About Dave

Andy’s  eulogy

Dave was the bass player in my band.  Bass players are often the unsung heroes, the backline boys, as much a part of the rhythm section as they are part of the melody.  Without them we could not be worthy to claim the title of "lead" singer or guitarist.  Together with the drums they are part of the collective glue that enables individual musicians to join together and call themselves a band.

Dave was one of the best.  He always played what was appropriate: he could be busy if needed but could equally play sparsely, taking full responsibility for his own sound.  In fact, in the fifteen years, plus or minus, I have known him, I don't recall ever having to ask him to turn up or down.

Dave - you're a bit low in the mix today but I can still hear you.

Learning new material was always frustrating for me; Dave would only need to play through it once.  If he came to other rehearsals it was usually for me to catch up.  Most of the time we just gigged.  In fact, I got so confident of his and the rest of the band's abilities that we would often do a new song for the first time in front of the audience.  Life on the edge.

When things were right, I would see him rocking away at the back with a boyish grin on his face, completely immersed in the experience.  I called him Swinging Hips Dave  It seemed appropriate.  However, when things were wrong he didn't hesitate to tell me.  We once had quite a discussion over the count for a certain Eagles tune.  I was convinced it was seven, he knew it was eight.  He was right.  But at every Spreadeagles gig we did, when we got to that song, he would emphasise that it was still eight; it almost became a tradition that I replied "No, it's seven".

He didn't talk a lot, we really only had our truest of conversations when we were playing together.  We conversed in music. Every song is a journey and with us it was true, we would sometimes start something not knowing how it would finish and those were my favourite moments for, at the point where the song should end, there would be the briefest of glances and we would know what to do.  That was the point when we could truly claim to converse with each other's souls.  What the audience would see was a tight band.  If only they knew!            Continued >

Dave was a really good friend to me. We’d known each other for 40 years and although we never did ‘live in each others’ pockets’, we shared a large part of our lives. We’d been on holidays together, been each other’s best man but mainly played and talked about music.

At Dave’s funeral service in September 2008, Andy Powell, who had played with Dave and me in several bands during the previous 15 years, delivered the following eulogy. It’s included here because it paints a very clear picture of the man we all knew and loved.

He has left a massive hole in the lives of all his many friends and colleagues,

Richard