Dave Swarbrick

"Swarb is such a good player you cant help but learn from him. He picks things up so quickly and inspires you to play better. Thats how good he is." The description is Martin Carthy's but it could have been from any of the many great musicians he's played with in a long and glittering career. Pure and simply, he is the greatest fiddle player who ever picked up a bow in the folk world - and one of its bubbliest, most colourful larger-than-life characters.
Swarb was born in London in April, 1941, although his family moved to Yorkshire when he was just three months old and it was there he was first taught to play the fiddle by a local musician (remembered only as Mr Bootham) at the age of six. Later the family moved to Birmingham. Swarb left school at 15 to be an apprentice printer with ICI. He never did make it as a printer as his fiddle talents became recognised by the emergent local folk scene. He started playing with a local group playing traditional tunes led by Beryl and Roger Marriott and came to national attention playing on three of the landmark Radio Ballads created for the BBC by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger and Charles Parker. He finally abandoned all pretence at a "proper job" after joining the Ian Campbell Folk Group who went on to become one of the most popular folk groups in the country.
One day on a train to London he got chatting to a couple of Americans carrying a bunch of instruments and worried expressions. The Charles River Valley Boys were on their way to a gig at Earl's Court's Troubadour club but their fiddle player had walked out on them. True to form, Swarb agreed to step into the breach and played the gig with them. Among those impressed at the Troubadour that night was Martin Carthy. Carthy and Swarb became firm friends, with a similar philosophy about music. However, after falling in love, Swarb decided to follow his heart and move to Denmark. He hadn't realised you needed a work permit and only got as far as the Hook Of Holland. Ignominiously deported back to Blighty with no work, no money and nowhere to live, he landed on Martin Carthys doorstep. About to go off on a long tour, Carthy offered to take Swarb with him and they'd split the money. They improvised as they went along but the makeshift partnership proved an instant hit and over the next three and a half years the duo became the hottest property on the folk scene, recording four albums together.
In August, 1969 Swarb agreed to join Fairport Convention and embarked on a whole catalogue of new adventures which saw him develop from outrageously gifted fiddler to the focal point of the group, eventually sharing lead vocal duties and becoming a prominent songwriter. Perhaps his most astonishing achievement with Fairport on this score was the finely crafted Babbacombe Lee album of 1972. It was a concept album conceived and written entirely by Swarb, and told the true story of John Lee, a convicted murderer who was given a reprieve when the hangmans trapdoor mysteriously failed to kill him on three separate occasions.
Yet even during the frenzy of Fairport, Swarb took time out to record a series of beautiful acoustic solo albums reminding us of his deeply emotional artistry playing traditional tunes without the weight and excitement of an electric band around him. One of them Lift The Lid And Listen, reunited him with his first musical partners Beryl and Roger Marriott
Suffering from ear problems after 15 years playing electric music, Swarb finally left Fairport in 1984 and formed the acoustic group Whippersnapper with Kevin Dempsey, Chris Leslie and Martin Jenkins. They, too, produced some startling music of intricate arrangements and rare verve and drive, but the pressures of keeping a band of this nature and size on the road were considerable and by the turn of the 90s Swarb was a free agent again. His celebrated partnership with Martin Carthy was revived with similar instinctive magic and success to first time round and they both became part of the folk "supergroup" Band Of Hope with Roy Bailey, Steafan Hannigan, John Kirkpatrick and Chris Hinson, making one CD together.
Since then, Swarb has played with a variety of different groups and partnerships, including Martin Carthy, Kevin Dempsey and Alistair Hulett, with whom he worked extensively in Australia. In 1999, he became seriously ill following a chest infection, leading the Daily Telegraph to erroneously announce his death. Swarb joined a select group of people who've read their own obituaries. "Its not the first time I've died in Coventry," he joked after. He was well enough to attend a Swarb Aid concert held in his honour and returned to the stage, albeit initially in a wheelchair. He has continued to recover and resume a brilliant career. The man is a legend.