50 Years of Fairport Convention
 

At their peak, they are the most incredible band that no one ever heard of. For anyone who has not heard them, you need to get started with Liege & Lief. For the long-time fans like me, enjoy this video on YouTube;

Well, seeing as they spawned greats like Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick I'd be amazed if nobody of a certain age heard of them.
In Britain the Fairports are regarded as pretty much a national treasure among the folk/rock cognoscenti. I've been a fan since my teens, way back in the mists of time. Thanks for the heads-up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N-neipG-7w

Fairport Convention is not nearly as well known in the United States as they are in the UK; whatever touring they did over here must have been fairly limited, and they never had any big radio hits in America that I can recall.

I was made aware of them when I was 19 and living in my first apartment when there was a somewhat older guy just out of the service who was living in the same apartment building. He had been stationed in England or Scotland and had a bunch of their records. He also had some Amazing String Band, Pentangle and Steeleye Span albums. I’d heard of Pentangle back when I was in high school and even had the two John Renbourn solo albums that had come out by that time, but all the other groups were new to me.

So there was an awareness of Fairport Convention in the more folk music and folk-rock oriented circles in the US at that time, but you kind of had to be into that style of music to even know they existed.

They certainly weren’t getting any airplay on commercial radio stations over here. Once in a blue moon you’d hear a song or two from one of those groups on a college radio station or on folk music-oriented programs like “The Midnight Special” on WFMT in Chicago, but that was about it. Most of the time when we’d hear their music it was because someone you knew was a fan and insisted that you listened to a few album sides.

Which is a shame - compared to some of the crap that got played on the radio, hearing some Fairport Convention would have been refreshing.


Wade Hampton Miller

Yes, they are now considered ''national treasures'' but it's taken a long time to get there. I consider their peak to be the Sandy Denny years and they struggled to get their music heard.

Liege and lief is their masterpiece. I heard it on my radio station in Cambridge but that station only broadcast 25 miles from dawn to dusk. They didn't get much air time on the major stations, maybe on the Sunday morning folk show.

Richard Thompson too, he is considered one of the top guitar players of all time by those who know him, but even his masterpiece 1952 Vincent Black Lightning is probably better known for Del McCoury's bluegrass version.

I've been a fan for a long time. I saw them, with Sandy Denny, at Harvard in an old gothic auditorium where the old wooden benches were tiered to steep that the person in front of your's head was at about your knees. I also saw Richard at Princeton in a similar setting. I'm thrilled that they are getting the attention they deserve but it sure has taken a long time.

I liked Fairport well enough, but I like Richard Thompson's post-Fariport stuff SOOOOO much that these days I only occasionally listen to the whole band as part of some of his compilation albums.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Faiirport was certainly more popular n England than the States. But I agree with Wade in that they were hardly unknown stateside and that from their second LP on it was the folkies me who really took to them.

I loved Fairport Convention. Bouth every LP when it came out and finally got to see them in 1970 on the Full House tour which was their first tour of the States. If you have not seen it, some 30 years ago, there was pretty good documentary made on the band called "It All Comes Round Again."

Incredible String Band;)

Speaking of things Bluegrass-related, here's Rice, Rice, Hillman and Pedersen doing a version of Thompson's 'Dimming of the Day':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePIrvBcsOpU

They get pretty regular airplay on Psychedelicized Radio over at http://s1.castserver.net:8006/ (copy and paste that URL into your preferred media player). Web site is http://psychedelicized.com/ .

Fairport Convention songs currently in the rotation at Psychedelicized Radio:

•Time Will Show The Wiser
•Jack O’Diamonds
•It’s Alright Ma, It’s Only Witchcraft
•Suzanne
•I’ll Keep It With Mine
•Nottamun Town
•A Sailor’s Life
•Si Tu Dois Partir
•Who Knows Where The Time Goes
•Reynardine
•Matty Groves
•Tam Lin

Of course, Sandy Denny provides immortal vocals on her original composition Who Knows Where The Time Goes:



Edit (12-3-2019)--Just turned on Psychedelicized Radio for the first time today--and they just happened to be playing A Sailor's Life by Fairport Convention. Fascinating.

