Fairport Convention
Encyclopedia
Fairport Convention are an English
folk rock
and later electric folk
band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock
movement. Their seminal album Liege and Lief is generally considered to have launched the electric folk or English folk rock movement, which provided a distinctively English identity to rock music and helped awaken much wider interest in traditional music in general. The large number of personnel who have been part of the band are among the most highly regarded and influential musicians of their era and have gone on to participate in a large number of significant bands, or enjoyed important solo careers. Since 1979 they have hosted the Cropredy Festival
, which is the largest such annual event in England. Individually and collectively the members of Fairport Convention have received numerous awards recognizing their contribution to music and culture.
met guitarist Simon Nicol
in North London
in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green
in Muswell Hill, North London (the same district in which Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks
grew up), which lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums
. After their first performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green
, North West London on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble
, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble
, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
and The Electric Garden (later to become the Middle Earth Club
) After only a few months they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd
who secured them a contract with Polydor Records
. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews
(then known as Ian McDonald) joined the band and their first album, Fairport Convention
, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to American folk
and folk rock
acts such as Joni Mitchell
, Bob Dylan
and The Byrds
for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane
' during this period.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records
. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left the band and was replaced by Sandy Denny
, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny’s distinctive voice, described by Clive James as ‘open space, low-volume, high-intensity’ is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did On Our Holidays
and Unhalfbricking
. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson penned 'Meet on the Ledge
', which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem. The second of these albums featured a guest appearance by Birmingham
folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick
on a recording of "A Sailor's Life
", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society
Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel
championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC
shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now
". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top Of The Pops
, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time.
Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway
. Martin Lamble
, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. The band nearly decided to disband and Matthews left, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks
taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester
in Hampshire
, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music
into rock and roll that would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief
.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band’s long career, Liege and Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics ‘Tam Lin
’, which was over seven minutes in length, and ‘Matty Groves
’, at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick’s energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions ‘Come all ye’ and ‘Farewell, Farewell’, which, in addition to an inner sleeve based on Hutchings’ research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album
. ‘Farewell, Farewell’ and the final track ‘Crazy Man Michael’, also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks’ disciplined drumming with Swarbrick’s fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the ‘ethereal’ vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from Allmusic put it, the album was characterized by the ‘fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both’.
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle
), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Although this is often referred to today as folk rock
, the bands and press of the time used the term electric folk
or English folk to distinguish it from more American inspired music. The descriptions are now often used indiscriminately or forgotten; however, Fairport Convention’s achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it.
Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall
late in 1969
. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay
. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar
and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album Full House (1970) which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of ‘Sir Patrick Spens
’, with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on ‘Walk Awhile’ which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with The Band
from Rolling Stone Magazine who declared that ‘Fairport Convention is better than ever’. The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful
' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic
and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album’s release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved in to The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire
and this inspired the next album Angel Delight
(1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200
and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John 'Babbacombe' Lee, ‘the man they couldn’t hang’ and released with the title Babbacombe Lee
(1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg
. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings’ Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay
had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas
on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue
on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie
, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine
(1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon
(1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200
and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns
and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland
. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer
(1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed up with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses
(1977) and Tipplers Tales
(1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus
which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy
, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records
, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in Festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival
. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle
, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge
.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Years gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights
album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport’s occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull
which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick’s sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper
.
In 1985 Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders
and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf
. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell
who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks. The former, ‘The Hiring Fair’, would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap
(1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock
. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band’s history so far.
(1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87
which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold
(1989) The Five Seasons
(1990) and Jewel in the Crown
(1995), the last of which was judged ‘their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years.’
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged
Old, New, Borrow Blue as ‘Fairport Acoustic Convention’ in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin
and fiddle. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1997), particularly the rousing ‘John Gaudie’. By the time of the 1997 thirty-year anniversary Festival at Cropredy, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill
(2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records
. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall.
