TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

I'm a bit curious how all of you folks (no pun intended) got into Fairport.  Over here in the US, people at the local record show (held monthly) have heard of the band, but I also get blank looks when I mention their name to other serious music listeners of my age (mid 30's).  To give you an idea how little they are known over here, in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (1983 edition) they are only covered up to Live at the LA Troubadour (which came out in 1977). 

So anyway, here's my story.  It was in the summer of the mid-'80's, and an adventurous friend had been recommended that he listen to Liege & Lief.  Needless to say, he had heard nothing like it before, and I recall him saying that while "Jethro Tull is 10% folk and 90% rock, Fairport Convention is 90% folk and 10% rock."  (Obviously a bit of an overstatement, but it was high school.)  He insisted that I listen to it which I did.  And as it has been said, it blew me away.  I recall reading the writing credits and noted that a majority of the songs were not written by the band but were instead traditional songs.

A few years later, I was at college (Penn State) where I was a frequent visitor of the used record stores.  I noticed a copy of Tippler's Tales ($5 but w/o the insert).  I bought it and thought Ye Mariner's All was a GREAT song.  At the same store, I later bought a sealed copy of Gladys' Leap which I thought was a great record.   From then on, I would complete my Fairport Collection and buy as many spinoffs as I could.

What's your story?

David

It's all my dad's fault.
I just grew up hearing the band, and it was always a given that I was vaguley interested in them. That intrest became active around the time of Jewel in the Crown when I started going to concerts other than Cropredy.
But, to be honest I can't give a very good explanation of when I started liking them because I was to young to remember!

Mine was the convergence of several different threads.

I started out as a rocker / prog rocker schoolkid, following whatever I could hear on the radio or in the charts (so bands like Rush and Genesis). I started getting into Jethro Tull, to the extent where I could identify names of members of the band.

Then someone gave me a tape of Nick Drake which completely blew me away. I went out to get as much of Nick's stuff as possible - which turned out to be the Fruit Tree box set which had just been re-released as a 4lp package. I noticed Mr Pegg's name as one of the players and thought 'isn't he the one from Jethro Tull?'

One of my brother's friends was a big John Martyn fan. He played me Solid Air, which got me hooked on John Martyn. I also noticed Richard Thompson and Danny Thompsons' names there and remembered them from Nick Drake too.

So now I'm looking around for gigs to go to and see a poster "Fairport Convention" and in small type "featuring Dave Pegg from Jethro Tull" So I went. The circle was complete. Out went Rush and in came anything and everything by Fairport, RT, John Martyn and any album I could find with Danny Thompson's name on.

There are a few other peculiar circles in with this. Independently I got into the Cocteau Twins, which lead to This Mortal Coil which went on to Tim Buckley (Song to the Siren, Morning Glory). How pleased was I to discover that a double CD of Tim's only UK performance featured one Mr D Thompson on double bass?!!

Cheers

Nick

The things that got me into Fairport ,even though i"d known of them through  John Peel shows on radio 1,were chiefly the  island samplers "You can all join in","Nice enough to eat "and "bumpers2 which cotained" meet on the ledge","cajun woman" and "walk awhile" respectively and the top of the pops appearance for "si tu dois partir ".
      The first two lps cost 14/6 each (thats 72.5new pence for youngsters) and bumpers being a double lp cost 30 bob(£1.50) singles alone cost about 10/-(50p) so these lps were a great way of letting people know about groups  without having to fork out for full lps.and because you had paid for it you listened to it.
          chug a lug
                Jim

My first experience of Fairport was at Cropredy in 1996!!

Some friends of mine had been pestering me for about 3 years prior to this to go to a wonderfull event called Cropredy Folk Festival.

My initial reaction was "bugger that I'm not spending 3 days in a field with you lot listening to some old f**t wearing an arran sweater, with his finger in his ear, singing hey nonny nonny".......how little I knew :-[ :-\ :-[ :-\

I don't profess to have a great knowledge of the band or that I've listenened to everything they've ever done.......but I'm getting there slowly ;D ;D

Simple. The surname's Denny, you do the maths. ;D ;D

Time will show the wiser,oooh thats not bad !. Have they done anything else worth listening to ?. Wow, Liege &Leif -. blown away . Then  Unhalfbricking oooooooooooooooh A Sailors Life what a stonking track . ----Hooked . Here today  still hooked  36 years on. Still crying over Sandys demise . Sure shes singing with the angels . Sorry I`ve filled up again. God I miss her.

Same here - but then our stories diverge.
Went to KNebworth in 1979 to see Led Zeppelin....and FC were support on the bill......blew me away, thought they were next best to LZ, and started investigating. By the time I caught up with the progress (they split that very day & I was only hearing about Cropedy as history, after the event) - finally making it there in 1982. And the rest is, as they say, history....

