Fairport Convention On Track: Every album, every Song
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About this ebook
Fairport Convention are a great British institution – or, at least, they should be. For more than 50 years they have helped to keep traditional music alive and kicking by injecting it with a healthy dose of electric rock ’n’ roll. Their finest albums – including What We Did On Our Holidays and Liege And Lief – are landmarks is the development of British music.
In this exhaustive and illuminating book, Kevan Furbank looks at all the studio albums in detail – from their uncertain debut in 1968 to their most recent release, celebrating half a century of music-making. He chronicles the stories behind each recording, touching on the highs and lows, the successes and tragedies, the pleasure and pain, and examines the songwriting, arrangements and traditions that inspired each track. In doing so, he also looks at the contributions made by the many great musicians who have passed through Fairport’s ‘revolving-door’ line-ups, including guitar wizard Richard Thompson, angel-voiced Sandy Denny, demon fiddler Dave Swarbrick and the ‘guv’nor’ of British folk-rock, Ashley Hutchings. Fairport Convention’s musical story is as dramatic as any soap opera. If you have never heard any Fairport this book is the perfect introduction. If you have, you will want to go back and revisit the music this band has made over the last 50 years.
Because, in the words of Richard Thompson, it all comes round again.
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Fairport Convention On Track - Kevan Furbank
Sonicbond Publishing Limited
www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk
Email: [email protected]
First Published in the United Kingdom 2020
First Published in the United States 2020
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright Kevan Furbank 2020
ISBN 978-1-78952-051-4
The rights of Kevan Furbank to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Sonicbond Publishing Limited
Printed and bound in England
Graphic design and typesetting: Full Moon Media
Contents
Acknowledgements
Come all ye rolling minstrels…
Fairport Convention (1968)
What We Did on Our Holidays (1969)
Unhalfbricking (1969)
Liege And Lief (1969)
Full House (1970)
Angel Delight (1971)
Babbacombe
Lee (1971)
Rosie (1973)
Nine (1973)
Rising For The Moon (1975)
Gottle O’ Geer (1976)
The Bonny Bunch Of Roses (1977)
Tipplers Tales (1978)
Gladys’ Leap (1985)
Expletive Delighted! (1986)
In Real Time: Live ’87 (1987)
Red & Gold (1988)
The Five Seasons (1990)
Jewel in The Crown (1995)
Old New Borrowed Blue (1996)
Who Knows Where The Time Goes? (1997)
The Wood & The Wire (1999)
XXXV (2002)
Over The Next Hill (2004)
Sense Of Occasion (2007)
Festival Bell (2011)
By Popular Request (2012)
Myths & Heroes (2015)
50:50@50 (2017)
Shuffle And Go (2020)
Fairport Collections
Acknowledgements
Writing a book always has a knock-on effect on friends and family so I would like to apologise for ignoring them for four months. Thanks to my wife Elizabeth and daughters Sarah and Emily for their support, encouragement and quite reckless blind faith in my literary abilities. In particular, I’d like to give three cheers and a tiger to Sarah for helping me with the penultimate chapter of this book so I could hit the deadline.
I would also like to thank Stephen Lambe of Sonicbond Publishing for offering me the opportunity to write this book and his cheerful encouragement.
And, finally, thanks to Fairport Convention for more than 50 years of great music. May your bus roll on…
Come all ye rolling minstrels…
If there was any justice in the world, Fairport Convention would be as revered in the UK as, say, The Grateful Dead are in the US. They took British roots music and dragged it kicking and screaming into the 20th century – and, in the process, created a whole new genre: British folk-rock.
Their career spans an astonishing 53 years at the time of writing, putting them in the same rarified atmosphere of apparently immortal musicians such as The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney. They have released 29 studio albums and their fourth, Liege And Lief, has been voted by BBC Radio 2 as the Most Influential Folk Album Of All Time and is in Mojo magazine’s list of the 100 Records That Changed The World.
The many musicians who have passed through the band – and anyone who has seen Pete Frame’s family tree for Fairport will know that it is as twisty and entangled as an ancient forest of gnarled oaks – include a who’s-who of folk-rock legends. There is Richard Thompson OBE (no less), regarded as one of Britain’s finest songwriters and one of the world’s greatest guitarists. There is the brief, beautiful flame that was Sandy Denny, a singer and songwriter of rare beauty who was cut down in her prime.