In 1998 the band began its association with the Breton musician Alan Simon
. They have performed and recorded all his rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy
(1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was the band’s fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion
. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief
album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick
, Ashley Hutchings
, Dave Mattacks
, Simon Nicol
and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While
taking the place of Sandy Denny
. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first 'official' YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu
, Jools Holland
, Seth Lakeman
, Mike Harding
, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner
.
In 2011, the band released their new studio album Festival Bell
, the first new album in four years.
. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for ‘Favourite Folk Track Of All Time’ for Who Knows Where the Time Goes?.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
and later electric folk
Electric folk
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in England from the late 1960s, and most significant in the 1970s, which then was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, to produce Celtic rock and its...
band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
movement. Their seminal album Liege and Lief is generally considered to have launched the electric folk or English folk rock movement, which provided a distinctively English identity to rock music and helped awaken much wider interest in traditional music in general. The large number of personnel who have been part of the band are among the most highly regarded and influential musicians of their era and have gone on to participate in a large number of significant bands, or enjoyed important solo careers. Since 1979 they have hosted the Cropredy Festival
Cropredy Festival
Fairport's Cropredy Convention is an annual festival of folk and rock music held on the edge of the village of Cropredy in Oxfordshire, England. It has taken place in August since 1976....
, which is the largest such annual event in England. Individually and collectively the members of Fairport Convention have received numerous awards recognizing their contribution to music and culture.
Origins
Bassist Ashley HutchingsAshley Hutchings
Ashley Stephen Hutchings is an English bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founder member of three of the most noteworthy English folk-rock bands in the history of the genre; Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band...
met guitarist Simon Nicol
Simon Nicol
Simon John Breckenridge Nicol is a guitarist, singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was a founder member of British folk rock, or electric folk group Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band...
in North London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green
Fortis Green
Fortis Green is a ward in the extreme north-western corner of the Borough of Haringey, North London. It is also the name of the road that runs between Muswell Hill and East Finchley which forms part of the A504....
in Muswell Hill, North London (the same district in which Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
grew up), which lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
. After their first performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green
Golders Green
Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in London, England. Although having some earlier history, it is essentially a 19th century suburban development situated about 5.3 miles north west of Charing Cross and centred on the crossroads of Golders Green Road and Finchley Road.In the...
, North West London on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble
Martin Lamble
Martin Francis Lamble was the drummer for British electric folk band, Fairport Convention, from just after their formation in 1967, until his death in the Fairport Convention van crash in 1969...
, convinced the band that he could do a better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble
Judy Dyble
Judith Aileen Dyble, better known as Judy Dyble , 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 was very briefly with Giles, Giles and Fripp, which evolved into...
, which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period.
The first three albums 1967-69
Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFOUFO Club
The UFO Club was a famous but shortlived UK underground club in London during the 1960s, venue of performances by many of the top bands of the day.-History:...
and The Electric Garden (later to become the Middle Earth Club
Middle Earth Club
Middle Earth was an influential hippie club in London, UK in the mid to late 1960s, following on from the UFO Club after it was closed down due to police pressure and the imprisonment of its founder John 'Hoppy' Hopkins....
) After only a few months they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd is an American record producer and former owner of the Witchseason production company. Boyd was instrumental in launching the careers of Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and The Incredible String Band.-Career:...
who secured them a contract with Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews
Iain Matthews
Iain Matthews is an English musician and songwriter. He was born Iain Matthew McDonald, in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. He was known in the 1960s first as Ian McDonald, then as the 1960s progressed, as Ian Matthews...
(then known as Ian McDonald) joined the band and their first album, Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention (album)
Fairport Convention is Fairport Convention's debut album. The band formed in 1967, with original line-up Judy Dyble and Ian MacDonald , Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol , Ashley “Tyger” Hutchings and Sean Frater, replaced after their first gig by Martin Lamble...
