FAIRPORT CONVENTION

FC are one of the stranger sixties rock hero stories.  They’ve had a nearly 50 –year ride, yet pretty much all the essential stuff occurred in one two-year period – 1969-1970 – which doesn’t even encompass their first couple years together.  And though all but two of the original principals are still alive and active, none of those original principals is still part of the band (or has been for more than a decade).  The important Fairport essentially ceased to exist after 1970, despite an attempt at revival.  Yet they’ve kept shooting out sparks all the way to 2015.

Fairport first landed on my radar, as they did most of us (then) young Amurricans via Richard Thompson.  It was a 1983 review of his Hand of Kindness LP that got my attention – I’d never heard of Thompson, nor the “late, lamented” (as the rev put it) Fairport Convention.  Those were the days when I paid a lot of attention to what rockcrits said – look, there was no other roadmap, and Thompson/Fairport weren’t the sort of thing to turn up on AOR in them times.  A perusal of The New Rolling Stone Record Guide (1983 edition) yielded the following by Greil Marcus no less:

“The most distinctive and satisfying folk-rock LPs since the Byrds’ first. Emerging in the late Sixties, the English Fairports were built around singer Sandy Denny and guitarist/vocalist Richard Thompson; they combined a timeless lyricism, an archivist’s purism, rock & roll punch, Cajun good times, superb original songs and a sense of humor that led to marvelously idiosyncratic readings of obscure Dylan tunes. Their emotional commitment to their material was extraordinary. Had the Band been British, this is what it might have sounded like.”

It’s Marcus.  You know he’d have to slot a Band ref in there, right?  At least he didn’t compare them to Randy Newman or Elvis.  At least.

Reeeeeegardless, this is an accurate snapshot of the second and third Fairport albums.   The earliest Fairport was, in fact, modeled (consciously/unconsciously) on Jefferson Airplane, right down to twin male/female lead singers (Iain Matthews/Judy Dyble), hot shit lead guitar (Richard Thompson) and a draw from contemporary, and I should stress, largely American, folk songsters (heavy on the Joni Mitchell – who was not a known quantity in Britain at the time, and Dylan, who was a known quantity everywhere – and throw in Richard Farina, Jackson C. Frank, Eric Andersen, Leonard Cohen et al).  Add in a dash of the blues and a dose of The Byrds via Thompson’s (w)ringing guitar and you’ve got Fairport Mk I.

But it was Mk II that counted.  When Judy Dyble got dumped for up-and-coming folk princess Sandy Denny, several things happened.  (1) they had a strong, distinctive lead singer (Matthews soon became superfluous in Denny’s wake) (2) they had a charismatic front-woman (3) they had a strong in-house songwriter (Denny again – she brought her own “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” just for starts) (4) they began to inject the trad British folk that Denny had been singing solo into their rep – a step that would come to define them for future (5) guitarist Thompson had someone to egg him on both as guit virtuoso and songwriter (Thompson’s originals and playing on album one – which featured the Dyble line-up – are interesting, but barely an inkling of what would come).

The result was attention both commercial and critical, on both sides of the pond (see Marcus comments, above).  

Two albums out in `69, critical attention, a couple hits.  Nice momentum.  It all came to a halt in May when they crashed the band’s van, killing drummer Martin Lamble.  The short-term effects were minor – they recruited new drummer Dave Mattacks and trad fiddler Dave Swarbrick, a highly respected musician who, though older than the other Fairporteers, was young and hip enough to dig rocking up folk material electrically, and carried on with an album made up mostly (3/8) of traditional Celtic Childe ballads-type material.  Critics were a little disappointed, feeling the album was well-made but that Fairport were better off with contemporary, and in-house, material.  They weren’t necessarily wrong.  The whole album is good, but 3 of the 4 strongest cuts are Thompson’s “Farewell Farewell”,  Thompson/Swarbrick’s “Crazy Man Michael” and Denny/Hutchings’ “Come All Ye”.  No matter.  The album was a hit and majorly influential and put Fairport on the commercial and cultural map like never before-o.

The long term effects then kicked in.  Matthews had bailed pre-crash to form Matthew’s Southern Comfort.  Now Hutchings split to form The Albion Band.  Then Denny quit to form Fotheringay.  Fairport, now down to Thompson, Swarbrick, new bass player Dave Pegg and Mattacks (Thompson and Simon Nicol being the only founding members left) recorded the well-received follow-up Full House and toured the US, with Thompson really stepping out on guit and vocals.  And then he was gone, too.  