Blame John Peel's Top Gear radio show, Bernie Andrews (his producer) and my mate Rod.
I'd heard Fairport's early stuff on Top Gear - but Rod had a copy of What We Did On Our Holidays, went on and on about this amazing guitarist, and had in fact nearly bought a guitar off RT (he couldn't afford it). I taped the album on my reel to reel £30 recorder, then bought Unhalfbricking, that was it . Fell in love with Sandy, fell at the feet of Tyger, Richard, Martin & Simon. Moved to London, saw Swarb! Blimey, 36 years ago.  :o :o  Now my daughter has the disease too.   Cheers - Ed

It is the fault of my biology teacher ( in the early 80s). He knew that I was a die hard Tull fan and told me one day: "Here are some cassetts. Listen to it and you will see that Dave Pegg plays in a better band than Jethro Tull."

I saw them for the first time some years later when they supported Tull in 1987.

Dragged along to Greenwich Borough Hall to see them on the promise that they were "like Steeleye".  They weren't - they were very different and VERY loud. 

Sandy was terrific, and Swarb mesmeric and the journey started ...

Well I listened to lots of stuff in my youth that were fairly typical for that era (Specials/ Jam/Madness)etc but I tended to 'hang out' with more rocky mates and my tastes changed to Proggy type stuff, some old but mainly revival (Marillion/ IQ/ Twelfth Night/ Haze) but my good buddy Andy had started listening to some really way out stuff ; Steleye Span, Fairport etc and recommmended them to me.
  So there we were Leeds Astoria Gladys' leap tour, absolutely blown away, never seen anything like it. So record buying ensued, Cropredy and lots of other stuff. But more importantly I reckon it really opened my eyes to a whole world of music that in the Mid 80s was so far of the radar that it might well have been invisible. I recall buying Folk Roots with a free flexidisc (remember them) with Oysterband, Michelle Shocked, Rory McLeod and The Mekons. WOW :o
From there I have listened to loads of great stuff been to great festivals and great gigs and am still discovering new sounds!!
Isn't music BRILLIANT

As a 14 or 15 year old at school in the Banbury area in the early eighties I was a fan of (amongst others) Tull.

Then a mate of mine introduced me to a devastatingly pretty girl called Steph, who lived in a nearby village. To cut a long story short I was incredibly excited to find out that her dad played bass for Tull and then to meet Dave, Christine and some of the visitors to the recording studio. I was wide-eyed to see people whose names I had seen on the back of albums!

Over the years (especially with the release of JITC) the obsession with first Fairport, then related groups and now folk music in general has just grown!

Mark ;D

Don't remember exactly but it would have been in the sixth form, 1969. One of the more esoteric among us had a copy of Leige and Leif. It was never off the turntable.

But I didn't see them live till a few years later when they were doing Fairport Nine! Yes, I danced in the aisles at a London theatre, can't remember which one, there were so many I saw them at.

Apart from the line up which was Mattacks, Pegg, Denny, Lucas, Donahue, Swarbrick, the thing that I do remember was Pegg's lace-up boots. I see they are now part of the garage sale!

from the early island samplers to start with

then listening such folk rock legends as geoff cripps (bbc wales) and the best ever folk rock presenter of all times
gary price of red dragon radio 

met maart at a plymouth folk club and relised we were as daft as each other  he introduced me to dave and chris  and from that to the rich and varried music i love now

ps just browsed the list of daves item for sell  its heartbreaking


mutt

I was a huge Tull fan growing up, and got into them during the couple years the band was inactive because of Ian's throat problems (mid 80's, after Underwraps came out).

When they finally start touring again in 1987, I saw them at the Worchester Centrum.  I didn't realize that there was an opening band (I'm not sure I fully understood the concept of an opening band, I was 14) and when the concert began, I was thinking to myself, "Hey, that's not Jethro Tull."  The person in front of me said something like, oh, that's Fairport Convention.  I don't remember much of what they played, except the "Big Three Medley," "Hiring Fair," and "Crazy Man Michael."  But I was hooked.  And gradually over the years, and started listening to them more and more.  Started with "In Reel Time," then "Encore, Encore" (though at the time, it was called "Farewell, Farewell").   

Funny to see how many of us started with Tull.  :)

I guess I follow the rock, prog-rock, Tull time-line through to Fairport.

However, I have to be honest and say that I hadn't even heard any Fairport material when I first attended Cropredy in 1993.  I went along on the recommendation of a friend who'd been the year before, and also because of the Tull connection.

I have regretted this foolhardy decision ever since. ;)
Dunc

It's all my Dad's fault!  I was brought up listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull & Fairport.  I remember him struggling a few years back to get a CD copy of What we did on our Holidays and when he played it I just fell in love with it.  That was the first real album of theirs I got into - always preferred Tull before then...

I too started on the prog rock route but kept driving down interesting roads Roxy Music, Van Der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, King Crimson. Then I started to notice that most of my fave albums included a violin/fiddle player, the jump to Fairport came via my father's ambivalent love of Folk Music and a pursuit of something folky to annoy him with!!!

Sadly he didn't live long enough to be really pissed off but at least I tried  ;D ;D ;D

Cheers Lysander

My Big brother (a beatles fan) had 'Olidays and I had a listen when I was about 11, then in about 77 an old pal mentioned fairport and lent me a couple of albums and that was that. saw then on the 1st farewell tour at cliffs pavillion southend in 79?. this led to my hanging around folk festivals
trying to hear something simular.