You’ll also find the demon fiddler Dave Swarbrick, Jethro Tull bassist Dave Pegg, Elton John, XTC and Paul McCartney drummer Dave Mattacks. And, standing astride the genre like a genial colossus, there’s Ashley Hutchings – founder of Fairport, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band, and described by Bob Dylan as ‘the single most important figure in English folk-rock’.
In 2019 the current incarnation – singer/guitarist Simon Nicol, bassist Dave Pegg, fiddler Ric Sanders, multi-instrumentalist Chris Leslie and drummer Gerry Conway – was still touring across the UK and Ireland and celebrating 40 years of the Cropredy Festival. Not bad for a band with a combined age of 338!
The story of Fairport Convention starts with bass player Ashley Stephen ‘Tyger’ Hutchings, born in 1945, who formed bands out of people he knew at the North Bank Youth Club in Muswell Hill. One of those was Simon John Breckenridge Nicol, five years younger, whose father was a doctor with a surgery at the family home, Fairport. By 1966 Ashley and Simon were playing together in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra.
Richard Thompson, from nearby Totteridge and a year older than Simon, was next to join and, with Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra drummer Shawn Frater, the new group rehearsed above Dr Nicol’s surgery at Fairport – and it was another friend of Simon who dubbed them Fairport Convention. Frater only lasted one gig, replaced by Martin Francis Lamble (same age as Richard).
The band found a vocalist in 18-year-old librarian Judy Aileen Dyble and also pulled in Scunthorpe-born Ian Matthews MacDonald, born June 1946, from defunct pop trio Pyramid. Fairport became part of London’s ‘underground’ music scene, sharing the bill at venues such as Middle Earth and the Electric Garden with the likes of Soft Machine and Procol Harum. They were spotted by American record producer Joe Boyd, who was immediately impressed, especially by the guitar skills of the then 17-year-old Richard Thompson. They signed a contract with Boyd’s Witchseason management company and the producer got them a recording deal with Track Records. Fairport Convention were ready to unleash their music upon the world.
More than 50 years later, the band may not have the same energy as it did back in 1967 – as well as only one of the original members – but there’s still a simple, almost naive joy in the music-making that has survived half a century of trials and tribulations. As Simon Nicol said in a 2016 interview: ‘I want the next CD we make to be outstanding in its own right, without reference to the arc of music preceding it over the last 50 years. I don’t want to be part of a tribute band to Fairport Convention, nor to have our music put under glass in an exhibition case.’
Just how successful Fairport have been in reinventing themselves in the studio can only be assessed by looking at their albums in some detail, examining the motivations, inspirations and artistic decisions behind them – and that is what this book attempts to do. It is not a detailed history of the band, but it is, of course, impossible to separate what went on behind the scenes with what ended up in the record shops.
Finally, it attempts to shine a gentle light on what must be one of the most overlooked British bands of the 20th century – I’m a Fairport fan and I want everyone else to love them just as much as I do, warts and all.
Fairport Convention (1968)
Personnel:
Judy Dyble: lead vocals, electric and acoustic autoharps, recorder, piano
Ian MacDonald: lead vocals, jaw harp
Richard Thompson: vocals, lead electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin
Simon Nicol: vocals, electric 12 and 6 string and acoustic guitars
Ashley Hutchings: bass guitar, jug, double bass
Martin Lamble: percussion, violin
Claire Lowther: cello
John Wood: engineer
Produced at Sound Techniques, London, by Joe Boyd and Tod Lloyd for Witchseason Productions
Record label: Polydor
Release dates: June 1968 (UK), 1970 (US)
Highest chart positions: Uncharted
Running time: 37:46 (original release)
Current edition: 2003 reissue on Polydor/Universal with bonus tracks
Some bands come straight out of the traps with their sound fully-formed, their debut albums acting as templates for most of what follows. Others need a little time to find their feet, to hone their style and sound. Fairport Convention fall into the latter category. Indeed, their self-titled debut in 1968 carries few hints of their future musical direction. Instead, it’s a mixture of American singer/songwriter covers and quirky psychedelia. Even the original compositions owe something to the West Coast sound.
