“BOB Dylan told me he found a copy of my album Rattlebone & Ploughjack at a yard sale recently,” says an incredulous Ashley Hutchings. “Can you imagine Bob walking around a car boot sale? Of all the albums, he found that!”
Decades after covering some of his unreleased songs with Fairport Convention, the bassist and bandleader is now a bona fide pen pal of Dylan’s. “He refers to me as ‘Million Dollar Ash’, and he signs his letters ‘your pal, Bob’. That’ll do me fine. I’m very proud of getting an MBE for services to music, but Bob writing to me means more.”
In celebration of his 100th record release, Hutchings is taking Uncut through some of the finest albums of his long career, from landmark Fairport and Steeleye Span albums to the present day. What really fires Hutchings up at the moment, though, is his new podcast, The Guv’nor, featuring the bassist in conversation with his son Blair Dunlop. “I’ve never done anything like it before, but it’s just clicked. Blair’s a great foil for me. I think you’ll be entertained!” TOM PINNOCK
FAIRPORT CONVENTION WHAT WE DID ON OUR HOLIDAYS
ISLAND, 1969
Leaps and bounds: Fairport’s second, introducing Sandy Denny, and a series of deathless songs such as “Meet On The Ledge”
We were so young when we made our first album in 1967, and we’d never been in the studio before. Consequently, it’s a bit of a mess, but it was great stepping stone to this one. Sandy had just joined us and that was very, very special. Suddenly, we were getting great vocal takes and not having to do 10 takes on each. There was a lot of writing going on – Richard and Sandy were
