Kudos to Dave Mattacks for finishing his extremely busy, long weekend drumming for the Fairport Convention 50th Anniversary at Cropredy 2017 and winding down with The Part’s You Don’t Hear,chatting about the good old days at Sound Techniques, Chelsea. Dave was already an in demand session drummer regularly frequenting the studio on Old Church Street when in 1969 he joined Fairport Convention after the tragic road accident which took their drummer Martin Lamble. An extremely difficult time for the band to which they could either decide to quit or move forwards. Indeed they did move forwards; Imagine joining a band who’s first recording with you turns out to be British folk rock’s ultimate classic album Liege & Lief !
It turns out for Dave that joining Fairport Convention was the key moment in his drumming career. He describes how over his years with them taught him to lose ego, to serve the song and that less can often be more. This lesson is harder than one might at first think. Other key recordings at Sound Techniques are Nick Drake‘s Bryter Layter, John Martyn‘s Solid Air, Steeleye Span‘s Hark! The Village Wait, Shirley Collins & The Albion Country Band‘s No Roses and Ashley Hutchings‘ group project Morris On.
From these key early years Dave has always been in great demand and has played for many a household name including Paul McCartney, Cat Stevens, Jethro Tull, Brian Eno, Jimmy Page and Chris de Burgh to name just a few. Many thanks to Dave for finding time to fit us in with such a hectic transatlantic schedule, to Stevie Horton at Iconic Music, Carla Jane Findlay-Dons for offering their beautiful room in their amazing house for us to film in and to Peter Thornhill at The White Horse Inn, Wroxton for his generous help.