, was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to American folk
American folk music
American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American...
and folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
acts such as Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
and The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and the use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
' during this period.
After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
. Before their next recording Judy Dyble left the band and was replaced by Sandy Denny
Sandy Denny
Sandy Denny , born Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny, was an English singer and songwriter, perhaps best known as the lead singer for the folk rock band Fairport Convention...
, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny’s distinctive voice, described by Clive James as ‘open space, low-volume, high-intensity’ is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did On Our Holidays
What We Did on Our Holidays
- Personnel :* Sandy Denny - vocals, acoustic & 12-string acoustic guitars, organ, piano, harpsichord* Iain Matthews - vocals, congas* Richard Thompson - electric, acoustic & 12-string acoustic guitars, piano accordion, vocals...
and Unhalfbricking
Unhalfbricking
The band's male vocalist Iain Matthews left during the recordings for Unhalfbricking to make his own album Matthews' Southern Comfort, after recording just one track, "Percy's Song". Sandy Denny sang lead vocals on all the other songs, including her own compositions, "Autopsy", and "Who Knows Where...
. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band. The first of these featured the Thompson penned 'Meet on the Ledge
Meet on the Ledge
"Meet on the Ledge" was Fairport Convention's second single.The song was taken from the album What We Did on Our Holidays. BBC Radio 2's Sold On Song TOP 100 songs as voted for by Radio 2 listeners put their early song "Meet On The Ledge" at Number 17...
', which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem. The second of these albums featured a guest appearance by Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick
Dave Swarbrick
Dave Swarbrick is an English folk musician and singer-songwriter. He has been described by Ashley Hutchings as 'the most influential [British] fiddle player bar none' and his style has been copied or developed by almost every British, and many World folk violin players that have followed him...
on a recording of "A Sailor's Life
A Sailor's Life
"A Sailor’s Life" is an English language folk song which describes the attempt of a young woman to find her lover, a sailor. Eventually she hears that he has drowned and mourns him.-History:...
", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society
English Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
Library at Cecil Sharp House; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project.
These two albums began to gain the band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now
If You Gotta Go, Go Now
If You Gotta Go, Go Now is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1964. The first released version was as a single in the US by the UK group The Liverpool Five in July 1965, but this went uncharted in the US despite receiving much airplay, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. It was another English band...
". The record just missed the top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top Of The Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time.
Developing electric folk
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig in BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway
M1 motorway
The M1 is a north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
. Martin Lamble
Martin Lamble
Martin Francis Lamble was the drummer for British electric folk band, Fairport Convention, from just after their formation in 1967, until his death in the Fairport Convention van crash in 1969...
, aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. The band nearly decided to disband and Matthews left, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks
Dave Mattacks
Dave Mattacks is a rock and folk drummer. Best known for his work with Fairport Convention, Mattacks has also worked both as a session musician, and as a performance artist...
taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking, now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music
Traditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
into rock and roll that would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief
Liege & Lief
Liege & Lief is the fourth album by the English rock band Fairport Convention. It is the third and final album the group released in the UK in 1969, all of which prominently feature Sandy Denny as lead female vocalist...
.
Usually considered the highpoint of the band’s long career, Liege and Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in a similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics ‘Tam Lin
Tam Lin
Tam Lin is the hero of a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. The story revolves around the rescue of Tam Lin by his true love from the Queen of the Fairies...
’, which was over seven minutes in length, and ‘Matty Groves
Matty Groves
"Matty Groves" is an English folk ballad that describes an adulterous tryst between a man and a woman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It dates to at least the 17th century, and is one of the Child Ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child...
’, at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick’s energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions ‘Come all ye’ and ‘Farewell, Farewell’, which, in addition to an inner sleeve based on Hutchings’ research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
. ‘Farewell, Farewell’ and the final track ‘Crazy Man Michael’, also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from the use of electric instruments and Mattacks’ disciplined drumming with Swarbrick’s fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the ‘ethereal’ vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from Allmusic put it, the album was characterized by the ‘fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both’.
