Early career 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. 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. 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. 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. With only Pegg, Swarbrick and replacement drummer
Bruce Rowland left, they persuaded Nicol to rejoin the band during the ''
Gottle O'Geer album sessions. The remaining quartet signed up with Vertigo, and produced two albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales'' (1978). Although well crafted these albums did not sell well and Vertigo bought them out of their contract. With Swarbrick suffering acute hearing problems and with no recording contract the group decided to disband and played a final concert at
Cropredy in Oxfordshire on 4 August 1979, close to where Pegg lived. While with Fairport, Pegg had played on a variety of albums for other performers. Among them were:
Nick Drake's
Bryter Layter (1970); John Martyn's
Solid Air (1973) and
One World (1977), as well as work for current and ex-Fairporters, including several albums for Dave Swarbrick, on Sandy Denny's
Like an Old Fashioned Waltz (1973) and
Rendezvous (1977) and Richard Thompson's
Pour Down Like Silver (1975). He appeared on three Ralph McTell albums, including
Streets (1973), and
Slide Aside the Screen (1976), which Pegg also produced.
Woodworm and Jethro Tull 1980–1995 Although Fairport had disbanded they continued to play annual reunions at Cropredy, supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations and occasional larger European festivals. Because no record label was interested in putting out recordings of the Cropredy concerts, Pegg and his wife Christine established their own label,
Woodworm Records. They released the final concert as the album
Farewell, Farewell (1979) and subsequent recordings were issued as 'official bootlegs'. He had already established a small recording studio in his house and with the money from the end of the record deal with Vertigo, he was able to develop this and it was eventually moved to a nearby converted chapel. The result was that Pegg had his own recording facility and record label. Artists like
Steve Ashley began to record albums there from 1979. The Peggs established a mailing list of fans of the band, keeping interest in Fairport alive and, particularly Christine, took over the organization of the Cropredy Festival, which grew in size every year to reach about 18,000 attendees by the mid-1980s. In 1979
Ian Anderson invited Pegg to stand in for the ailing
John Glascock on the Jethro Tull
Stormwatch tour. After Glascock's death, Pegg was invited to join the band, still one of the biggest in the world, and it provided paid employment for Pegg for the next fifteen years. In 1983 Pegg recorded his first solo album,
The Cocktail Cowboy Goes It Alone (1983). After the next Tull album,
Under Wraps (1984), Anderson's vocal problems forced him to retire from touring for three years and Pegg had more time to pursue other projects.
Reforming Fairport 1985–1995 In 1981 Pegg joined Ralph McTell and ex-Fairport members
Richard Thompson and Dave Mattacks in the GPs (an abbreviation for the 'Grazed Pontiffs', after a comment by Dave Mattacks following the
attempted assassination of the Pope). The aim was for a pub band, playing a few originals and blues, rock n' roll, soul and country standards. They only gave six performances, including the Fairport reunion festival in 1981 (at
Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire), which
Woodworm Records released a recording of the performance as
Saturday Rolling Around (1991). In the 1980s he also appeared on several recordings by other folk artists, including
Murray Head and
Dick Gaughan, besides those by Fairport and ex-Fairport members
Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson. In 1985 Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks were also free and the trio decided to make an album of new material for the band to play at the Cropredy Festival, using the Woodworm studio and label. The result was ''
Gladys' Leap (1985), which was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock. Pegg was now in two major bands at the same time. The reformed Fairport produced an instrumental album Expletive Delighted'' (1986), mainly designed to showcase the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock. In 1987 Jethro Tull produced their first album for three years,
Crest of a Knave, to which Pegg contributed and this was to be followed by an American tour, on which Anderson invited Fairport to support Jethro Tull. Needing an album to promote, Pegg negotiated financial support from
Island Records and Fairport put together
In Real Time (1987). Although the tour was musically rewarding, it was unproductive financially and Pegg, being in both bands, left the stage with one band to return after a few minutes with the other, and the process was inevitably exhausting. Fairport's popularity and the scale of their tours were growing throughout this period and the strain of undertaking two jobs, plus his other commitments, was becoming too much and he decided to leave Tull and focus on Fairport.
Focusing on Fairport 1995–present (pictured at left) at
Fairport's Cropredy Convention, 2005 Part of the result of this change was a higher output of albums for Fairport Convention, with five studio albums from the acoustic
Old New Borrowed Blue (1996) to
Over the Next Hill (2004), beside four live albums and compilations. Pegg also released his second solo album
Birthday Party (1998), which combined recordings from a celebratory concert for his fiftieth birthday at
Dudley Town Hall with studio recordings. In 1998, Pegg formed The Dylan Project, a
Bob Dylan tribute band with
Simon Nicol, PJ Wright,
Steve Gibbons, and
Gerry Conway. In 2006, Nicol was replaced by Birmingham keyboard player Phil Bond. They tour annually in the autumn and have produced two studio albums and a live album recorded at Cropredy Festival. In 2002 Dave Pegg shared with other Fairport Convention members a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' at the 2002
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2004 Pegg and his wife Christine divorced. The Woodworm studio was sold, and a new record label,
Matty Grooves was established for the band and the group as a whole now organises the Cropredy Festival, now called
Fairport's Cropredy Convention. Pegg also formed Peggy & PJ, a duo with guitarist PJ Wright, who had been lead guitar with the
Steve Gibbons Band, touring smaller venues and producing an album ''Galileo's Apology'' in 2007, a collection of pop and folk-rock songs and instrumentals. Pegg also had a second 'birthday bash' at Birmingham Town Hall, released as ''Dave Pegg's 60th Birthday Bash'' (2008). In 2007 a retrospective of Pegg's career was launched. ''A Box of Pegg's'' contained four CDs, summarizing his work with
Fairport Convention,
Crawdaddy,
Richard Thompson,
Mike Heron,
Steve Ashley,
Jethro Tull,
The Ian Campbell Folk Group and others. From 2010 to 2013 he appeared in France with the Breton band
Red Cardell. Pegg lives in
Banbury, Oxfordshire. and has also stood in for Pegg live with Jethro Tull when Pegg was committed to touring with Fairport Convention. ==Discography==