Judy Dyble

Judy Dyble
Judy Dyble, Oxfordshire 2009
Background information
Birth name	Judy Aileen Dyble
Born	(1949-02-13) 13 February 1949 (age 68) London
Instruments	Autoharp/piano/recorder
Years active	1960s - present
Associated acts	Fairport Convention Giles, Giles and Fripp Trader Horne
Website	judydyble.com

Judith Aileen Dyble, better known as Judy Dyble (pronounced Die-bull), (born 13 February 1949) is an award-winning British singer-songwriter most notable for being one of the vocalists with, and founder members of, Fairport Convention and Trader Horne; in between these she, along with Ian McDonald joined and recorded several tracks with Giles, Giles and Fripp, which, after her departure, evolved into King Crimson. These tracks surfaced on the Brondesbury Tapes CD and Metaphormosis vinyl LP.

Dyble was born at the Middlesex Hospital, Central London. Her first band was Judy and The Folkmen (which existed between 1964 and 1966) and made homemade demo recordings, none of which were released, but some of which are vaunted for inclusion on a mooted anthology of Dyble's career (Universal/Sanctuary set a release date in 2007 for this, but the release was cancelled when Sanctuary was taken over by Universal). She then became the original vocalist with Fairport Convention from 1967 to 1968. Ashley 'Tyger' Hutchings asked her to sing and play with him, Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol in November 1966 in some of the various band incarnations that they were all part of, including jug-bands and anything that needed a female vocal, mainly because of their reluctance to sing themselves and this became the nucleus of Fairport Convention, firstly with Shaun Frater as drummer and later Martin Lamble. The group recorded their first album with her, their repertoire at the time consisting of both American singer-songwriter works plus originals. The first single was a cover of a 1930s American song, "If I Had a Ribbon Bow". The band covered and re-worked numerous American recordings, with the band members choosing some tracks to work with from manager Joe Boyd's record collection. The band also picked up on the works of Joni Mitchell before she was known in the UK, and covered two of her songs on the first Fairport album, which was self-titled.

Fairport's early live shows in London in the late 1960s saw Judy share stages with names like Jimi Hendrix, and Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd. Famously, she sat on the front of the stage at the Speakeasy club knitting, while Hendrix and Richard Thompson jammed. Dyble also guested on The Incredible String Band's 1968 album The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (on "The Minotaur's Song") and on G. F. Fitz-Gerald's 1970 album Mouseproof.