And that, effectively, was the end of Fairport’s important phase.  

It wasn’t the end of Fairport, mind you.  Swarbrick, Pegg, and (usually) Mattacks (and ultimately, Simon Nicol, too) soldiered on with a revolving door of replacement members, including, ultimately, most of Fotheringay including Sandy Denny herself for a couple of years.  Though they managed some good live shows (cf. Fairport Live Convention) with Sandy, she was past her peak and would soon enough be gone again, back to her solo career and then demise.  By `79 even Swarbrick was burned out and the band called it a day.  For awhile.

The band had been doing regular annual gigs at Cropredy, a village in Oxfordshire where Dave Pegg lived(s?).  They kept them up, every year, eventually moving to grounds outside the village (and occasionally elsewhere).  The Cropredy Festival has become a major showcase for Celtic folk/rock, and has even expanded to include outsiders (such as … Alice Cooper!)  By the latter half of the 80’s Nicol/Pegg/Mattacks had revived Fairport as a going concern.  

Alas, for poor Fairport, though – they never moved beyond, or even caught up with, Full House.  Instead, they’ve largely followed that road ever since – mix some electrified traditional numbers with some folk-ish originals.  If you have a great love of Celtic folk-rock, then the remainder of the Fairport catalog may be fine wine … none of the albums I’ve heard are bad.  

But the fact is, they never could adequately replace Denny and Thompson as writers or performers.  Hey, Swarb may be to Celtic folk-rock fiddler what Thompson is to the guitar, and he seems to be an all-around swell guy.  But he never became a songwriter in Thompson/Denny’s class, nor did any of the other members, fine musicians though they may all be.

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Essential Listening

The essential Fairports are What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, Liege and Lief and Full House.  Period.

Of the rest - the pre-Holidays debut album is an interesting curiosity but not much more - thinly and flatly produced, interesting but not truly memorable songs, only the tiniest hints of Thompson's guitar style, as yet undeveloped at that time.  It's the sort of well-intentioned album you wish was better than it was.  The Cropredy Box features the two best songs, "Time Will Show the Wiser" and "Jack O' Diamonds", performed live with Thompson on guitar/vox, and the jump in quality is quantum - these are worth hearing.

There are no audience recordings of the original Denny-era Fairport live, but there are a number of BBC appearances, collected on Live at the BBC. I actually like the BBC versions of "Tam Lin" (more Thompson!), "Percy's Song" and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" better than the LP versions.  (Heyday is a condensed version of BBC.  And alas, misses those performances).  There is also Fairport Live Convention, a 1974 Sydney gig, featuring a later incarnation of Fairport with Denny back on board.  It's got a good "Matty Groves", a nice version of Swarbrick's "Rosie", a definitive "John the Gun" from Denny's solo albums, and a stomping cover of Dylan's "Down in the Flood".  The best live Fairport is captured on House Full, a live set from the L.A. Troubadour with the Full House lineup.  Thompson and Swarbrick turn "Matty Groves", "Sloth", and most of the rest of Full House including two outtakes ("Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman" and "Sir Patrick Spens") into full-fledged duels, pushing each other to play faster, harder, wilder, spinning their solos into shrieking demonic wails while the band pounds behind them like The Ramones.  Awesome stuff.

Post Thompson-Denny, there have been some 60 albums under the Fairport name - studio albums, live albums, etc.  I've listened to enough to know that I don't care to listen to them all, though none I've heard are actually bad, and some are obviously better than others.  Rosie has the title track, a nice Swarbrick country love song.  Rising For The Moon, with Denny back at the helm briefly, has some nice tracks, but is closer to a Denny solo album.  Moat on the Ledge, an `81 reunion gig has Thompson on board, and rocks pretty hard.  Gottle O' Geer is a rather lifeless and forgettable slab.  These and other might be worth exploring to hardcore Fairport-phile.

Essential Viewing

Fairport Convention: Maidstone 1970 contains some brief, but very rare, footage of the Thompson/Swarbrick-led Fairport, and is therefore worth a look.  Also includes footage of Matthews' Southern Comfort.

It All Comes 'Round Again is a documentary about the band that came out in `87.  It's apparently never made it to DVD.

Essential Reading 

I haven't read , Meet on the Ledge: Fairport Convention – The Classic Years by Patrick Humphries, but his book on Richard Thompson is good.  There's also The Woodworm Era, the Story of Today's Fairport Convention by Fred Redwood and Martin Woodward - which I also have not read.