A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle
Pentangle (band)
Pentangle are a British folk rock band with some folk jazz influences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a later version has been active since the early 1980s...
), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Although this is often referred to today as folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
, the bands and press of the time used the term electric folk
Electric folk
Electric folk is the name given to the form of folk rock pioneered in England from the late 1960s, and most significant in the 1970s, which then was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, to produce Celtic rock and its...
or English folk to distinguish it from more American inspired music. The descriptions are now often used indiscriminately or forgotten; however, Fairport Convention’s achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create a distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it.
Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
late in 1969
1969 in music
-Events:Perhaps the two most famous musical events of 1969 were concerts. At a Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, California, a fan was stabbed to death by Hells Angels, a biker gang that had been hired to provide security for the event...
. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.
The 1970s — time of change
Disagreements arose about the direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock Steeleye SpanSteeleye Span
Steeleye Span are an English folk-rock band, formed in 1969 and remaining active today. Along with Fairport Convention they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat"....
and the Albion Band. Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay
Fotheringay
Fotheringay was a short-lived British folk rock group, formed in 1970 by singer Sandy Denny on her departure from Fairport Convention. The band drew its name from her 1968 composition "Fotheringay" about Fotheringhay Castle, in which Mary, Queen of Scots had been imprisoned...
. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return, the sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals.
Despite these changes the band produced another album Full House (1970) which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of ‘Sir Patrick Spens
Sir Patrick Spens
"Sir Patrick Spens" is one of the most popular of the Child Ballads , and is of Scottish origin.-Historicity:The events of the ballad are similar to, and may chronicle, an actual event: the bringing home of the Scottish queen Margaret, Maid of Norway across the North Sea in 1290...
’, with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on ‘Walk Awhile’ which would become a concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
from Rolling Stone Magazine who declared that ‘Fairport Convention is better than ever’. The album reached number 13 in the UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single 'Now Be Thankful
Now Be Thankful
"Now Be Thankful" is a 1970 single by Fairport Convention released by Island Records . The lyrics are by Dave Swarbrick and Richard Thompson, :-When the stone is grown too cold to kneelIn crystal waters I'll be bound...
' and made its American debut, touring with Traffic
Traffic (band)
Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...
and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
In the recurring pattern, soon after the album’s release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member and Dave Swarbrick emerged as the leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved in to The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
and this inspired the next album Angel Delight
Angel Delight (album)
Angel Delight is the sixth album by the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. This was the first Fairport Convention album without guitarist Richard Thompson, and the lineup consisted of Simon Nicol , Dave Swarbrick , Dave Pegg , and Dave Mattacks .The title derives from "The Angel" in...
(1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John 'Babbacombe' Lee, ‘the man they couldn’t hang’ and released with the title Babbacombe Lee
Babbacombe Lee (album)
Babbacombe Lee is the seventh album by English folk rock group Fairport Convention, and was released in 1971. It tells the life story of John "Babbacombe" Lee, a Victorian-era murderer who, although condemned to death, was reprieved after the gallows failed on three occasions to work properly...
(1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...
. These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last: Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings’ Albion Band and he was soon followed by Mattacks.
Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay
Fotheringay
Fotheringay was a short-lived British folk rock group, formed in 1970 by singer Sandy Denny on her departure from Fairport Convention. The band drew its name from her 1968 composition "Fotheringay" about Fotheringhay Castle, in which Mary, Queen of Scots had been imprisoned...
had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas
Trevor Lucas
Trevor George Lucas was an influential folk artist, a member of Fairport Convention and one of the founders of Fotheringay...
on vocals and guitar and American Jerry Donahue
Jerry Donahue
Jerry Donahue is an American guitarist and producer primarily known for his work in the British folk rock scene as a member of Fotheringay and Fairport Convention as well as being a member of the rock guitar trio The Hellecasters.-Biography:Donahue was born in New York, the son of big band...
on lead guitar. From these line-ups the band produced two studio albums: Rosie
Rosie (album)
Rosie is the eighth studio album by folk-rock outfit Fairport Convention, released in 1973.The album was the first to feature Australian singer-songwriter guitarist Trevor Lucas and American lead guitarist Jerry Donahue. Both had previously played with ex-Fairport Sandy Denny, to whom Lucas was...