Ok, here comes the story. Sorry it took me so long to write it.

First of all, my dad very wisely always kept an eye/ear on the music I listened to and I was certainly influenced by what he was playing (Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson,...)
But I didn't get into Fairport until I was about 13.
It started with the decision to go on the school exchange between my school in Mannheim, Germany and a school in our twin-town, Swansea (Wales).
It was the farewell evening and I was standing outside in the foyer waiting for my dad to pick me up when I suddenly noticed this boy standing there. It was the T-shirt I recognised but I wasn't sure what the real connection was; all I knew was: dad's got the same and he got it at this festival in summer last year.

So I walked up to this boy, asked him where he got it from and we started talking about Cropredy and how many years we'd been going there and actually had to realise that we'd been sitting about 2 metres away from one another all those times.

Yes, so he started with the "hardcore" bits, how he liked Ric's fiddling and this and that and I just stood there, nodding and smiling as you do when you don't know what to say.
So I said to myself: You'll be seeing him next August, make sure you actually know a bit about this band before you meet him again. And so I did.

We met on the exchange year after year and the friendship developed as it did only because of the Cropredy festival.

Now his family is like my family and one of the reasons I ended up in Swansea. 

Jenny  :)

Jenny
That is a lovely story.
I got into Fairport in the early 70's going to festivals etc. I then lost interest until I happened to be in lunch at College one day when one of our students had a Fairport CD with her. She persuaded my husband and I to accompany her to Cropredy last year and, well, here we are. In turn I introduced her to Led Zepplin! We have some lively nights in!

Randomly bought "Babbacombe Lee" in the NAAFI in West Berlin, aged 17. Addicted ever since, through their highs and lows. Finally made it to Cropredy for the first time last year...

Kev.

A very warm welcome to new poster Kev with an amazing story of acquiring a copy of Babbacome Lee on military premises - buying it randomly - and becoming hooked.  Such taste and independence at the tender age of 17 years.  8)
We are delighted that you have posted and would be intrigued to find out how that 17 year old's tastes progressed over the years.  When you have the time, would you join me for a drink and a chat in the Corporation Arms?  If you go to the 'new members' reception party', I will be waiting with questions, a glass of sherry (or whatever your having) and I'll send out for some scoff from the NAAFI, if you don't fancy the canapes.  Oh and bring your favourite CDs, as background music.  Welcome, Kev

Sir Robert Peel
Minder to Members 

very much the same here. my dad brought me up on Floyd, Zeppelin, Tull and just about every thing else as his record collection was so massive and my mothers influence on my upbringing was Fairport and Steeleye. i never really realised how much i appreciated folk music until i gave up learning the violin in school because i hated classical, but instead found a burning sensation to play folk music, and was then given a fiddle for my 18th birthday. i absolutley luurrrvvee the fiddle!! i saw swarb when i was in my teens and was hooked! there were only 6 of us at the gig and so i sat right in front of him and watched every movement he made on that fingerboard!

...bliss!

After Berlin: Returned to the UK the following year, 1972, to study at Leicester and Sussex. Memorable Steeleye gigs at the De Montfort, Ashley's Albion Dance Band at Sussex, supported by R&L T, if my memory serves...

Was anybody out there at a FC gig at the Half Moon. Putney, Circa 1979-1980?It  featured Swarb, Peggy, Mattacks, Simon, plus Conway, Donohue, and, I think, Trevor Lucas and forgive me if I"m conflating two gigs, a fleeting  appearance by Linda Thompson. Very crowded stage, as I recall...

Kev.

First my Mum gave me Steeleye Span's Original Masters, which she used to use in lessons as a music teacher. Then, my flute teacher, who was married to a fellow morris dancer, lent me a tape of History of, In Real Time and Expletive. Got hooked, bought everything I could find since, and started going to gigs when I was 15. Cropredy followed naturally from 96 onwards.

Must be mid-to-late-80s when my dad got Red and Gold on CD (I should have taken notes on the Red and Gold thread for an exact date). He had Fairport 9 (the history one) on vinyl and I owe my understanding of melody and harmony and the turn of a tune completely to a diet of Ralph McTell in my early years but, for me, Red and Gold was exciting and powerful. I played the album lots and learned R and G lyrics by heart, singing it to myself all the time for the next decade and beyond. I was proud that Ralph wrote it but I do love the FC version!

It was the first music that introduced me to the moment I describe as the drums and bass entering a folk(rock) song. Must have been Maart's electronica. Since then, I have found that pleasure in other bands and other FC albums.

Then we got a CD just of Sandy and I got interested in earlier FC as well.

 :)well just had to reply on this one ,it was back in 68(,picture starts to go fuzzy)(then black and white) hippy club called middle earth in covent garden air heavy with josh stick scent and cannabiss,heads full of chemical substances,freaky groups playing phsyco stuff,third ear band pissing about would,nt get off stage,this unknown group start, good looking bloke(ian) and gorgeous girl(sandy) singing song called meet on something,made the other groups that night look a bit silly, and so it was the ledgened of fc was born,(you had to be there)old bill usually raided about 4.00 ,to wop some hippy arse ,so always get out before then,ha happy days ::)

Good morning, advent.

