Pete Thomas

Born in Reading and a graduate of the Newcastle College of Performing Arts, the first instrument that Pete learned to play was the guitar. In his early teens he discovered the bass guitar and subsequently the double bass, and these became his favoured instruments for live performance and recording. Nevertheless he is no mean player of the tenor banjo, mandolin and bouzouki and enjoys playing them whenever the opportunity arises as a change from being the “bassman”.

At the Derby Folk Festival - image by permission © Mark Steele 

His career started when he was still at school and he has performed for more than a decade professionally with many bands covering many genres: R&B and rock, English and Irish folk music, bluegrass, and gypsy jazz.

He is an old hand at performing at festivals and played in several over the course of this year both R&B and Bluegrass; hopefully 2026 will proffer as many opportunities.

PM Warson’s R&B band are not planning to tour for the rest of the year. However their new album is nearing completion and hopefully will be ready for sale in the not too distant future. Similarly Denver Cuss recently performed with True Loves at Hootenany Brixton in September and her album Leaving Me is readily available for sale.

Paul Armer and the Dawn Chorus continue to grow from strength to strength. They were hugely popular at the Battlefield Bluegrass Festival at Naseby in July and are touring the country throughout November and into December supporting the well known Bluegrass band Ganstagrass during the latter half of the month. The musicianship of The Dawn Chorus is exceptional and the harmonisation of Paul’s and Noel Dashwood’s voices is wonderfully unique. They recently recorded an EP which will be ready for sale imminently. Pete also enjoys playing with The Vanguards bluegrass band. They too have a great following and are frequent headliners although no performances are planned for the rest of the year.

Pete plays fewer gypsy jazz gigs these days but still enjoys playing bass for friends when they come over from France, as indeed happened with Adrien Marco earlier in the year and he will be be performing with Angelo De Barre at the Hum, Stoke Newington in December. However, he has formed a trio with the singer Victoria Bass and the guitarist Dan Criscuolo, simply called The Victoria Bass Trio to perform 'cabaret jazz' and swing primarily for functions and cabaret. Victoria has a sensational voice for this type of genre, many of the numbers are well known standards, often from the forties and fifties, but her rendition is hugely entertaining. They may be seen at The Hop Inn Hornchurch and the Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club in London during December.

50’s and 60’s Rock and Roll is always close to Pete’s heart and he recently played on the Rave On show when they were short of a bassist for a couple of performances. Great fun and he will join them again for a performance on the Isle of Wight later in November.

Just for fun and for his own amusement, Pete is now reprising his folk music skills particularly performing on his tenor banjo and his brand new Fylde mandolin. He used to play regularly about ten years ago particularly in pub jam sessions but also had airings on the radio at the time. Consequently he is playing in pub jam sessions such as The Myddleton Arms Canonbury on Sundays once again. Great fun sessions.

See the Discography page on this website for details and links for all the music mentioned above.

Click for pics/clips of Jazz, Folk and Blues/Rock

See also Pete Thomas's Instagram page and YouTube account.