But before the album came a single – a cover of an obscure 1936 swinging ballad by Huey Prince and Lou Singer called ‘If I Had A Ribbon Bow’. Whose idea was this? Perhaps it came from the record collection of Ashley’s dance-band father – or even from Richard’s eclectic tastes. Certainly, he seemed very upset when the single sank without trace following its 23 February 1968 release. He said: ‘I was so mortified [it] wasn’t a hit. I mean, I had invested so much in believing in this song, and in believing that it was going to be a successful record, that when it wasn’t I thought never again
.’
Before the single was released, they were in Sound Techniques studio in London recording their debut album. Like a lot of bands at the time, Fairport tried to find songs that weren’t too well known so they could stand out from the crowd – and they weren’t prolific and accomplished enough as songwriters to record an entire album of originals. Thanks to Joe Boyd’s contacts in the industry they heard ‘I Don’t Know Where I Stand’ and ‘Chelsea Morning’ from a demo tape left behind by Joni Mitchell. They pulled tracks from obscure albums and singles, from parts of their live repertoire, and the well-listened Boyd no doubt dropped a few hints into young ears eager to learn.
The result is, understandably, an uneven album that has been criticised for its flat production and for Judy Dyble’s distant, somewhat hesitant vocal delivery. But there are many delights to be found, not least the moments when Richard unleashes his distinctive lead guitar and in the interesting arrangements, chord sequences and delivery of some of the original material.
Polydor’s promotion was low-key, with one advertising blurb describing the album as ‘one put together by unusual personalities for that insignificant minority of seekers to whom real music, oddly enough, seems to matter’. The record cover hardly helps. Shot in semi-gloom, it shows two and a half band members’ faces sitting around a table, possibly having a séance lit by an art deco 1930s lamp – you had to open the gatefold to see everyone else. As a result, an insignificant minority of seekers bought it.
‘Time Will Show The Wiser’ (Emitt Rhodes)
This busy, fast-paced rocker is the perfect opening number, showcasing Richard’s confident guitar riffing and licks, with strong ensemble vocals and a catchy, singalong one-line chorus. If Fairport were playing this when Joe Boyd first saw them, then no wonder he thought they showed promise. The song comes from The Merry-Go-Round, the 1967 debut album by a band with the same name featuring US multi-instrumentalist Rhodes. In comparison, the original is a sparse, lightweight affair – Fairport give it the cojones it demands, with a catchy opening guitar riff, strong vocals from Ian and Judy and pounding drums from Martin. Richard clearly liked it so much he used it to open his 1976 career retrospective (guitar, vocal).
‘I Don’t Know Where I Stand’ (Joni Mitchell)
The first of two Joni songs here, this eventually appeared on her second album, Clouds, the following year. Joni’s version of this wistful ballad about emotional insecurity – one of her favourite subjects – is gently finger-picked on a solo guitar to allow her gorgeous voice to soar. Fairport throw guitar, drums and bass on it, while Judy’s vocal is pleasant but unremarkable. All wistfulness is crushed under a somewhat heavy-handed arrangement, although Richard’s solo manages to be clever and entertaining. But this is a track where less would definitely have been more.
‘If (Stomp)’ (Ian MacDonald, Richard Thompson)
The first self-penned song on the album, it’s less a stomp and more a good ol’ Chet Atkins-style country-pickin’ number, mostly written by Richard but with some help on the lyrics from Ian. Not that the lyrics are anything special – ‘If I were rich enough, if I could pitch enough, if you were bitch enough’. But the song is a pleasant ditty and, as always, one can enjoy Richard’s accomplished electric guitar picking, as well as a delightful country-style instrumental. An earlier version supplied the B side for the ‘If I Had A Ribbon Bow’ single.
‘Decameron’ (Paul Ghosh, Andrew Horvitch, Richard Thompson)
Written with two school friends, this wistful ballad in 6/8 reveals the first stirrings of Richard’s rather cynical, world-weary lyrical approach. ‘Every time the sun shines, to me it’s a rainy day’ sings Ian in one of his best vocal performances on the album, supported with gentle harmonies from Judy. Structurally it feels like two songs welded together – the rhythmic verses in A major alternate with a slower, sparser section in D major that gently fades away before lurching back into the verse again. There doesn’t appear to be any sort of chorus nor any explanation of the title in the lyrics. Decameron is Greek for ’10 days’ and is best known as the title of a collection of novellas by 14th-century writer Giovanni Boccaccio.
