Danny Thompson born 4 April 1940

Danny Thompson (4 April 1939 – 23 September 2025) was an English multi-instrumentalist, best known as a double bassist. During a long musical career he played with a large variety of other musicians.

Born Daniel Henry Edward Thompson in Teignmouth, Devon, England, he was named after a favourite song of his parents, 'Danny Boy'. His father, a miner, joined the Royal Navy at the start of World War II and was lost in action as a submariner. When Thompson was aged six the family moved to London and he was brought up in the working-class area of Battersea. At school he played competitive football and was a junior for Chelsea, the team he would support for the rest of his life, and was also a competent boxer. While at school he learnt guitar, mandolin, trumpet and trombone before settling on the double bass as his instrument of choice. Having left school and home aged 15, Thompson earned a living playing bass in Soho strip clubs. After a year, he began working the American airbase circuit. Aged 18, he was arrested for failing to turn up for national service, and three days before being sent to Winchester barracks, married his girlfriend, Daphne Davis. He was then posted to Penang, Malaysia, for two years, where, against orders, he became involved with the local music scene.

                      Here's "Idle Monday" from above album

                                   

He was discharged in 1963 and resumed playing double bass. Returning to England in 1963 he took a job backing the American singer Roy Orbison – playing electric bass for the only time in his life – on a UK tour while watching headliners the Beatles kick off Beatlemania. In 1964 he spent £5 on buying his acoustic bass, Victoria – which he used his entire career – before joining Korner’s Blues Incorporated. In 1964 he spent £5, to be paid in instalments of five shillings a week, on a double bass at Foote's bass shop in Brewer St, Soho, London, which he used for his entire career. The instrument had been painted brown, but wear and tear revealed it to be an original, and valuable, French Gand, made in 1865. As the instrument was from the Victorian era he named it "Victoria". Working Soho clubs and US airbases in the 60s, he built a name as a capable bassist and did varied session work, often three sessions in a day, ranged from working with Marianne Faithfull to the theme tune of Thunderbirds, and "most nights he could be found playing in jazz clubs and in 1964 he joined Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, replacing future Cream bassist Jack Bruce.

Alexis Korner

As a band leader, Korner brought together a wealth of young British talent, including Ginger Baker, Charlie Watts, Eric Clapton and Brian Jones, and his stewardship led to Thompson engaging with many rising stars at Korner’s Marquee club base. He became the bassist of choice of jazz musicians such as John McLaughlin and Tubby Hayes, and folk artists such as Davey Graham. In 1967, Thompson and the drummer Terry Cox, also from Blues Incorporated, joined the guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, and vocalist Jacqui McShee, to complete the line-up of Pentangle.

Pentangle

 While initially branded a “folk” band, Pentangle employed jazz and classical elements as they reimagined traditional songs, with Thompson playing an important part in that experimentation . The various members having established their names in the Soho folk and rock scene, the band’s first public concert, at the Royal Festival Hall in 1967, was a huge success, as was their debut album, The Pentangle, released the following year. Their 1969 album, Basket of Light, was even bigger commercially, containing the hit single Light Flight, used as the theme for a BBC TV drama, Take Three Girls. It was not the first theme tune for Thompson, who, having realised that recording sessions were more financially rewarding than playing live.

After Pentangle split in 1972, Thompson chose not to join another group, but to concentrate on playing sessions – the record producer Joe Boyd having already paired him with Drake for Five Leaves Left, did the same with Martyn and Solid Air. Thompson and Martyn were kindred spirits, heavy drinkers who delighted in displays of disruptive, drunken behaviour while touring. Alcoholism would affect both men and led to a notable drop-off in session work for Thompson. However, in the late 70s, Thompson sobered up, and the reverence his recordings with Drake and Martyn were now held in eventually found him again in demand as a session player.In the early 1980s he worked with documentary film-maker Roy Deverell to compose music for two of his award-winning films, Echo of the Wild and A Passion to Protect, about John Aspinall's work with endangered mammals.In the mid-80s David Sylvian, Bush, Talk Talk, The The, Everything But the Girl, Coxon and Skin all employed him for his lyrical playing.

In 1987 Thompson released his debut solo album, Whatever, to critical acclaim and recorded five more low-key solo jazz albums over the next quarter century. In 1990 he converted to Islam and adopted the Muslim name Hamza. He also married his partner Sylvia. While he had his own album releases, Thompson was predominantly a session musician contributing to other artists' recordings and tours. He worked with John Martyn and with Richard Thompson on Mirror Blue (1994), The Old Kit Bag (2003) and the concert DVD release Richard Thompson Live in Austin Texas (2001), (from the Austin City Limits televised concerts). Between 1995 and 2013 he was a member of the house band in five of the six series of the BBC/RTE Transatlantic Sessions. Thompson underwent major heart surgery in 1998, during which he suffered a stroke. Three months after his operation he organised an all-star charity concert in Sarajevo and he continued performing until ill health forced him to slow down several years ago.

Thompson received a Lifetime achievement award in the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. He acquired a second double bass in 2007 for use when travelling overseas. After several years of "rock'n'roll" touring with John Martyn, he bought a 16th century manor house and 27 acres of land in Suffolk and took up horse-riding and bird-watching. On 8 June 2024 Thompson performed at the Royal Albert Hall London as part of Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson's 75th birthday celebration. Than aged 85, he contributed to an acoustic section which featured a guest appearance from Ralph McTell, with Michael Doucet of BeauSoleil on fiddle and John Etheridge of Soft Machine on guitar. Reported by Uncut magazine, Kate Bush recalled, "You never just worked with Danny. You also worked with his double bass he called Victoria. The two of them were joined at the hip and together they were the most fascinating storytellers – earthy and of the wild."

Thompson lived in Clopton, Suffolk, during the late 1970s and early 1980s with his wife, Daphne, and son Dan (Danny Junior), who became the drummer with Hawkwind (1985–88). Early in the 1980s he moved back to London. 

Thompson died at his home in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, on 23 September 2025, at the age of 86. 

(Edited from Garth Cartwrights obit @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)