on to demonstrate exactly what he was talking about with his beautiful, evocative accompaniment to one of RT’s finest songs, Al Bowlly's in Heaven from that year’s Daring Adventures album. Here's a link to the two of them on a much later performance of the song.

Although Danny was guesting with the Richard Thompson band that night in Hammersmith – Rory McFarlane, the regular bassist at the time, also featured – he subsequently became a mainstay of the line-up, as well as appearing regularly with Richard as an acoustic duo. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Danny playing live alongside his namesake. Reading the obituaries this week, someone observed that while he was always an accompanist, he was never a sideman, that he played the bass like it was a lead instrument. That’s not to say that he sought to steal the limelight from whoever he shared a stage with, far from it. Rather, he was a profound musical talent who I’m privileged to have seen play live so many times. Rest in peace, Danny Thompson, and thanks for so many wonderful memories.

Image credit: Bryan Ledgard
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