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Danny Thompson, a legendary double-bassist whose mind-boggling resumé included work with Kate Bush, Nick Drake, Pentangle, Richard Thompson, Roy Orbison, and innumerable others, has died at the age of 86, his representatives confirmed on social media.
“Legendary acoustic bass player Danny Thompson died peacefully yesterday at his home in Rickmansworth, UK,” his team wrote in an Instagram post.
“A musician who was both beloved and admired by everybody he worked with, his body of work is unparalleled in its quality and also in the incredibly varied number of musicians he worked with.
“From Kate Bush and John Martyn, to his role as a founding member of the legendary band Pentangle; from featuring on the Thunderbirds theme tune, and playing bass for Roy Orbison when The Beatles were still the opening act; to collaborations with jazz greats like Tubby Hayes and Stan Tracey, as well as work with Donovan, June Tabor, Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, and The Blind Boys of Alabama.
“Danny was a force of nature,” the statement continues. “A player who served the song and who enriched the lives of every single person he met. He will be sorely missed.”
Born in 1939 in Teignmouth, England, Thompson was a budding multi-instrumentalist by his teen years, but the upright bass became his primary love.
Though he grew up with a love of jazz, it wasn’t long before Thompson branched out stylistically, and embarked on a career of extraordinary musical breadth.
According to Louder, (some of) Thompson’s CV includes session and stage work with – in addition to the aforementioned Orbison, Bush, Drake, Pentangle, Donovan, and (Richard) Thompson – John Martyn, Talk Talk, Alexis Korner, Tim Buckley, David Sylvian, Dagmar Krause, Peter Gabriel, The The, Gomez, Paul Weller, Tubby Hayes, Everything But The Girl, Mary Coughlan, Sandy Denny, Julian Cope, The Incredible String Band, Moondog, Nigel Kennedy, and Toumani Diabate.
Of particular note was his work in the folk-rock realm. Thompson co-founded Pentangle, bringing to their folk sound a jazzy element. He subsequently brought that exact approach to legendary singer-songwriter Nick Drake’s debut album, 1969’s Five Leaves Left.
Some of Thompson’s best-known work came via his decades-long partnership with eclectic singer-songwriter John Martyn. Together, the two, along with Richard Thompson (who, naturally, the bassist also played with), helped define the unique strain of folk that percolated in the UK in the early- to mid-70s.
Those who heard and were influenced by this often commercially under-appreciated music were eager to draft Thompson, and his fluid, deeply melodic low-end work. One of the more famous of these artists was Kate Bush, who enlisted him on 1982’s The Dreaming and 1985’s hugely successful Hounds of Love.
When asked about the stylistic breadth of his discography by Louder in a 2010 interview, he said, “I never say I’m not going to play with someone because they’re working in a different kind of music to me. I’ll always have a play, and it’s that which has led into all kinds of different things.
“Back in the 60s I used to get a lot of grief from jazzers, asking me why I was bothering to play all that folk stuff. But I was never bothered what type of music it was. It was music, you know? Plain and simple. The only thing I cared about was if I liked it or not, and if I liked it, then I was going to play it. Simple as that.”
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