Sadly, the time has come for another of my reminiscences of a musician who has recently left us. I would imagine that the reaction of most to his name – Terry Cox – would be ‘who?’ but I hope to show you why he was important to my musical tastes. Terry passed away on 19th March, at the age of 89, but I only found out yesterday when The Guardian published a lovely obituary for him, which offered far more detail about his career than his Wikipedia page.

Terry started out by playing drums in Alexis Korner’s band Blues Inc, alongside Danny Thompson on bass. Through this connection they met Bet Jansch and John Renbourn, and both then joined the band those two were putting together: Pentangle. He was also a much respected session musician who played on a wide range of albums, and I’ll give you a taste of those too.

But let’s start with a touch of the blues. Terry and Danny played on two albums by Blues Inc, one of them being Sky High, from which came Long Black Train:

If you know your Pentangle you will see from that the beginnings of the bluesier elements of their music: Terry’s fine drumming does much to drive the song, as it did for so many Pentangle recordings. That was where he spent the most influential part of his career, and as I loved the band from the beginning I’m making no excuses for highlighting them for this post. Their debut album, The Pentangle, was released in May 1968 and reached #21 in the UK. From its opening track, Let No Man Steal Your Thyme,  you get a taste of Jacqui McShee’s gorgeous vocals and the important support provided by Terry’s percussion:

That video is really showing its age, but I wanted to share some of the band environment in which Terry played and was an integral part.

The band released a second album that year, Sweet Child, which came out in November. It was a double record, one disc a live performance from the Royal Festival Hall in London in June 1968, the other a set of studio recordings. It didn’t make the charts but, as I have said before, it was on my Christmas present list that year and after Mum and Dad duly provided I got an album I still love to this day. I was encouraged to play it on Boxing Day, after the hubbub had subsided, and it met with approval from all the family – something that didn’t always happen! This was one of the live tracks – I couldn’t find one of the actual performance for the record but this is from the same year so it does the job, I think:

One of the difficulties in writing a tribute piece for a drummer is that they aren’t always to the fore in performances. This next one is the title track from that second album, still one of my all time favourites. On record it runs to more than five minutes but I’ve found this clip of a live performance from 1971, which is shorter, but you can see and hear Terry in it!:

Pentangle broke big with their third album, Basket Of Light, which was released in October 1969 and made #5 in the UK. It was given a strong boost by the band’s music being used as the backdrop to an excellent BBCTV show that ran that year – Take Three Girls – and from its opening track, Light Flight, being the theme tune for that show. With Jacqui’s usual beautiful vocals, but also with a strong undercurrent of some excellent percussion, this is it, from the same concert as the previous one:

I could play you more, much more, by Pentangle but as I said at the outset I wanted to give you a taste of Terry’s other contributions. After Pentangle first broke up in 1973 he spent eight years as the drummer in Charles Aznavour’s band, but don’t worry, I’m not going with anything by Charlie Avnovoice today. One of his early appearances was as the drummer for an early David Bowie album – bet you didn’t know that! This one, in fact:

Though you wouldn’t know it from that or any other video for the song, which only feature Bowie, he was supported by a five piece band on the recording, plus a sixteen piece orchestra. But you can hear Terry’s contribution clearly enough!

Among others that Terry played for was Lesley Duncan, on her 1971 album Sing Children Sing. Although that contains one of my all time favourite songs – Love Song – that one doesn’t have much drumming on it, but the title track does:

One more to close with, and this is being really self-indulgent. You may vaguely remember my playing this song before. It comes from an obscure album from 1972, which I think I might have been the only person to buy, but the harmonies on this are lovely. It comes from the eponymous (and only) album by Fishbaugh, Fishbaugh and Zorn, and Terry played those drums you can hear:

It is always sad when someone who has been a part of music I have loved for so many years leaves us, but as I always say at this time, we have their legacy to enjoy. Terry’s passing leaves Jacqui as the only original Pentangle member still with us, and I really hope that I won’t be needing to write one of these for her any time soon!

R.I.P. Terry, and thank you for the music.