Fairport Convention

Fairport Convention

Fairport Convention are an English electric folk band. Formed in April 1967, Fairport rapidly developed from playing cover versions of American 'west coast' style music to an individual style which melded rock music with traditional English tunes and songs. The lineup of their most celebrated album, Liege & Lief, comprised Sandy Denny, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, and Richard Thompson.

Affected by numerous personnel changes throughout its first decade, Fairport Convention was temporarily disbanded in 1979 but played annual reunion concerts until they reformed in 1985. Since then, they have enjoyed stability and continue to tour and record regularly.

In part, the continuing success of Fairport Convention is due to the annual music festival the band organises. Cropredy Festival has been held every year since 1977 near Cropredy, a village five miles north of Banbury, Oxfordshire and attracts 20,000 fans. Now renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, it remains one of the key events in the UK folk festival calendar.

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. They had performed "Meet on the Ledge" on the 1969 launch of "From the Roundhouse" (a short-lived BBC-TV youth and arts programme about the London "underground scene"). In 2002 the band was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and in 2006, Liege & Lief was voted the most influential folk album of all time in a public ballot, also run by the BBC.

History

Fairport Convention played their first concert at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green, North West London on 27 May 1967. Based in suburban north London, the group had coalesced around a bass guitar player and bandleader named Ashley 'Tyger' Hutchings.

The musicians convened for rehearsals at a house named Fairport, in Muswell Hill, North London the family home of rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol. Thus was born the name of a band that has endured for over four decades. As well as Hutchings and Nicol, there was lead guitarist Richard Thompson and Shaun Frater on drums. However, that initial line-up only played the one gig. A young drummer, Martin Lamble, was in the church hall audience and he convinced the band that he could do a better job than the incumbent. It was the first of a flurry of line-up changes that characterised Fairport's first fifteen years.

The group soon augmented its line-up with a female singer, Judy Dyble (born Judy Aileen Dyble, 13 February 1949, in Wood Green, North London), which set it apart from the dozens of other bands springing up from the fast-moving youth culture of that summer. Fairport found no shortage of work and was soon a regular act at underground venues such as The Electric Garden, Middle Earth and UFO. The band had only been playing a few months when they caught the ear of Joe Boyd who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist and so Iain Matthews (who had changed his surname from MacDonald and was spelling his forename 'Ian' at the time) joined the band and the first album, Fairport Convention was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. Later the band would play with Folk guitarist Nick Drake, who also had connections with Joe Boyd.

At this early stage, Fairport looked to America (Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan) for material and inspiration. "The two lead vocalist approach appealed to us," Matthews recalls, "and because of our name and onstage presence, lots of people thought we were American, and we were not about to attempt to dispel that presumption." This led to the band being dubbed 'the British Jefferson Airplane'. The album did not sell many copies, and Boyd got them signed to Island Records.

By the time the second LP, What We Did On Our Holidays, was released Judy Dyble had been replaced by Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. The third album, Unhalfbricking, featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick. This album, like its predecessor, mixed original material with contemporary songs by artists such as Mitchell and Dylan.

Radio DJ John Peel was a staunch champion of Fairport's music. He played the band's albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of BBC sessions which were later released as the album Heyday.

Folk rock

Rock journalist Richie Unterberger writes in his book Eight Miles High:

"Prior to 1968, rather incredibly, there was not a single British rock group that played electric folk-rock consistently and well. It is thus not too surprising that the band to become roundly acclaimed as the best British folk-rock group, Fairport Convention, took its initial inspiration from American folk-rock, particularly the guitar-oriented California sort."

Although folk-rock was well-established in the USA by 1968, Fairport Convention was the first English band to concentrate on bringing rock instruments and rock arrangements to traditional songs. Initially, the British press (and Fairport Convention's members) titled this mixture electric folk but the term 'folk-rock' soon became the norm, although it is a broader category than electric folk. Therefore, although other bands in the UK were experimenting with the folk-rock genre (including Strawbs and Pentangle), Fairport Convention are widely credited with 'inventing' English folk-rock.

However, Fairport Convention was also developing in other ways. As as well as revivals of traditional material with modern instrumentation and rhythms, bandmembers were increasingly composing original material and Richard Thompson had developed into a talented and inventive guitarist. Fairport Convention even entered the singles charts with "Si Tu Dois Partir", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go". The record just missed the top twenty but got the band (with guest triangulist, John Peel) a slot on Top Of The Pops, Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time.

Tragedy

On 12 May 1969, Fairport's van crashed on the M1 motorway on the way home from a gig in Birmingham. Martin Lamble - just 19 years old - and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. The young musicians nearly decided to disband. But they didn't, and once recovered they went back into the studio. Matthews had left the band by then and Dave Mattacks took over the vacant drum stool. The resulting LP, Liege & Lief, was a classic. This was arguably Fairport Convention's finest album and it established British folk-rock as a distinct and influential genre, reaching number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks.

Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. Dave Swarbrick had made a big contribution to the project and he now joined the band full-time. Liege & Lief was given an award at Cropredy 2006, with most of the former members picking up the award. Frank Skinner presented the award. In 2007, at the Cropredy Festival, the album was reprised with the original line-up except, obviously, Sandy Denny whose place was ably taken by Chris While. Dave Swarbrick proved there is life after transplant.

