REVIEW FROM www.livingtradition.co.uk

DAVE PEGG WITH NIGEL SCHOFIELD - Off The Pegg 
Private Label ISBN: 9781999678708 

Here is the long-awaited “Peggiography” – Dave Pegg’s autobiographical memoir, co-authored and co-ordinated by that unrivalled authority on all things Fairport and so much else besides, the indefatigable Mr. Schofield of this parish, who had (just over a decade ago) collaborated with Peggy (as thus he will ever be known) on the four-CD career retrospective A Box Of Peggs.

Off The Pegg is subtitled Bespoke Memories Of A Bass Player, but any reader expecting just that will be-spoke too soon (as it were), for there’s a myriad of activities to consider: not least, long-term membership of several bands (Fairport, Tull et al.), the founding and running of Cropredy Festival, Woodworm Studios, and so much more beyond the scope of this humble, spartan word-count. Peggy is one of music’s great raconteurs, and this book is liberally spiced with choice anecdotes and memories of times spent in the company of many of the great names in rock and folk. It doesn’t require a chronological approach (although a bass-ic timeline is provided). Along the way, the anecdotes prompt, and are prompted by, invaluable nuggets of information and clarification, “betcha didn’t know”-type stuff that pub quizzes and Mastermind rounds are made of but invariably with much more than temporary fascination value and of genuine interest to all levels of fan. There’s also a veritable gallery of photographic evidence.

Off The Pegg is a weighty tome (272 jam-packed pages), with the highest production standards; it’s also a gleefully picaresque (or should that be “peggaresque”?) volume that, with Nigel’s exceptionally simpatico wordsmithery, really captures the essence of Peggy. The book’s aspirational and inspirational scholarship ensures that the reader will do far more than just “touch bass” with the living legend that is Peggy.

www.davepegg.co.uk

David Kidman