, notable for the Swarbrick penned title track (1973) and Nine
Nine (Fairport Convention album)
Nine is the ninth album by the British folk rock group Fairport Convention and, according to Allmusic, is their most uneven.-Side one:#"The Hexhamshire Lass" – 2:31...
(1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel.
Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny was featured on the album Rising for the Moon
Rising for the Moon
Rising for the Moon is a Fairport Convention album. It reached number 52 in the UK albums charts. This was the last Fairport album to feature Sandy Denny....
(1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and the first album to reach the top one-hundred in the UK since Angel Delight, reaching no 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns
Glyn Johns
Glyn Johns is a musician, recording engineer and record producer.-Career:He has worked with such artists as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Easybeats, The Band, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, Eric Clapton, The Clash, The Steve Miller Band, Small Faces, Spooky Tooth, The Ozark...
and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland
Bruce Rowland (drummer)
Bruce Rowland is an English rock drummer best known for his memberships of The Grease Band and folk rock band Fairport Convention. He is also a prolific session musician.-Early career:...
. Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite the relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs.
Rowland, Pegg and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer
Gottle O'Geer
Gottle O'Geer is the eleventh studio album by English folk rock band Fairport Convention...
(1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed up with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline and after producing two of four contracted albums, The Bonny Bunch of Roses
The Bonny Bunch of Roses
"The Bonny Bunch of Roses" , also called "Bonaparte's Retreat", is an English folk song.The earliest known version of the tune is in William Christie's "Tradition Ballad Airs" , but there is another tune, of Irish origin. There is an obvious difficulty in identifying the narrator's voice...
(1977) and Tipplers Tales
Tipplers Tales
Tipplers Tales is a 1978 album by Fairport Convention; recorded in only ten days, it was the last album the band recorded for Vertigo. Simon Nicol later wrote Dave Pegg would later say...
(1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.
The Cropredy era 1979-85
Tinnitus
Tinnitus |ringing]]") is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound.Tinnitus is not a disease, but a symptom that can result from a wide range of underlying causes: abnormally loud sounds in the ear canal for even the briefest period , ear...
which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy
Cropredy
Cropredy is a village and civil parish on the River Cherwell, north of Banbury in Oxfordshire.-Early history:The village has Anglo-Saxon origins and is recorded in the Domesday Book...
, the Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion.
No record company wanted to release the live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records
Woodworm Records
Woodworm Records was a record label created in 1979 to enable the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention to release their album Farewell Farewell. The album was a recording of performances taken from the band's 1979 farewell tour...
, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in Festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival
Cropredy Festival
Fairport's Cropredy Convention is an annual festival of folk and rock music held on the edge of the village of Cropredy in Oxfordshire, England. It has taken place in August since 1976....
. Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as the major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle
Broughton Castle
Broughton Castle is a medieval manor house located in the village of Broughton which is about two miles south-west of Banbury, Oxfordshire, England on the B4035 road ....
, rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge
Moat on the Ledge
Moat on the Ledge: Live at Broughton Castle, August '81 is a live folk rock album by Fairport Convention. The album was produced by Simon Nicol and Dave Pegg....
.
The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Years gigs in minor locations including the Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base.
The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of the band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights
Shoot Out the Lights
Shoot Out the Lights is the sixth and final album by British husband-and-wife folk rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson. It was produced by Joe Boyd and released in 1982 on his Hannibal label...
album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport’s occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was the first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick’s sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984 he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper
Whippersnapper (band)
Whippersnapper was an English folk band formed in 1984, consisting of Dave Swarbrick , Chris Leslie , Kevin Dempsey and Martin Jenkins ....
