IN MEMORY OF JUDY DYBLE
When Judy Dyble died on July 12, 2020, the prog world lost one of its shining lights. The ex-Fairport Convention and Trader Horne singer and instrumentalist was loved in prog and folk circles alike, having also collaborated with Robert Fripp, Tim Bowness and, more recently, Big Longdon. Prog looks back on her life.
Words: Sid Smith
Judy Dyble once told me that although she’d left music behind, music kept on trying to find her. This comment was typical of her self-effacing personality, down-playing her contribution to various line-ups and combinations. In discussing her time with Fairport Convention, a pre-King Crimson Giles, Giles & Fripp, the slow-burning cultish success of Trader Horne or the late flowering of her solo career from the 00s, Judy was always very generous about her collaborators past and present, frequently giving the impression that she couldn’t quite understand why all these people wanted her to work with them.
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Her self-deprecating instincts aside, people wanted to work with Judy primarily for her beautiful voice with its gorgeously precise diction: shimmering purity threaded with a hint of vulnerability. Through her poems, lyrics, and her beloved autoharp, she captured something that was quintessentially English, partly romantic, partly pastoral, and an ineffable quality that was suffused with a lightness of touch and a warm generosity of spirit. She was a talented musician who had lived and worked through a scene. Her worth and importance still resonate with artists and listeners today, securing Judy’s active participation that might have been seen as a way of making a vicarious connection to that original burst of creative energy.