I see you have been with us for some time but this is your first post. Welcome, good sir. Please join me in the Corporation Arms so that we can learn a little more about you. Bring your favourite albums, and whatever tipple you wish.

Happy posting!

Sir Otto

i came home from school last year and just put on Fairport 25th.....
this has influenced me to buy 19 fairport albums and into more trad music like Kate Rusby and so on. I don't listen to any other kind of music any more only folk and a bit of countrey.

It was fate.  Back in the early '70's, I turned on an FM radio for the very first time in my life and I heard Tam Lin.  I was absolutely enchanted, partially because I was a Tolkien addict, so a song about faeries had an immediate appeal.  But the sound of it was like nothing I had ever heard. 

I first saw Fairport at the age of 11 months and 15 days, that was at cropredy  folk festival.
Ifirst remember really seeing them in 1991 cropredy,despite going every year in between.
I got my first Fairport album (the five seasons) in 1992, for Christmas from my mum, it was only the fourteenth CD in the house.

I have been a fan of fairports for as long as I remember, my favourite songs been the wounded whale, and Sloth i also like all the songs and especially the more trad one (except the above)
I admit beeing a geek, but my ambition is and always has been to play on stage at cropredy with them, but i fear DAve Pegg has the upper edge in competition for the bass 'section'. 
Fairport keep it coming

Walking down the snowy Avenue in Gothenburgh in december 1969 I went into a record store, browsed through the new albums and were caught by the fact that this group both played not only electric guitars, bass and drums but also violin. Since I had struggled with all instruments I found it so interesting that I bought the record -"Liege &  Lief" and was hooked.Both by the tunes, the trad.arr. and the band´s own compositions. Not to mention the female singer. Bought the earlier albums as well and FC became MY band. I don´t think I miss any musical output, apart from the bootlegs. Didn´t see them until 1974 but from then on my contact with the music - and sometimes Peggy-  has been rather intense over the years. With the children being born, I didn´t manage the live concerts since they didn´t do Scandinavia that much in the late 80s and 90s. But I´ve introcuced the live band to the family in Denmark 2002 and Sweden 2003 with some success. I´m still the only Fairport Fanatic in the family, though!
Cheers
Staffan

Nice one Staffan, and welcome aboard!

Are you coming over to Cropredy this time?

Cheers

Nick

Well, considering that the Cropredy festival was perfect for selling my dad's business (tape duplication) and also considering that my mum just so happens to be an ex-Fairport singer, I didn't really have a choice about getting into Fairport...  ;D

Of well, it was always fun to go to (usually hot though), and it was quite funny seeing my mother get flustered when one of her fans recognised her!

Jude will be recognised by loads of us this year... hope she doesn't get flustered this time...

Amy ;)

I think she's already flustered at having so much recognition from this website! She keeps fluttering at me, e.g. 'Gosh it's so exciting Neff, all these people actually want to talk to me!', and words to that effect!

 ;D

What do you mean *was*? :-\

Aren't you coming this year?..... :'( :'(

I was talking about in the past... Oh, I see what you mean! :-[ :)

I'll try to come to Cropredy this year, but I'm not sure yet. I've got a lot of things going on all at the same time... And I want to be able to drive myself there!!  ;D ;D

I daresay Mum will drag me along anyway...  ;) :)

Thanks for the welcome Nick. No, there´s no Cropredy for me this year. With my first Cropredy in benefit of the Village Hall roof (?) in 1977 (if I remember correctly) and my latest 1987 - with 1981-84 in between- I think 2007 would fit the sequence.With the swedish crown so weak to the sterling it´ll probably take that time to save up money in order to take the six-person family on the  road. "British Tour 2007" ,eh?
Cheers
Staffan

Looking back (although I didn't realise it at the time) in primary school, we walked into the hall for assembly every day with folk music gently playing in the background. I don't think it was Fairport (more likely The Spinners). The charts at the time contained Glam Rock which I was into and as Glam Rock faded I looked for other rock bands. Tull, Led Zep and Wishbone Ash were my favourites. I guess the combination of folk and rock had been instilled into me. I had heard of Fairport but it wasn't until the late 80's when they supported Tull that I thought I would give them a go. Only sorry that I missed what many of you consider to be the golden era 60's/70's.

I am lucky that most of my favourite bands are still going and long may they continue.

See ya,

Mutley

they played in scarborughs open air theatre in 1987 (i was only very little possibley 2)
It was here that we first found out about cropredy, and since then ive been comin to cropers.
Theyre my top favourite band, and i do think dave pegg is just one of the best players ever, save me of course (lol), and mr. nicol has one of the most relaxing voices ever.

