Salut! Live

We mentioned on our Facebook group the death of Gerry Conway, best remembered as the drummer of the later-period Fairport Convention, and of course we should pay our respects here as well. Andrew Curry remembers a fine musician …. 

(Source: Fairport Convention)

Apart from his 24-year spell behind the drums for Fairport—where he succeeded Dave Mattacks and was replaced by him—Conway was also in Sandy Denny’s Fotheringay, and a regular in the second version of Pentangle (he was also married to Jacqui McShee), as well as the ‘60s folk-rock-with-a-touch-of-psychedelia band Eclection.

He started young, and he played with everyone. He left school at 16, already an accomplished drummer, and at 17 he was playing with Alexis Korner.

He played with everyone. On Steeleye’s first record Hark! the Village Wait, where he and Mattacks guested on drums on different tracks; with Al Stewart on Zero She Flies; with Cat Stevens/Yusuf on eight records, including Teaser and the Firecat; on tour regularly with Richard Thompson; with Kate and Anna McGarrigle; and with Ian Matthews on his first solo record in 1971. John Martyn, Jethro Tull and Joan Armatrading are in there somewhere as well.

On his Facebook page, Dave Mattacks singled out one of his favourite bits of Conway’s playing, and a couple of the technical reasons why, on a track on Sandy Denny’s first solo LP (video above):

One is spoilt for choice for incredible examples of his playing—everyone will have their favorites—& this is one of mine.

“IMHO, it’s a masterclass on how to play a great song ; the fill at 0.18, the downbeat-not-played after the two 16th note accents at 0.52 .. everything. At one of our parties he came to, I almost forced him to sit & listen to it while I raved .. ‘It came out ok’ was the jist of his response.”

In a tribute after Conway’s death, John Barlass of the website At The Barrier suggested that he was a lot more than a drummer:

I’d always considered Gerry to be more than a mere drummer – in fact, he was arguably the finest pure percussionist that I’ve ever come across.

“It was always a massive pleasure to watch him at work, as he selected which of his many devices to use to best enhance the band’s sound, with the precision and timing of a true master – just listen to, say, the intro and outro to Don’t Reveal My Name, opening track of Shuffle and Go, Fairport’s latest studio album.”

When Gerry stepped down from Fairport in 2022, with a breezy message about “some new adventures”, the band’s members didn’t know that he had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, according to a tribute from Simon Nicol (thanks to John Barlass for this quote):

None of us knew [when he decided to retire from Fairport] Gerry was in the early stages of that pernicious horror, Motor Neurone Disease.

“I didn’t know until today when news of his death filtered out from the protection and privacy he and Jacqui McShee sought and deserved. Wonderfully patient and wise, infuriatingly tardy (!) but always ready and eager to play, and blessed with his own inner calm and and solidity, I’m going to miss him more than I can say.”

We’ll all miss him. But we can still listen to him.

Postscript:

At his Facebook page, Cat Stevens said,

Sadly my great old drummer, Gerry Conway just passed away. What a lad, and what ingenuity and style. May God grant him the beautiful reward of peace everlasting.

Image : Fonzleclay