TWENTY QUESTIONS


A Wailer’s Life MICK HOUGHTON curates the Shindig! team’s questions


Shindig!:Was skiffle an influence and were you ever drawn to rock ’n’ roll in the ’50s?


Dave Swarbrick: Skiffle was an influence only in that through playing in a skiffle group I met Beryl and Roger Marriot. Skiffle was good in that it encouraged kids to make their own music. However 95% of skiffle was American music. The first time it was heard was in England was when it appeared as a separate spot in The Ken Colyer Trad Jazz Band performances,


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later with Chris Barber and so on. I liked it a lot, but soon began to see the joys of homegrown music and no, I never got into rock ’n’ roll. ‘See you later Alligator’ was my one and only 78 buy.


SD: You began playing guitar with Beryl Marriott. Did you take much persuading to switch to playing fiddle? Any regrets about giving up the guitar?


DS: No, although the little I learned on the guitar has been of immeasurable use.


Rising for the moon: Sandy Denny and Swarb onstage at The University Of Bloomington, Indiana in ’74


SD: Could you name any major influences on your fiddle playing?


DS: Kate Graham and Sean McGuire.


SD:Were The Ian Campbell Folk Group “the folk Beatles”? What was the impact of The Beatles on folk music or folk musicians in 1964?


DS: No, they were not the folk Beatles. The impact The Beatles made is still being felt. You can’t overestimate their contribution. We are all Beatles


Whether it’s been alongside Ian Campbell or Martin Carthy, as a member of Fairport Convention or as a hugely in-demand session player, DAVE SWARBRICK has fiddled his way through five decades of cutting-edge music, defining the instrument’s role in modern folk and rock. At the age of 70, he shows little sign of slowing down yet.


Photo: Neil Sharrow


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