My first introduction to Fairport was Cajun Woman off the Island sampler LP Nice Enough to Eat which my elder brothers had. Then one of them turned up with Babbacombe Lee which was played endlessly. Eventually I bought History.......and then decided I needed all of the original albums that those tracks came from

Because of this Babbacombe Lee is still probably my favourite(whilst acknowledging the historical importance of Liege, Unhalfbricking etc)

And that Nice enough To Eat sampler led me onto a life of listening to Traffic, Free, King Crimson.........and on and on

I was aware of FC in 68-69 (a classmate had WWDOOH), but it wasn't until 1971 that I saw my 1st FC gig & started buying the LPs.  That 1st gig was an open-air recording of the Angel Delight line-up - with Steeleye - in the sand dunes near Pontin's Ainsdale (Southport, Lancs).

 that was filmed by granada, i remember there were a fair amount of high jinks ,was it swarb and simon carried martin carthy off stage while he was still playing ? now thats a show i would pay good money to see reissued
    cheers
       Jim

Would this have been the gig that ended in the infamous Ainsdale Riot??

That student was me!!  :)
I got into fairport mainly through my dad...I grew up listenning to an old, very scratched LP of 'what we did on our holidays'. When I was at college I bought it on cd, discovered that Fairport had done lots of other things since, and ended up going to Cropredy for the first time in 2001. Haven't looked back since.....

I got into Led Zepp after watching a video of Sandra's at a very drunken party....I was transfixed by the size of Robert Plant's package  ;)

Robert Plant's package!!??? Was he filmed on his way to the post office? Are you an envelope spotter, young Nancy? :o

I don't know...youth today ???

 I have no idea what she is talking about  :D

(Nancy, they all think I am a 'nice' woman on here, don't disillusion them!)

However, I do have her to thank for getting me into Fairport for the second time round.

Sandra

 :)Cheers all,
I grew up in the suburbs south of boston-i'm 38 years old and though Boston is a folk mecca it was really through the punk,mod-local bands that I heard fairport!They got it.Transcend genres and gaps.always fairplay when they're in your house!

I got into Fairport as a kid listening with my parents and their friends on our narrowboat(pulled by a horse) on the Shropshire Union canal over 30years ago. Liege and Lief and Babbacombe Lee had a really big effect on me even though I was only about 9 when I first heard them! I used to get very frustrated at School when no one else knew who I was raving about! From Fairport I moved onto Planxty and then Tull- whom I could discuss with my peers!

Tasha.... please join us in the Corporation Arms and join the Narrowbaots Club then tell us all about your time on the Shroppie!!

Amethyst ;)

Saw them many years ago while at University in Exeter (early 70's). Liege and Lief was one of the first albums I bought, and many others followed.

Fast forward to 2000 or so when my brother-in-law said "Hey, there's an English band playing at the bar where I work". Guess who? (No, not the Guess Who - they're a different band). Sat right up front, had a blast, sang along, bought the T-shirt and the CD, and have done every year they came back to Massachusetts.

But no Blackthorne Tavern on the US gig list this Autumn, so I guess I'll just have to go somewhere else coz I'm not missing them!!

Let's hear it for my first post!

Steve

Hello Steve and welcome aboard!

There's quite a contingent from across the pond on the board now.

Any chance you'll be joining us at Cropredy?

Ask Colin for the key to the pub then you can pop in and tell us all about it.

Cheers

Nick

Nick,

I dearly wish I could, but with a job, a US non-folkie wife, and three kids I fear it's out of the question.

But the key to the pub sounds good!

Steve

About 14 years ago I had a knock on the door at around 9.30pm. It was a mate of mine who was having a spot of bother with his aging Renault 11. He asked, begged and then convinced me (with the promice of beer) to go round and see if I could fix it.
Things were not going well and it was looking like it was going to be a long night, so he went and got the cd player and set it up in the garage to help pass the time. He put Unhalfbricking on and left me to get on with fixing the car. After the car was fixed and running again, I asked what the music was, he told me and I've been a fan ever since!!

However, every time I here that album I'm left thinking of crappy french cars in freezing cold garages!!

Never mind, been going to Cropredy ever since, best weekend of the year.

Our group are the ones on the church wall just round the corner from the Red Lion pub. 

In 1969  Isaw them in concert London cant remember exactly where, but I remember thinking brilliant ,saw them again in 1970  playing at the isle of wight festival coming on stage before tiny Tim.Continued  to see them whenever was possible, took my partner to see them in 1976 and we have travelled many miles to see them since.

I got into Fairport in April this year I guess, my dad has always had lots of folk LP's and cassettes lying around, and while I've been listening mostly to American folk/country-rock like The Band, Dylan, Neil Young, CSN&Y and The Dead, as well as Jethro Tull (which seemed to be the way into FC for many), I was aware of Fairport, and was kind of interested in checking it out. So, one day I found an OLD, worn, cassette copy of Liege & Lief in a drawer and put it on.
I immediately fell for Richards guitar work, Swarb's fiddle playing, and last but not least, Sandy's ethereal voice. After that I've bought Liege & Lief, Full House, Unhalfbricking and What We Did On Our Holidays, all of them superb albums, although Liege & Lief and Full House (the British equivalent to The Band's "Brown album"?) remain my favourites. They're on my top 10 list along with Tulls Heavy Horses and Songs From The Wood and The Bands best albums.
Right now I'm drooling at the first three Planxty albums (after finding "The Planxty Collection" on LP, impossible to get hold of in Norway though), but what Fairport albums would anyone recommend for me to buy after those four I already have?

