Dave Pegg

Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #133 (December 2007/January 2008).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Dave Pegg

60 Years On

by T.J. McGrath

The spry fellow sporting the trim goatee, wearing the flashy floral shirt and cargo shorts and carefully cradling his pint of beer, seems to know his way around the Cropredy Music Festival field like it's his backyard. Fans know he's friendly and approachable, and there's a constant stream of them hoping to get him to sign their battered vinyl albums or asking him to pose for a snap with their wives. Dave Pegg may be well known as the bass player for Fairport Convention, but today he's very content jabbering away about the weather.

"I moved here in 1975," said Pegg. "Dave Swarbrick was already living in Cropredy, and we were doing a bit of rehearsing with my band Fairport Convention at the Village Hall. We wanted to do a fundraiser for the town, and so we picked a vacant field as a good spot to have a little get-together. It was a one-shot Saturday show back then, and about 800 people showed up. Now we're one of the biggest folk festivals in Europe, with about 20,000 fans camping here and listening to three days of non-stop music."

Fairport's Cropredy Convention is close to Pegg's heart, as he and his ex-wife Christine were two of the early organizers of this event. The festival, certainly, is one of Pegg's proudest achievements. But, looking over his life and times, Dave Pegg has had many golden milestones and flashing achievements in music as he goes into his 60th year. Enough trophies and blue ribbons and brass medals to fill an entire wall or two, in fact. Maybe three!

[cover #133]