1970s - major changes

Despite the triumph of Liege & Lief, founding member Ashley Hutchings, who was to become the reigning intellectual of the folk-rock movement, quit to form Steeleye Span. To compound Fairport's problems, Sandy Denny also left the band. Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been in the band ever since, an unbroken stint of 34 years. Sandy Denny was essentially irreplaceable, so the band decided to continue without a female singer.

All the band members and their families moved in to The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire. There was nearly another tragedy when a runaway lorry crashed into the building. Dave Swarbrick was rudely awakened as the truck demolished his bedroom, leaving him unhurt but covered in rubble.

The next Fairport album was Full House; soon after its release Richard Thompson left the band. Simon Nicol was now the only original member. Dave Swarbrick developed a folk-rock opera called Babbacombe Lee and life in the ex-pub inspired the LP Angel Delight. The two albums were the first time the same Fairport line-up had recorded consecutively: every other release had seen changes in personnel from its predecessor. "Angel Delight" became the band's first album to chart in the US, peaking at #200 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Babbacombe Lee was a success, and received good air play in the United States where it reached #195.

Simon Nicol left Fairport early in 1972, followed by Dave Mattacks, although both would rejoin later. That left the two Daves, Pegg and Swarbrick, holding the band together. The following few years were 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 (vocals/guitar) and American Jerry Donahue (lead guitar). The next two studio albums were Rosie (1973) and Fairport Nine (1974).

Denny rejoined the band in 1974 and there were considerable expectations, some commercial, placed on this lineup. Denny was featured on the album Rising For The Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached #143 on the Billboard 200. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks was replaced by Bruce Rowland 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 obligation to Island Records by recording the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) with 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 after 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 member of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point.

The Cropredy Era 1979 to 1985

By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal and Dave Swarbrick's hearing problems made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. The band did a farewell tour and played 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 released it themselves, founding Woodworm Records, which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. The band 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 became the major mechanism for sustaining the band. 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. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and 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 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 Kathy 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 the Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicols 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.

Swarbrick refused to play any of the new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival, but soon 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. This line-up was to last eleven years, the longest period of membership stability in the band’s history.

Years of Stability 1986-97

The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the World and prepared a new album of material. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted (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 Reel Time (1987) 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 and Gold (1989) the Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was ‘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 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 bands output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1997). 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.

The Modern Fairport

In 1998, Dave Mattacks moved to the USA and Gerry Conway, took over on drums and percussion. Fairport has produced three studio albums with this line-up including, The Wood and the Wire' ' (2000), XXXV (2002) and Over the Next Hill (2004). The last of these was on the band's new own-brand 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 fundraiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall.

At the beginning of the new millennium Fairport Convention found themselves receiving increasing recognition of their importance in the mainstream media. They won the coveted ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. 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 Folk Awards their 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 awards they received an award for ‘Favourite Folk Track Of All Time’ for ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’ by the late Sandy Denny with Fairport Convention.

2007 was the band’s fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion and at Cropredy on 10 August 2007, to great acclaim, they performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Fairport's Cropredy Convention featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, with Chris While taking the place of Sandy Denny. Footage of the Festival, although not the Leige 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.

Band members

The 2008 line up of Fairport Convention is:

• Simon Nicol (guitar, lead vocal): 1967 - 1971, 1976 - present
• Dave Pegg (bass guitar, mandolin, backing vocal): 1970 - present
• Ric Sanders (fiddles, occasional keyboards): 1985 - present
• Chris Leslie (fiddle, mandolin, bouzouki, lead vocal): 1997 - present
• Gerry Conway (drums and percussion): 1998 - present

The following musicians have been members of Fairport Convention:

• Ashley Hutchings (bass guitar) 1967 - 1969
• Bob Brady (piano) 1976
• Bruce Rowland (drums) 1975 - 1984
• Dan Ar Braz (guitar) 1976
• Dave Mattacks (drums, keyboards, bass guitar) 1969 - 1972, 1973 - 1975, 1985 - 1997
• David Rea (guitar) 1972
• David Swarbrick (fiddle, mandolin, vocals) 1969 - 1984
• Iain Matthews (vocal) 1967 - 1968
• Jerry Donahue (guitar) 1972 - 1975
• Judy Dyble (vocal, autoharp, piano, recorder) 1967 - 1968
• Maartin Allcock (guitar, mandolin, keyboard, vocal) 1985 - 1996
• Martin Lamble (drums) 1967 - 1969
• Marc Ellington (guitar, vocals)
• Paul Warren (drums) 1972
• Richard Thompson (guitar, vocal) 1967 - 1971
• Roger Burridge (fiddle) 1976
• Roger Hill (guitar) 1972
• Sandy Denny (vocal, piano) 1968 - 1969, 1974 - 1975
• Tom Farnell (drums) 1972
• Trevor Lucas (guitar, vocal) 1972 - 1975

Discography

See Fairport Convention discography

See also

• Music of the United Kingdom

References

This article shares its genesis with material in the public-domain source on Fairport Convention's website (see 'External links' above).

• Humphries, Patrick (1982). Meet on the Ledge: A History of Fairport Convention. London: Eel Pie Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-906008-46-8.
• Humphries, Patrick (1997). Meet on the Ledge. London: Virgin Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7535-0153-8.

External links

• Fairport Convention's website
• 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