Back in the early seventies a school friend played me some Fotheringay and Fairport's "History Of". I didn't listen closely enough and just thought they were a folk group. I was (and still am) very into Tull and at that time there was no connection between the groups - I judged how good a group was by the length of the guitar solos...what a prat  :o

My friend went to Saint Andrews university and invited me up to see the "Nine" band. I was just completely knocked out - especially when they played "Sloth". These guys could really play - but didn't take themselves too sseriously- especially when Swarb broke a string and sang a very dirty song while it was replaced  ;D

The rest, as they say, is history.

Jack O Diamonds you have my deepest respect. Fairport live in Hyde Park in '68. Fantastic. What did they play? Cocker Freeman, you and I both must have danced down the isles together  at some London theatre. Theatre Royal Drury Lane was a favourite Fairport tour stop. Great gigs. I'd have loved to have been at the famous Rainbow gig. What happened to the cardboard cutouts?

Dad's cosuin is Chris Leslie. Before he joined I hadn't heard of Fairport :-[ but now I'm a huge fan!

Anthony

Naaah... definitely not 1970... Fairport did appear in 1969 (the "Dylan" IOW Fest) but I'm pretty sure T Tim only appeared - nay tip toed through the tulips - in 1970...

Indeed it was.

And DV - there was some upset later in the evening.  Once the recording had been completed, Fairport & Steeleye continued playing while the cameras etc were being stowed away.  When, eventually, the time came for the generators to be switched off, there was a fair amount of jeering, booing and slow handclapping... I remember some local presshound describing it as a "riot", but I don't think it was anything of the sort.  Mind you, a small amount of jeering etc was still going on when I left to get the last train back to Crosby.

PT

PS - I bet Pontin's guests have never had such good live entertainment!

 

I'd been aware of FC for some time, as a friend of mine apparently bought his bass guitar from Ashley Hutchings and kept going on about Fairport and the Albion Band and other folk stuff. I was into early music, especially Phil Pickett, and my friend told me that Pickett also played occasionally with the Albion Band - however, I still didn't take the hint that here was something I might enjoy, and carried on with the early music. But the folk stuff was in the air, so to speak, and it was only a matter of time...

Then my brother-in-law asked me to get him the History of FC cd for his birthday a couple of years ago. So I bought it, played it, and kept it! Had to go and get my brother-in-law another copy, as nothing would part me from it. Even worse, the second copy cost me nearly twice as much as the first as the sale I bought it in had finished! Since then I've been gradually discovering the fantastic 30-odd year back catalogue, and this year I'm going to Cropredy for the first time (with my brother-in-law) and can't wait!

Cheers,
Rob  ;)

No respect, please... I'm just bleedin' old! The set? Gawd knows... it would have had Reno Nevada, Morning Glory, I Don't Know Where I Stand, East West (great Thommo soloing..and 'im only a bairn!), Some Sweet Day... curiously little that ever really appeared on an LP... other than "Heyday" which is a pretty good reflection of that set. Gone, Gone, Gone... Great band!

I saw FC at another 1968 gig at Parliament Hill Fields in London... FC playing with the fantastic (at that time anyway) Jefferson Airplane... Skinheads tried to break it up! Ah the good old days!

Jefferson Airplane as well!!!! You !!!!!

I went to Knebworth one year especially to see JA. I was a huge Grace Slick fan in the '70's. 10 minutes into their set they announced tht Grace wasn't with them. Seems she has a bust up in Germany and flew home. Unless Fairport get her as a guest, I'll never get the chance.

I'm another who arrived, at least in part, due to the Tull connection...

As a child I'd always enjoyed folk music - it got used a lot in "movement" classes at primary school, as well as in various children's programmes. When I started really developing my own taste in music from about the age of 14 I got into prog and symphonic rock, mainly by way of Mike Oldfield (about whose music I became near-obsessive), and it was no coincidence that he used a lot of folky influences.

It was about this time that the Tull compilation "Original Masters" was released on CD, and since I was aware that Tull had connections to concept albums and prog rock, I bought it (I was also intrigued by the image of Ian Anderson in full one-legged flute-playing mode on the front - I probably still thought that his name was Jethro Tull back then). I found the music interesting, although I was not blown away, but I investigated further and discovered the full-on folky Tull albums like Songs From The Wood and Heavy Horses, and also learned the names of the current lineup - including, of course, one Dave Pegg.

Some time later I was browsing through the handful of LP racks in my local library when I came across Gladys' Leap. I'd heard vaguely of Fairport Convention, knew that they were of a similar vintage to Oldfield, Floyd, Yes et al, and I just liked their name, because I knew that if I mentioned it at school, people would just stare blankly at me. I looked at the back cover, and as well as the promisingly folky-sounding track names, there was a picture of Dave Pegg. I paid my 50p, borrowed the LP for a week, saw the band live for the first time at the Barbican Centre in 1988-ish, and about 15 years later, here we are...

Ol' Grace was always kinda temperamental... one of the reasons she was so good! Absolutely loathe the J Starship latter day manifestations but I always associate very early Fairport with Joni Mitchell's first album and Jefferson Airplane... Surrealistic Pillow...  8) Cooooool Maaaaan

....don't get him started on decimalisation..... ;D
SK

He He He... I never allowed them to innoculate me for decimalisation... Hey... Skirkatola... you Cropredy bound?