‘Jack Of Diamonds’ (Bob Dylan, Ben Carruthers)
Talk about obscure! This one was a strange amalgam of the lyrics to a Texas gambling song from the back of Bob Dylan’s third album, set to music by US actor Ben Carruthers, who appeared in The Dirty Dozen movie in 1967. He released it as a single and, according to Fairport biographer Patrick Humphries, it was used in a BBC Play For Today that also starred Carruthers. Ashley thinks the single was given to Richard by Hugh Cornwell, later of The Stranglers. Of all the songs on the album, this one deserves the ‘British Jefferson Airplane’ tag – sinister electric guitar notes drenched in reverb launch into an aggressive, bluesy thrash alternating between B flat minor and E flat before a surprise melodic major key middle eight. It’s marred by Judy Dyble’s terribly out of tune recorder solo (!) and the fact that Ian’s voice is a bit too nice for it. But, along with the opening track above, it showed what this band could do when firing on all cylinders.
‘Portfolio’ (Judy Dyble, Ashley Hutchings)
A silly little throwaway instrumental played on a badly-tuned piano, with Martin squeaking along on violin. At 2:05 it is 2:05 too long.
‘Chelsea Morning’ (Joni Mitchell)
The second Joni song from the same album and a much more successful attempt – the style and subject matter suit a rock band approach. Fast, inventive percussion from Martin and Richard’s rising guitar phrases give it a sense of pace and urgency, especially with racing car sound effects over chopping flamenco-style chords at the end. One quibble: In the slower middle eights, Ian sounds like he’s singing from the next-door studio. Strange.
‘Sun Shade’ (Paul Ghosh, Andrew Horvitch, Richard Thompson)
A lovely little ballad with jazzy chord progressions (C to G minor then D flat major seventh. Try it, it sounds lovely), gentle, wistful singing from Ian and faultless and tasteful electric guitar playing from Richard. And ‘Chuckles’ Thompson supplies suitably uplifting lyrics: ‘Dying’s not easy today’. A small but perfectly formed little song.
‘The Lobster’ (George Painter, Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson)
This is where things get a little weird. Some apparently aimless, high-pitched guitar twiddling leads into plodding bass and minor key autoharp sweeps before the entire band thrashes away, with Martin going all-out on the tom-toms. As things calm down, Ian sings a poem by George Painter about a ferocious crustacean, and then the band go quiet for a bit before everyone has another thrash. At times, Richard’s fast electric guitar picking sounds similar to Robert Fripp’s work with Giles, Giles & Fripp. It’s the sort of thing a band plays after saying ‘Hope you like our new direction.’ Thankfully, it leads into…
‘It’s Alright Ma, It’s Only Witchcraft’ (Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson)
The title of this song is clearly inspired by Bob Dylan, particularly ‘It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding’. A walking bass shuffles into view, Ian sings a jaunty understated verse, Martin’s drums swing beautifully beneath him and then everything bursts into life into a rocking chorus, punctuated by Richard’s unique lead guitar. It’s a simple almost-blues, but the sheer energy and musical chutzpah make this a highpoint of the album, especially when the band break into the chorus of ‘This is the season, stormy weather’s on the way’.
‘One Sure Thing’ (Harvey Brooks, Jim Glover)
From one of the best tracks on the album to, sadly, one of the worst. ‘One Sure Thing’ came from Jim & Jean’s 1966 album Changes and was a fairly dreary minor key moan in its original incarnation. Fairport speed it up a bit but they can’t save it from sounding plodding, bland and listless. Thank whatever musical god you believe in then for Richard’s angular, discordant lead guitar section that briefly drags the song into a completely different territory.
‘M1 Breakdown’ (Ashley Hutchings, Simon Nicol)
The sound of a van – probably a Transit – leads into a banjo-like thrash while Ian twangs a jaw harp. Apparently, it cut his mouth so badly he listened to the playback while dripping blood. After a minute or so, the van and the song break down. A throwaway piece of studio fun, to be sure, but quite spookily prophetic considering what was going to happen to them 18 months later.
