FAIRPORT CONVENTION ( LP ) UK

FAIRPORT CONVENTION - BROADCAST ALBUM 1968-1970

Early era recordings of folk rock legends Fairport Convention, taken from various radio broadcasts (a.o. in the UK, Europe and the USA), presented on vinyl!

TRACKLIST

SIDE 1:
1. Time Will Show The Wiser
2. I Still Miss Someone
3. Bird On A Wire
4. If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong
5. I'll Keep It With Mine
SIDE 2:
1. Sickness And Diseases
2. Sloth
3. Billy The Orphan Boy's Lonely Xmas
4. She Moves Through The Fair

Recording Details

Side One

Track 1 French TV Bouton Rouge, April 27th  1968

Tracks 2-5 VPRO Dutch TV Amsterdam, September 1968

Side Two

Track 1 BBC, Sound of The Seventies, recorded November 12th 1970, broadcast November 19th

Track 2 Radio WHPK Chicago, broadcast May 27th 1970

Tracks 3-4 BBC Top Gear, recorded December 9th 1968, broadcast December 22nd

Musicians

Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar, vocals

Richard Thompson –  guitar, vocals

Simon Nicol  – guitar, vocals

Martin Lamble – drums (Side One Tracks 1-5, Side Two Tracks 3-4)

Judy Dyble – vocals (Side One Track 1)

Sandy Denny – vocals, guitar, piano (Side One Tracks 2-5, Side Two Tracks 3-4)

Ian Matthews – vocals (Side One Tracks 1-5, Side Two Tracks 3-4)

Dave Swarbrick – fiddle, vocals (Side Two Tracks 1-2)

Dave Mattacks – drums (Side Two Tracks 1-2)

Dave Pegg – bass, vocals (Side Two Tracks 1-2)

Marc Ellington – vocals (Side Two Track 3)

In this release we navigate the uncharted waters of Fairport Convention's early voyages across the UK, European and American airwaves. Fairport initially focused on covers of future classics by US/Canadian singer-songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Richard Farina and Bob Dylan, but delivered these covers in increasingly extended electric versions, becoming England's answer to Jefferson Airplane. Within two years the band evolved into the prime-movers of British electric folk-rock, mixing electrified traditional songs with outstanding original material provided mainly by Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson. Between June 1968 and July 1970 Fairport released five LPs: Fairport Convention, What We Did on Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, Liege and Lief and Full House(July 1970) – six if we include Heyday: the BBC Sessions 1968-1969, a selection from the many BBC sessions recorded by the What We Did on Our Holidays line-up.

Fairport Convention had been formed in 1966 by Ashley "Tyger" Hutchings (bass) with Richard Thompson (guitar), a very young Simon Nicol (guitar), and Martin Lamble on drums. This first classic Fairport Mark 1 line-up was completed by the addition of Judy Dyble and Ian Matthews on vocals. This line-up released Fairport Convention and is heard here on a rare live performance of Emitt Rhodes' Time Will Show the Wiser from French TV in April 1968. In May 1968 , the band sacked Judy Dyble and replaced her with Sandy Denny, already a major force on the UK traditional folk scene and an established singer-songwriter in her own right. The Fairport Mark 2 line-up released the two classic LPs What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. Heard here on Dutch TV from 1968, three of these songs were never released on a studio LP – the Johnny Cash and Roy Cash Jnr. song I Still Miss Someone; Leonard Cohen's Bird On A Wire; and If It Feels Good, You Know it Can't Be Wrong, a rare song-writing collaboration from Fairports' lighter side by Richard Thompson with Ashley Hutchings. The band's understated arrangement of Dylan's I'll Keep It With Mine  was originally released on What We Did on Our Holidaysas was their haunting arrangement of the traditional folksong She Moves Through The Fair, heard here from a December 1968 BBC radio session. From the same radio session comes the only known performance of mysterious Fairport Christmas joke song Billy The Orphan Boy's Lonely Xmas featuring a guest appearance from Marc Ellington as "Judge Jackson".

Fairport had from the very beginning devoted themselves to relentless gigging, playing around 275 concerts between 1967-1970. On 12th  May 1969 the band were travelling back down the M1 after a gig in Birmingham when their van came off the motorway. Martin Lamble was killed outright, as was Richard Thompson's girl-friend Jeannie Franklyn. Sandy Denny was not involved in the accident – she had travelled back from the gig with her boyfriend Trevor Lucas. The surviving band members suffered major and long-term psychological traumas. To honour the memory of Martin they decided to carry on, but could not face playing their old material. Ian Matthews left to form Matthews Southern Comfort. Fairport brought in Dave Swarbrick on fiddle, and Dave Mattacks on drums – a very different drummer to Martin – and at the end of 1969 the Fairport Mark 3 line-up released Liege and Lief, now widely acknowledged as the first classic LP of electric British folk-rock.

In December 1969 the band sacked Sandy Denny following her no-show for a short tour of Denmark. Ashley Hutchings then left to form Steeleye Span and was replaced by Dave Pegg. Fairport Mark 4 comprised Richard, Simon, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks, and Dave Pegg, releasing Full Housein July 1970. This LP contained Sloth, a military allegory of a failing relationship. The version here was recorded at a May 1970 concert in the US and features extended interplay between Richard and Swarb. The Mark 4 line-up also contributes another Swarbrick/Thompson classic Sickness and Diseases, a touching tale of STDs. This was originally released on Angel Delight in June 1971 by the Fairport Mark 5 line-up, sans Richard Thompson who had left in January 1971.

Most of the members of the Fairport family have remained closely and confusingly intertwined over the five and a half decades of the band's existence. As Simon Nicol helpfully explained "Richard left Fairport Convention in early 1971 and has been playing with us ever since." Richard continued to tour with Sandy, and played on all her four solo LPs.  Richard's bands have often included Simon Nicol, Dave Mattacks and Dave Pegg. Since 1976 Fairport have run their annual reunion Cropredy Conventions. They continue to tour regularly and release a new LP every two or three years containing consistently strong and distinctive material. We are very lucky to still have them.