Mr Kirk has been in bed for a while now, but I can confirm that he will be at Croppers (on Saturday only), cos he's coming in my motor. There'll be me, Skirky, Mrs Skirky(.)(.) and a coupla dogs. We all look forward to meeting you Sir Jack.

A vile calumny - I've been in (ano)the(r) pub. He's essentially correct though. Cats and bags at the ready! ;)
Cheers
Skirky

I know what you mean about Starship. However, I still play Blows against the Empire a bit. That intro to Earth Mother sounds awfully familiar. Baron Von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun , great title. There was one album with a fantastic starfield inner sleeve. I spent many pre-decimal times (pounds shillings pence) exploring the options on that one.
Anyone want to start a new thread, best Fairport album cover? My choice, Rising for the Moon

Your wish is my command.  New thread started.

I got into Fairport, first when I was still at school, (with no money to buy records)

then after my husband died (1997) I had to sort out his 4000 + CDs and just couldn't part with the FC albumns.

It still took a long time before I could really listen to music at all........ But finally I did and it was MOTL that captured me and brought me back to music (on In Real Time..studio version).

So I guess I've been into Fairport for years really, but as an obsession  ;)  more recently.

Mic  :)

In the beginning was a sampler album called "Bumpers" with "Walk Awhile" on it, as well as "Hazy Jane" from Nick Drake, Just the odd few great tracks, indeed.  Was this the best compilation ever?

Traffic: Every Mother's Son
Bronco: Love
Spooky Tooth: I Am the Walrus
Quintessence: Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Gauranga
Mott the Hoople: Thunderbuck Ram
Jethro Tull: Nothing to Say
Jimmy Cliff: Going Back West
Blodwyn Pig: Send Your Son to Die
Dave Mason: Little Woman
John & Beverley Martyn: Go Out and Get It
King Crimson: Cadence & Cascade
If: Reaching Out on All Sides
Free: Oh I Wept
Nick Drake: Hazey Jane
Fairport Convention: Walk Awhile
Cat Stevens: Maybe You're Right
Renaissance: Island
Fotheringay: The Sea [Sandy Denny]
Clouds: Take Me to Your Leader 

I really cannot remember where I saw FC in 1971, but can remember seeing them at the Anvil in 2002 - they wuz grate! That's the concert out on a DVD, which I of course bought.

I went back and bought a load of their albums and found that I enjoyed a lot of what was there.

Saw them again a few months back, also at the Anvil, when it was obvious that all kinds of things were just not right. Wendy and I left, vastly disappointed by a poor show. Then I read of Peggys divorce etc and things fell into place.

However, we decided to 'do' Cropredy this year, and, ignoring plumbing disasters that meant we didn't actually get there until Saturday at 2-ish, had a great time.

LIke others here, I have an extensive selection of old rubbish music, garnered from stints in the states as well as in Blighty. Stackridge Lemon were a favourite of mine, not a few echos of whom I head this weekend.

I'm also the proud posessor of the Trousers album "Mad Nelly Rides Again", which, transitioned to CD, I now give out to friends and family. I have mention of Trousers on my website (www.reboot.demon.co.uk) and get an amazing amount of mail about them. I, too, have a copy of "Blows Against The Empire" thanks to a misspent youth....

Incidentally I also picked up Chris Leslie's solo album "Dancing Days". It seems (according to an uncle) that he may be a distant relative, for which I'll just be grateful.

Erm, luckily grew up with a mad Uncle we would see at weekends, now sadly departed.  This man had THE largest record collection ever.  Mainly Country (dont laugh), but included lots of Johnny Cash, Elvis, and I do recall a couple of early FC albums and a Richard Thompson or two.

Fast forward a few years, and at about 13 or 14 I suppose listened to some Richard Thompson (not forgetting Linda) - didnt make the connection though.

At about 18 years old had a friend who lent me some Nick Drake on vinyl - checked over the sleevenotes and started seeing names I'd seen before - Richard Thompson for one, but also Simon, Peggy and Danny Thompson - did a bit more digging - found the connection between Danny T and John Martyn (GOD!) - and of course the link back between the track Solid Air and Nick Drake - connecting the whole lot of course, together with another favourite band of mine (the Floyd) was Joe Boyd.

I love all these links I find, and are often the basis of how my record collection expands.  That year got hold of History of Fairport CD on tape and was hooked.  Since then have been steadily building my FC, RT, John Martyn etc collections.  Went to Croppers in 1997 first time, and unfortunately not been since until last weekend.

There you go, in a nutshell!

ps - 33 now and still going strong.  I must admit to sticking to the early stuff (basically up to Full House), but in recent months have been drawn more and more to the later recordings.  at 1997 Cropredy I didnt really have the stomach for things like John Gaudie, Wood and the Wire, Rocky Road etc - but now loving them - am I getting old?!