2003 Bonus Tracks
‘Suzanne’ (Leonard Cohen)
Tinkling percussion introduces a spirited version of Cohen’s debut single – some may say it’s so busy, with pounding drums, Simon’s staccato electric guitar strum and Richard providing strong licks throughout, that its wistful nature is pretty much lost. It certainly overstays its welcome by about the four-minute mark – but there’s still nearly two minutes more to go! It illustrates a Fairport trait that was both a strength and a weakness: they didn’t just cover songs but made them their own through imaginative, sometimes counter-intuitive arrangements that worked better with some songs than others.
‘If I Had A Ribbon Bow’ (Hughie Prince, Lou Singer)
A major ingredient of British psychedelia in the 1960s was a return to Edwardian fashion and song styles, as evidenced by The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album and Paul McCartney’s ‘Honey Pie’ on the White Album. So it’s quite reasonable to believe Fairport Convention really did think this could be a hit. First recorded in 1936 by jazz singer Maxine Sullivan as a quirky novelty song, Fairport’s version pretty much follows the original note for note. Richard plays classy jazz guitar and percussionist Tristan Fry provides vibes while Martin delivers a click-clacking rhythm, occasionally using brushes to swing on the drum kit. Judy’s vocal is a little colourless – listen to the original and you’ll hear the difference. It’s a pleasant, quirky, totally un-Fairport-like number that should never have been released as a single and predictably bombed.
‘Morning Glory’ (Larry Beckett, Tim Buckley)
A live TV recording with all the sound imperfections that implies – tinny, distant guitar accompaniment, Judy’s slightly out of tune recorder and a vocal performance from Ian that’s flat and dreary. Highlights are Martin’s busy drums and, of course, a dramatic Richard guitar solo. The original song first appeared on Tim Buckley’s second album, Goodbye And Hello, in 1967.
‘Reno, Nevada’ (Richard Farina)
Another live TV recording but considerably better quality than ‘Morning Glory’. Vocals are a little hesitant, but instrumentally it is approached with much more confidence, with a lengthy Richard guitar break taking up most of its 7:43 length and showing why Joe Boyd was so impressed with him live (despite one or two dodgy notes!). Farina was a US protest singer and author who died aged just 29 in a motorcycle crash a year before this was recorded.
What We Did on Our Holidays (1969)
Personnel:
Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny: vocals, guitars, piano, harpsichord
Ashley Hutchings: bass, backing vocals
Martin Lamble: drums, percussion, violin, tabla & footsteps
Ian Matthews (nee MacDonald): vocals, congas
Simon Nicol: guitars, electric autoharp, electric dulcimer, backing vocals
Richard Thompson: guitars, piano accordion, sitar, vocals
Brice Lacey: robots on ‘Mr Lacey’
Claire Lowther: cello on ‘Book Song’
Kingsley Abbott: coins on ’The Lord Is In This Place…’, backing vocals on ‘Meet On The Ledge’
Paul Ghosh, Andrew Horvitch and Marc Ellington: backing vocals on ‘Meet On The Ledge’
Peter Ross: harmonica on ’Throwaway Street Puzzle’
Recorded at Sound Techniques, Olympic Studios and Morgan Studios, all in London, by Joe Boyd
John Wood: engineer
Record label: Island (UK), A&M (US)
Release dates: January 1969 (released as ‘Fairport Convention’ in US)
Highest chart positions: Uncharted
Running time: 38:07 (reissue 47:53)
Current edition: 2003 Island Remasters
Let us pretend, you and I, that this was actually Fairport Convention’s debut album. A lot of compilations do just that. Why? Because this is head and shoulders above its predecessor, an album of such confidence and quality that several of the tracks have become classics in the band’s repertoire – and one, in particular, is Fairport’s end-of-show anthem. Another, more prosaic, reason may be that Joe Boyd moved all his acts to Island Records before the album’s release, and most compilations tend to take their material from one record label. The choice of material, the performances and the original compositions are all superb, with scarcely any filler. Two things, in particular, stand out – the voice of Sandy Denny and the songwriting of Richard Thompson.
Before the recording came the first of Fairport’s many, many splits. Judy Dyble was asked to leave – Ashley says it was because the band was getting stronger, louder and heavier and her light voice was getting lost. On her website, Judy depicts her ousting as being quite brutal, saying she was ‘unceremoniously dumped’ The band thought they could carry on as an all-male five-piece, but fans