After I made a passing reference to “the Amazing String Band,” Andrew in the Mother Country wrote.

No, man, when their albums were released over here they were called the AMAZING String Band! With “AMAZING” in all capital letters!!

(Think he’ll buy my bluff?)

No, of course you’re right, but it’s a symptom of their relative obscurity in the US that I couldn’t remember their name properly.

As opposed to that famous British rock band, the Stumbling Stones...


whm

I'll watch the documentary later. I'd agree with who've noted that they weren't a big deal in the US. which is not a reflection on the quality of their work.

There's a fairly valid generalized difference with how the "Folk-Rock" sound verses the "Blue Revival" sound developed during the Sixties in the Britain vs. the US.

In the US, Folk Rock developed earlier and was a bigger thing. Once the Byrds and the Lovin' Spoonful had hits it became a definite force in the US music scene, and then something else happened (not remarked on enough) that Folk Rock thing became the largest stream that initiated the current in the US that created "Rock" as opposed to "Rock'n'roll" -- Rock being that LP records, hippie ballrooms, FM radio, college students listened to it proudly, serious voices addressing serious issues, evolution.

That never really happened to the same degree in Britain, and what did happen lagged behind the US (12 to 18 months seemed like a generation then). On the other hand, British bands were ahead of young American bands in reviving the blues, that American art form. Go figure.

The Fairports began as a kind of British Byrds/Jefferson Airplane/Lovin' Spoonful kind of band, making their bones covering North American songwriters. I happen to have a soft spot for that earlier version of the band, which to my mind was very good at that (as good as anyone doing the same thing in the US IMHO.) That next step, electrifying UK trad-folk tunes and tunes that sounded like UK folk tunes was more original and of course has many fans too.

But other than luck, record label associations, and variations in touring (and an infamous, tragic road accident), I think that's a large part in the variation in esteem. In the US, there was lots of native competition in what the Fairports were doing, but in the UK, not so much. And then the rocking up British Isles trad folk thing had a niche market in the US, while in the UK it was vivifying something native to culture. Richard Thompson once said that while they were doing that he thought, well sure there are Peter Greens and Eric Claptons, but that he himself didn't think he could convincingly play US Blues, but maybe he/the Fairports could do something else that US artists couldn't do as well.

A long pedantic aside this, and I left a lot out. Maybe I should just say I like 'em. They got a good beat. You can dance.

This remains one of my favorite Fairport "documentaries." It shows them taking "Now Be Thankful" from its beginnings to the stage.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...8542&FORM=VIRE

I first became aware of them in the mid eighties when a friend played me a Sandy Denny record and have seen them regularly since 1987 on their traditional Winter Tours, on Fairport acoustic tours and more recently on their early summer tours. I've never gone away disappointed from a show. The current line-up has only seen two changes in all that time - Gerry Conway replacing Dave Mattacks, and Chris Leslie coming in when Maartin Allcock left. They still do Sandy's songs with Simon Nicol doing most of the vocals on these, with Peggy and Chris singing others. Chris has also written a lot of very good material during his tenure, which fits in well with the older original songs, traditional tunes and material from other songwriters like Steve Tilston, AnnA Ryder and Huw Williams.

In fact, I've just booked tickets for next May to see them again in a lovely 180 seater converted Welsh chapel - the smallest venue on every tour - and will being seeing Chris there very soon as part of St Agnes Fountain with Chris While, who regularly joins them at their annual festival at Cropredy.

I've watched the doc now.

You get a good sense of the sensibilities that shaped the band. Like a lot of documentaries there are shortened video snippets of great performances, but anyone searching trough YouTube will find most of them in full form.

It helps that Joe Boyd and many of the surviving band members are very articulate and thoughtful people. Most similar band docs will have a fair amount of "settling old scores" and other folks who play an instrument because they aren't that good at talking about stuff. In this one, the principals almost always analyze things clearly.

So many great musicians, but I always thought she was the heart of the band (solo demo version):