Starting his music career in rock and roll and rhythm and blues in Northampton, his early music projects brought him to London where he worked in children's television for the BBC and toured England playing for theatrical companies, before working for the Beatles' Apple Publishing on Baker Street in the late 1960s and forming Smile with Denis Couldry (also featuring musicians Chris Spedding and Mark Griffiths), recording for Decca Records.
As a session and touring drummer/percussionist in the late 1960s/early 1970s Swallow worked with such bands & artists as Harsh Reality, Plainsong and Matthews Southern Comfort (both with Iain Matthews), Al Stewart, Neil Innes, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, and many singer songwriters of that era, but is perhaps best known in the British traditional arena with collaborations with Albion Country Band, Richard Thompson, Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick, Musica Resavarta, Robin Williamson, Norma Waterson.
[1] After relocating from London to Los Angeles in the mid 1970s he began a parallel career in business management and real estate development but his credits as a percussionist also included such artists as Leon Russell and Rickie Lee Jones and others.
Longtime collaborator and friend, producer Stephen Hague, a colleague from the Polar Bear days, is also co-owner with Swallow in London's famous Manna vegetarian restaurant.
His more current, collaborative projects are with Sound Designer & master EVI (electronic valve instrument) player Judd Miller, including their ambient group bFas (Blood from a Stone).