Dave Cousins obituary

The Guardian

20-07-2025

The one song by the Strawbs most likely to feature in pop quizzes is Part of the Union, the rowdy working man's singalong that reached No 2 on the British singles chart in 1973. Yet, written by band members Richard Hudson and John Ford, it could hardly have been less typical of the output of Dave Cousins, the band's founder and mainstay. Cousins, who has died aged 85, piloted the group through countless changes of personnel and musical styles for more than 50 years, and was at the helm for the band's final performance at Fairport's Cropredy Convention in 2023.
He drew early inspiration from Lonnie Donegan and was greatly influenced by folk musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. Hearing a recording of the bluegrass musicians Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs prompted him to learn the banjo, and he formed the Strawberry Hill Boys with Tony Hooper and Arthur Phillips. He drew extra creative fuel from Bob Dylan and California jangle-rockers the Byrds – Cousins's voice carried echoes of both Dylan and the Byrds' Roger McGuinn – and recalled how he used a guitar tuning taught to him by Joni Mitchell on the Strawbs' debut album.
'I developed my musical and songwriting styles from using these alternate tunings,' he later explained to the Musical U website. 'I use tunings that I've worked out myself, that I don't think anyone else uses. There's one definite advantage to it – you write songs that are very different to what anybody else writes.'
As the group morphed into the Strawbs and Cousins began writing material such as The Man Who Called Himself Jesus and the 22-verse epic The Battle (both from the 1969 debut album Strawbs), it became clear that this was an artist with his own distinctive voice and an eclectic range of interests. In 2021 he told the vinylwriter website: 'Medieval buildings and churches. Ancient hill forts and long barrows. The nails from the hands of Christ. These are all embedded in the songs.'
The Strawbs catalogue is littered with ingenious, arresting and often powerfully emotional music, creating an unusual fusion of folk and traditional music with the exploratory urges of prog-rock. The three-part song Autumn, from the album Hero and Heroine (1974), sounds like the King's College Choir duetting with King Crimson. Down By the Sea, from Bursting at the Seams (1973), ranges from a huge twanging guitar figure through passages of savage power chords, dreamy folk-rock and a crescendo of brass, violins and kettle drums. On the band's final album, The Magic of It All (2023), Cousins was still ready to challenge the listener with the 7/4 time signature of Ready (Are We Ready).
He was born David Hindson in Camberwell, south London, the only child of Joseph Hindson and his wife, Violet (nee Luck). His father was killed in action in the second world war seven months later, and his mother remarried when David was six, duly giving him the surname of his stepfather, Jack Cousins.
David met his future Strawbs collaborator Hooper on his first day at Thames Valley grammar school in Twickenham, south-west London, and the pair of them became half of the skiffle group the Gin Bottle Four. Cousins developed his musical interests further when studying at the University of Leicester, where he was active in the jazz club and folk society while earning a degree in statistics and pure mathematics.
After the death of his stepfather, Cousins worked at a variety of jobs in publishing and advertising to help boost the family finances, but music was his primary goal. In 1963 the Strawberry Hill Boys (named after an area of Twickenham) made their debut on BBC radio, playing a blend of folk and bluegrass with Cousins on banjo, Hooper on guitar and Phillips on mandolin.
The group then featured on recordings with other artists, teaming up with the guitarist Steve Benbow for an album called Songs of Ireland (1965) and with the singer Sandy Denny for All Our Own Work. The latter was recorded in Denmark in 1967, where Cousins had toured as a solo artist and had been working as a producer for Danmarks Radio, though it was not released until 1973, when it was credited to 'Sandy Denny and the Strawbs'.
The first recording released as the Strawbs (comprising Cousins, Hooper and Ron Chesterman on double bass) was the single Oh How She Changed (1968) on A&M Records. It was produced and arranged by Gus Dudgeon and Tony Visconti, themselves rising stars in the music business. The pair also produced the group's debut album, Strawbs. The material was mostly written by Cousins, as it was on the second album, Dragonfly (1970), where his penchant for ambitious, elaborately structured pieces revealed itself in the 11-minute The Vision of the Lady of the Lake.
They scored a UK Top 30 hit with their third album, Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios, mostly recorded live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. This featured new band members Rick Wakeman on keyboards (though he would soon leave to join Yes), Hudson on drums and Ford on bass, with Cousins contributing the lengthy compositions The Antique Suite and Where is This Dream of Your Youth.
From the Witchwood (1971) made the Top 40, while Grave New World (1972) climbed to No 11 and Bursting at the Seams (1973) reached No 2. The latter was greatly boosted by two hit singles, Part of the Union and the Cousins-composed Lay Down, a slice of raunchy folk-rock that climbed to No 12 in the UK. Cousins had drawn inspiration for Lay Down from the 23rd psalm, The Lord Is My Shepherd.
The excellent Hero and Heroine album reached No 35 on the UK chart in 1974, as well as No 95 in the US, but subsequent releases failed to chart in Britain, though Ghosts (1975) cracked the US Top 50 and prompted the band to focus their touring efforts on the US. Nomadness (1975) was their last release on A&M.
In 1980 Cousins left the band to pursue his interest in radio, working as a programme controller at Radio Tees before joining DevonAir Radio. He was influential in arranging the merger between DevonAir and Capital Radio, which earned him an executive position at Capital, and went on to play key roles with Xfm (now Radio X) and Radio Victory.
In 1983 Cousins's appearance on Wakeman's Channel 4 TV show GasTank triggered a Strawbs reunion to headline the Cambridge folk festival, and the group would make sporadic live appearances over the next few years. They played a 25th anniversary tour in 1993, and in 1998 Cousins staged a 30th anniversary show at Chiswick House in west London. Fortieth and 50th anniversary events would follow at Twickenham Stadium and Lakewood, New Jersey.
In 2001 Cousins joined the guitarists Brian Willoughby and Dave Lambert to form Acoustic Strawbs, and they released the album Baroque & Roll (2001), followed by an international tour. The full electric Strawbs reformed in 2004 and released their 16th studio album, Déjà Fou, on their own Witchwood label. Regular album releases followed, up to The Magic of It All.
Cousins also released several solo albums, from Two Weeks Last Summer (1972) to the live album Moving Pictures (2015). His autobiography, Exorcising Ghosts: Strawbs and Other Lives, was published in 2014.
Dave was married three times. His third wife was Geraldine, with whom he settled in Kent.
He is survived by five children.
David Cousins (David Joseph Hindson), musician and radio executive, born 7 January 1940; died 13 July 2025