87 f
Then I started gigging regularly with pianist Bob Hall. We’d first played togeth- er in ’69 and at some point we started doing duo gigs – touring Germany and Holland and Belgium. Bob and I recorded two band albums – we had the members of Bob’s electric band Rocket 88 on our second album, Roll And Slide, and they were great players!
In 1977 Peabody undertook his first US road trip with Dave Griffiths. “We met lots of great musicians, covered 22,000 miles and ended up at Jazzfest in New Orleans where I got to see Professor Longhair! Just brilliant!” In 1980 Peabody would return to the US and, in Washington DC, intro- duce himself to another Dave – Van Ronk.
“We hit it off straight away and became great friends. So much so that when Dave came to London he would stay with me. I attended the sessions for his London album, Your Basic Dave Van Ronk, and took the photo that’s on the cover.”
Held in high esteem by American musicians, Peabody & Hall toured Europe with Charlie Musselwhite. This friendship endures and led to Peabody working with the likes of Honeyboy Edwards, Big Boy Henry (the North Carolina bluesman), Neal Pattman (the one-armed harmonica player from Athens, Georgia), Chicago Bob Nel- son and Big Joe Duskin (“a great boogie- woogie pianist –we toured the UK a bunch of times and I produced an album on him for Topic – I wrote the title track Don’t Mess With The Boogie Man.”)
Of his many musical partnerships he notes, “I love playing with and recording with other musicians. The creativity and input and fun that comes from this has
With Honeyboy Edwards
inspired me throughout my career.” I ask of Van Ronk and Peabody says, “He was salt of the earth – a wonderfully open man, great raconteur, very genuine, no pretence.” Of Honeyboy, “we were almost the best of friends. A wonderful man.” Charlie Mussel- white is “a great man and musician.”
P
eabody’s immersion in US roots music led to 1985’s Americana, a fabulously ambitious album that found him not only singing blues but tackling norteno bal-
lads by Lydia Mendoza while such heavy friends as Flaco Jimenez, Charlie Mussel- white, Big Joe Duskin, Oscar Tellez and Jim Couza all contributed to the sessions.
“I can’t recall how I came to use the term ‘Americana’ but I felt it very fitting for the music I was making,” says Peabody. “Today there’s an entire genre of music called Americana but, so far, they’ve not acknowledged me as a mentor or pioneer!”
Peabody followed this up with 1991’s Dream Of Mississippi and 1995’s Down In Carolina, an album he cut in South Caroli- na with local musicians, including Cora Mae Bryant: “She was Curley Weaver’s daughter. Curley was Blind Willie McTell’s guitar partner.”
His albums were well reviewed but never sold in large numbers and to survive he kept up a frantic gig workload. “I sur- vived by doing a lot of gigs – 25 a month, year in year out. Although I perform eso- teric blues I always aim to make it enter- taining and engage with the audience.”
Peabody is indeed an engaging per- former and his professionalism and good nature have ensured he gets bookings across Europe and the US. Still, the life of a
touring musician on a tight budget is a tough one and Peabody’s health gave out earlier this century. “I couldn’t say ‘no’ to the offer of a drink. And you end up eating unhealthy food night after night. I had to change my diet and my drinking habits.”
Getting healthy involved slowing down his touring commitments and this allowed Peabody to self-publish In And Out Of Mississippi, a book of his b&w US photos (he sells it at gigs) and releasing 2015’s Right Now Blues, an album that won Peabody some of the best reviews of his career – esteemed US publication Liv- ing Blues offering the kind of praise it rarely gives to non-US musicians.
When recording Right Now Blues in
Germany, Peabody met fiddler Regina Mudrich and invited her to join him on four numbers. This went so well the duo have regularly toured together since and Some Of These Days is credited to both musicians. “It’s a great partnership,” says Peabody. “Regina comes from a classical background so approaches the songs in a very different manner to me. This really opens things up.”
Of his myriad creative activities, Peabody says, “I feel that I’m always trying to keep the music I love alive by touring and writing and photographing and sup- porting. It keeps me going! Never a dull moment!”
Long may the Southall blues man con- tinue to sing his song.
Dave Peabody & Regina Mudrich tour the UK September 29 – October 14.
[Peabody doesn’t have a web site or any social media presence. You can contact him at
dave.peabody@
btinternet.com ] F
With Flaco Jimenez & Oscar Tellez
With Bob Hall
With Tight Like That
With Regina Mudrich
Photo: Jak Kilby
Photo: Jo Harper
Photo: Phillip Ryalls
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