When Judy Dyble died aged 71 on July 12, 2020, the progressive world lost one of its shining lights. The ex-Fairport Convention and Trader Horne singer and instrumentalist was loved in rock and folk circles alike, having also collaborated with Robert Fripp, Tim Bowness and late Big Big Train vocalist David Longdon. Soon after her passing, Sid Smith looked back on her life.

Judy Dyble once told me that although she’d left music behind, music kept on trying to find her. The comment was typical of her self-effacing personality, downplaying her contribution to art in various lineups and combinations. In discussing her time with Fairport Convention, the pre-King Crimson era Giles, Giles, & Fripp, the slow-burning cultish success of Trader Horne or the late flowering of her solo career from the 00’s, Judy was always exceedingly generous about her collaborators past and present, frequently giving the impression that she couldn’t quite understand why all those people wanted her to work with them.

The fact is that people wanted to work with her primarily for her beautiful voice, with its gorgeously precise diction and shimmering purity threaded with a hint of vulnerability. Through her poems, lyrics, and her beloved autoharp, she captured something quintessentially English – partly romantic, partly pastoral – and an ineffable quality that was suffused with a lightness of touch and a warm generosity of spirit.

Perhaps most importantly, it was simply the opportunity to be in the company of someone who seemed to glow with happiness. Not gregarious, exactly, although she could be that in the right place and time; but someone who always wanted to see the best in things and could be depended on to speak with sense and clarity.

As vocalist with Fairport Convention, she’s a luminous presence on their self-titled debut, her voice providing a soaring counterpoint to the West Coast Psych-tinged twang that informed their sound. Their version of Joni Mitchell’s Chelsea Morning brings a surging revved-up energy to the song, with Judy’s giddy vocal netting the whirling excitement of the times.

Her removal from the band to make way for Sandy Denny was a blow that knocked her off balance for a while. But she held no enmity toward the new vocalist, recognising her talent and the impact she’d make – which speaks to Judy’s other quality, resilience.

Picking herself up, she and new boyfriend Ian McDonald were drawn into the orbit of Giles, Giles and Fripp. Her recording of the McDonald and Sinfield penned I Talk To The Wind in 1968 is a true gem. Although the song would be taken up by King Crimson for their 1969 debut, the version recorded the previous year is, for many fans, a definitive reading.

With no space for Judy in Crimson, her professional pairing with ex-Them member Jackie McCauley as Trader Horne produced just one album, Morning Way, in 1970. While clearly of its era, there’s a timeless quality to its whimsical interludes and softly-delivered vocals. Somewhat overlooked on its release, the album’s reputation as a ‘lost’ classic has grown, and it’s been recognised as an important work. Judy and Jackie were delighted to be reunited for Morning Way’s 45th-anniversary celebration in 2015.

A significant part of her life and times was her partnership and marriage in 1971 to DJ and music journalist Simon Stable. Though she’d stopped performing, her connection with the industry continued when she co-founded tape duplicating firm, Somewhere Else with Stable. They ran it together until Stable’s death in 1994. “He always liked to go around saying he was the man from Somewhere Else,” she told me.

In 1971 Judy was working in reception at Command Studios in Piccadilly. The couple also took in lodgers at their house, including drummer Ian Wallace, and – for the time around the recording of King Crimson’s Islands – Robert Fripp. “He moved into our flat, filled up the fridge with melons, and told us off for using coloured toilet paper,” she once told me.

She also revealed that Fripp would occasionally join them in a card game called spite-and-malice. “It’s a bit like double-handed Patience – you can really throw your opposition by fouling their next move. Robert was really very good at it! He was vicious and would really knock you off the board. He was very private, but his eyes would light up when you’d say ‘Spite-and-malice?’”

In 1997 she attended a playback of Epitaph, the EP celebrating the original Crimson line-up. There was reunited with McDonald (and others) and told him she’d received an offer to play with Fairport Convention at their Cropredy Festival. She hadn’t reconnected with the band since they’d parted company nearly 30 years previously. “I was unsure about doing it after so long,” she said. “But Ian said, ‘You’ve got to do it!’ He even rang me from New York afterward to tell me to do it. If I hadn’t gone to that playback I’m not sure I would have done the Fairport thing again.”

Her appearance at Cropredy in August 1997 marked her return to music. The delicate, mellifluous strains of her songs and voice can be followed like a leyline through tangential discographies that include progressive rock, folk, trance, electronica, ambient, indie pop, the Canterbury Scene, post-rock and acid jazz. 2004’s Enchanted Garden and 2006’s Spindle and The Whorl – made with producer Marc Swordfish – saw her growing in confidence, displaying her ability to lend her sound to diverse settings.

2009’s Talking With Strangers was a major statement from an artist who’d been severely underrated but was now reappraised. The following year I was surprised but thrilled when she asked if she could use my photograph of a Whitley Bay sunrise on a picture disc she with Tim Bowness and Alistair Murphy. I, like many others before me, was energised simply to have a small connection to her work.

Aside from enjoying partnerships and TV appearances with Bowness, in producer and arranger Murphy Judy had found someone who knew how to get the best from he. Flow And Change from 2013 and 2018’s Earth Is Sleeping provided yet more proof of her ability to bring grace and refinement to superior material.

Reading her 2016 autobiography, An Accidental Musician, one really gained a sense of a person who took chances, never gave in to bitterness and triumphed over significant adversity and personal setbacks. Judy was always looking for the best in people and looking out for them. Simply put – as any of her friends and admirers will say – she was a joy to be with.

Just before her passing, it was announced she’d finished Between A Breath And A Breath, a new album with Big Big Train’s David Longdon. That recording, like those before it, will serve as a tribute to her many talents. She may well have left music at one point; but I’m thankful music didn't leave her alone, and that we have so much of it left for us to savour and celebrate.