.
In 1985 Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to the catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders
Ric Sanders
Richard 'Ric' Sanders is a British violinist who has played in jazz-rock, folk rock, electric folk and folk groups, including Soft Machine and Fairport Convention.-Biography:...
and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf
Cathy Lesurf
Cathy Lesurf, born 1957, is a British folk music singer-songwriter who was brought up in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. She has been a member of bands in the 1970s such as Oyster Ceilidh Band, Fiddler's Dram, Fairport Convention and The Albion Country Band. She released a solo album, Surface, in 1985....
. They also had the help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell
Ralph McTell
Ralph McTell is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s....
who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks. The former, ‘The Hiring Fair’, would become a stage fixture of the future Fairport.
The resulting album Gladys' Leap
Gladys' Leap
Gladys' Leap is a folk rock album by Fairport Convention originally released in August 1985. It was recorded in April and May 1985 at Woodworm Studios, Barford St. Michael, Oxfordshire, UK...
(1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock
Maartin Allcock
Maartin Allcock , also known as Martin Allcock, is a multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer.-Biography:...
. Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band’s history so far.
Years of stability 1986-97
The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted!Expletive Delighted!
Expletive Delighted! is a 1986 album by folk rock band Fairport Convention. It is the band's only album consisting solely of instrumental tracks, despite the claim "Lyric sheet enclosed" on the album cover....
(1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87
In Real Time: Live '87
In Real Time: Live '87 is an album by folk rock band Fairport Convention. Although appearing to consist of recordings of concert performances, the album was largely recorded at The Mill studio, Farnham, Buckinghamshire, with audience responses dubbed on later, reputedly taken from a recording of a...
which managed to capture the energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on.
In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of a songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold
Red & Gold
Red & Gold is a 1988 album by folk rock band Fairport Convention.The album was released on the Rough Trade label, leading David Fricke, Rolling Stone's reviewer to comment...
(1989) The Five Seasons
The Five Seasons
The Five Seasons is a 1990 album by folk rock band Fairport Convention.-Side one:# "Claudy Banks" - 5:53# "Cup of Tea!"/"A Load of Bread"/"Miss Monahan's" - 3:16...
(1990) and Jewel in the Crown
Jewel in the Crown (album)
Jewel In The Crown is a 1995 folk-rock album by Fairport Convention which is viewed by many as the best record produced by the line up which had been formed in 1985 for the one off project, Gladys' Leap...
(1995), the last of which was judged ‘their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years.’
At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released the unplugged
Acoustic music
Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...
Old, New, Borrow Blue as ‘Fairport Acoustic Convention’ in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
and fiddle. This meant that for the first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1997), particularly the rousing ‘John Gaudie’. By the time of the 1997 thirty-year anniversary Festival at Cropredy, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of the band.
1998 to the present
In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry ConwayGerry Conway (musician)
Gerald Conway is an English folk and rock drummer/percussionist, best known for having performed with the backing band for Cat Stevens in the 1970s, Jethro Tull during the 1980s, and currently a member of Fairport Convention as well as his side projects...
took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then for Over the Next Hill
Over the Next Hill
Over the Next Hill, released in 2004, is an album by the band Fairport Convention. It has been described by Mojo as "simply [Fairport's] best album in 25 years"....
(2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records
Matty Grooves Records
Matty Grooves Records is a record label which was started by the members of Fairport Convention in 2004, when Woodworm Records was put into hold. The name is derived from the English folk song of similar name.-Release List:-DVD Release List:...
. In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe, the USA and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall.
In 1998 the band began its association with the Breton musician Alan Simon
Alan Simon (musician)
Alan Simon is a French folk-rock musician and composer best known for his rock operas which are performed with collaboration from other noted rock musicians. Simon is associated with Breton Celticism, and his most ambitious works are typically on themes linked to Celtic myth and history...
