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.
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