. They have performed and recorded all his rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy
Excalibur (rock opera)
Excalibur is a three part "Celtic rock opera" written and directed by Breton folk-rock musician Alan Simon, the first part of which premiered in 1998, and was released as an album in the following year under the French title Excalibur, La légende des Celtes. Its success in France led to a second...
(1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008).
2007 was the band’s fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion
Sense of Occasion
Sense of Occasion is a 2007 studio album by British folk-rock veterans Fairport Convention. The title comes from the fact that 2007 marks the 40th anniversary of the band ....
. They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief
Liege & Lief
Liege & Lief is the fourth album by the English rock band Fairport Convention. It is the third and final album the group released in the UK in 1969, all of which prominently feature Sandy Denny as lead female vocalist...
album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick
Dave Swarbrick
Dave Swarbrick is an English folk musician and singer-songwriter. He has been described by Ashley Hutchings as 'the most influential [British] fiddle player bar none' and his style has been copied or developed by almost every British, and many World folk violin players that have followed him...
, Ashley Hutchings
Ashley Hutchings
Ashley Stephen Hutchings is an English bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founder member of three of the most noteworthy English folk-rock bands in the history of the genre; Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band...
, Dave Mattacks
Dave Mattacks
Dave Mattacks is a rock and folk drummer. Best known for his work with Fairport Convention, Mattacks has also worked both as a session musician, and as a performance artist...
, Simon Nicol
Simon Nicol
Simon John Breckenridge Nicol is a guitarist, singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was a founder member of British folk rock, or electric folk group Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band...
and Richard Thompson, with singer-songwriter Chris While
Chris While
Chris While is an award-winning songwriter, singer and musician, known particularly for her powerful and moving vocals and the quality of her compositions and live performances. She has enjoyed success both as a solo artist, a songwriter and as a member of a number of notable and influential...
taking the place of Sandy Denny
Sandy Denny
Sandy Denny , born Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny, was an English singer and songwriter, perhaps best known as the lead singer for the folk rock band Fairport Convention...
. Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD.
The band's first 'official' YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu
Lulu (singer)
Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...
, Jools Holland
Jools Holland
Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, The Who, David Gilmour and Bono.Holland is a...
, Seth Lakeman
Seth Lakeman
Seth Bernard Lakeman is an English folk singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, who is most often associated with the fiddle and tenor guitar, but has also mastered the viola and banjo...
, Mike Harding
Mike Harding
Mike Harding is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet and broadcaster. He is known as 'The Rochdale Cowboy' after one of his hit records...
, Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner
Frank Skinner
Frank Skinner is a British writer, comedian and actor. He is best known for his television presenting, often alongside David Baddiel, with whom he also collaborated for the football song "Three Lions."He is a radio presenter on the Saturday morning slot on Absolute Radio.-Youth and early career...
.
In 2011, the band released their new studio album Festival Bell
Festival Bell
Festival Bell is a 2011 studio album from electric folk band Fairport Convention. The name of the album is a reference to the bell of the same name that currently rings in St Mary's Church in Cropredy, Oxfordshire...
, the first new album in four years.
Public recognition
Fairport Convention have received increasing recognition of their importance in the mainstream media. They won the coveted ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk AwardsBBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2....
. In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional, a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for ‘Favourite Folk Track Of All Time’ for Who Knows Where the Time Goes?.
Personnel
Current line-up
- Simon NicolSimon NicolSimon John Breckenridge Nicol is a guitarist, singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was a founder member of British folk rock, or electric folk group Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band...
- guitar, lead vocal (1967 - 1971, 1976–present) - Dave PeggDave PeggDave Pegg is an English multi-instrumentalist and record producer, arguably most visible as a bass guitarist. He is the longest-serving member of the pre-eminent electric folk band Fairport Convention and has been bassist with a number of important folk and rock groups including The Ian Campbell...
- bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal (1970–present) - Ric SandersRic SandersRichard 'Ric' Sanders is a British violinist who has played in jazz-rock, folk rock, electric folk and folk groups, including Soft Machine and Fairport Convention.-Biography:...
- fiddles, occasional keyboards (1985–present) - Chris Leslie - fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, lead vocal (1997–present)
- Gerry ConwayGerry Conway (musician)Gerald Conway is an English folk and rock drummer/percussionist, best known for having performed with the backing band for Cat Stevens in the 1970s, Jethro Tull during the 1980s, and currently a member of Fairport Convention as well as his side projects...
- drums and percussion (1998–present)
Former members
- Richard Thompson - guitar, vocal (1967-1971)
- Ashley HutchingsAshley HutchingsAshley Stephen Hutchings is an English bassist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, band leader, writer and record producer. He was a founder member of three of the most noteworthy English folk-rock bands in the history of the genre; Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band...
- bass guitar (1967-1969) - Martin LambleMartin LambleMartin Francis Lamble was the drummer for British electric folk band, Fairport Convention, from just after their formation in 1967, until his death in the Fairport Convention van crash in 1969...
- drums (1967-1969) - Judy DybleJudy DybleJudith Aileen Dyble, better known as Judy Dyble , 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 was very briefly with Giles, Giles and Fripp, which evolved into...
- vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder (1967-1968) - Iain MatthewsIain MatthewsIain Matthews is an English musician and songwriter. He was born Iain Matthew McDonald, in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. He was known in the 1960s first as Ian McDonald, then as the 1960s progressed, as Ian Matthews...
- vocal (1967-1968) - Sandy DennySandy DennySandy Denny , born Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny, was an English singer and songwriter, perhaps best known as the lead singer for the folk rock band Fairport Convention...
- vocal, piano (1968-1969, 1974–1975) - David SwarbrickDave SwarbrickDave Swarbrick is an English folk musician and singer-songwriter. He has been described by Ashley Hutchings as 'the most influential [British] fiddle player bar none' and his style has been copied or developed by almost every British, and many World folk violin players that have followed him...
- fiddle, mandolin, vocals (1969-1984) - Dave MattacksDave MattacksDave Mattacks is a rock and folk drummer. Best known for his work with Fairport Convention, Mattacks has also worked both as a session musician, and as a performance artist...
- drums, keyboards, bass guitar (1969-1972, 1973–1975, 1985–1997) - Trevor LucasTrevor LucasTrevor George Lucas was an influential folk artist, a member of Fairport Convention and one of the founders of Fotheringay...
- guitar, vocal (1972-1975) - Jerry DonahueJerry DonahueJerry Donahue is an American guitarist and producer primarily known for his work in the British folk rock scene as a member of Fotheringay and Fairport Convention as well as being a member of the rock guitar trio The Hellecasters.-Biography:Donahue was born in New York, the son of big band...
- guitar (1972-1975) - Bruce RowlandBruce Rowland (drummer)Bruce Rowland is an English rock drummer best known for his memberships of The Grease Band and folk rock band Fairport Convention. He is also a prolific session musician.-Early career:...
- drums (1975-1984) - Dan Ar BrazDan Ar BrazDan Ar Braz, born Daniel Le Bras , is a French guitarist and the founder of Héritage des Celtes.- The apprenticeship years :...
- guitar (1976) - Maartin AllcockMaartin AllcockMaartin Allcock , also known as Martin Allcock, is a multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer.-Biography:...
- guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal (1985-1996)
External links
- Fairport Convention's website
- Expletive Delighted - band requested fan site and discography
- BBC Radio Two Folk Awards 2006
- Talking Elephant - The UK Record Label
- 2005 interview with Simon Nicol
- Five-Part 35th Anniversary Interview in Innerviews by Anil Prasad
- Guitar Player Magazine Interview
- TalkAwhile - a Bulletin board discussing Fairport and related subjects with participation from Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg and others