I am fairly new to Fairport.  Saturday was the first time I have seen them live.  Some years ago  I bought "an introduction to" and loved it.  From this album I went out and bought virtually every Sandy Denny album that I could get my grubby hands on, Liege and Leaf came a bit later and I was hooked.  

In some ways I am lucky as I am still on a voyage of discovery. There are so many songs that I have not heard, and intend to make sure I do.  

I was brought up with it really. Parents dragged me to see various fairport gigs and to cropredy at the age of 4 and have been going ever since - the influence parents have on you!!!!

Great compilation... as were "You Can All Join In", "Nice Enough to Eat", and "El Pea"... Island really was the UK's answer to Elektra - formidably talented acts given wide degrees of artistic freedom... For Tim Buckley, Love, Judy Collins, The Doors, Tom Rush, David Peel and the Lower East Side, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band etc Island had Fairport, Traffic, Mott the Hoople, Tull, King Crimson, Nick Drake...

The Basing Street studios were also a very cool place to hang out when you were 16 and grooving around, baby! (takes long toke at sadly imaginary splifette)

Friend who was in to them at high school lent me a CD. Since then I've taken up mandolin and we've started a folk group, well, I say group - it's just us two in it really.  Classic stuff. ;)

Good for you Nic! Check out some Swarbrick/Carthy albums for inspiration... also get hold of a bass player and a drummer and go electric!

Good luck!!

 :)

Got a Carthy album at Croppers - lovely stuff. As for going electric...we'll see

First post here, but nice to see SKirky here (from the sometimes active Delphi Spirit of the West board.).

Anyway, this is the story..Back in 1985 or so I was listening mostly to metal and prog stuff, with some Roy haprer and John Martyn for light relief.  Then out of curiosity and on hearing he was England's greatest guitarist, I bought a copy of RT's Hand of Kindness.  That led to other Rt albums and of course that led on to Fairport.  First FC album I bought was a secondhand vinyl copy of "What We Did.."

I was helped along in my growing appreciation of FC by my one time neighbour, Mr. Andrew Cunningham, who persuaded me to go to Cropredy and sundry other Fairport concerts starting in 1988.  Since then I;ve seen FC and related artists on zillions of occasions.  last time I saw Fairport was in vancouver on the XXXV tour - Peggy was in a terrible mood in the second half of the show due to some **** at customs (every visiting band is treated like they are Courtney Love by Canadian customs)  but it was great to see the Chaps again.

I got into Fairport purely by INSTINCT.

While passing a secondhand record shop , in 1974, I was drawn to an intriguing looking cover.

It had a family tree of a band or bands , I didn't know then, and a rosette you could actually move.
Of course it was THE HISTORY OF FAIRPORT CONVENTION album
So my instinct told me," If these people put this much detail and effort into their cover,its worth finding out do they carry it on into their music."

Brought it home, put it on , absolutely amazing stuff. :o

Instantly took to , the Book song, Fotheringay and of course it was my first introduction to Who knows where the time goes.

I still have that secondhand album , and I still remember the day I bought it. :'(

Never looked back. Bought everything they have done since.

Fairport albums were around in our early 70's student flats - not that I was ever a student, I was an engineering apprentice but hung out with student friends. My (now) wife Mary shared with 5 other would be teachers in Sheffield and I can remember "What We Did", "Leige and Lief" and "Morris On" being permanently on the DANSETTE record player.
We first saw Fairport at Sheffield University Union 1975 or early 76.
I can vividly remember Swarb prancing about wearing denim bib and braces with a ciggy hanging out of his mouth. The other thing about that gig was that someone standing above the band on the gallery dropped a glass bottle onto Sandy's head - she was taken off stage for quite a while but did come back on apparantly not seriosly hurt.

Seen them live several times, the worst of which was Cambridge Corn Exchange New Year's Eve 1983 or possibly 84 - they were so loud and rocky it was seriously painful and we left early.
Last concert we saw was the April this year accoustic gig at Sheffield Memorial Hall - excellent.

In the late 80's running the Cartwheel Folk Club in Sheffield we got to know Whippersnapper pretty well, their first couple of gigs with Swarb and then later without him - Ask Chris Leslie about the Portrait stunt we pulled on him.

Always felt at home with Fairport and was totally blown away with Saturday night at Cropredy, not to mention the rest of the weekend.

Pete
 

It was 1970 I think, but maybe '71. Fairport was playing in Hungary with Sandy, and me and my friend got to talk to them somehow. There wasn't much happening in Hungary those days, we used to go to the Jazz festival in Prague to get our kicks. But Fairport was something utterly different and we fell in love with their music. They gave us a lift back to Budapest after the concert and I still cherish the photo's I have with Sandy and of Dave. My friend escaped from Hungary in '71, me in '72. I've seen FC in Holland several times in after that, lost them for a while and found them again in Amsterdam a 4-5 years ago. Been to Cropredy twice and I hope that the spirit of Cropredy will survive.....

altogether now......"oh what a time you had down by the daniube,eating your goulash and ecaping from communism"apologies to a mr pegg

Early Eighties I recorded a song that struck my youthful heart ("My God" by Tull - heard of them before on this topic) from the radio. Friday Rock Show I think - thank you Tommy Vance! My friends listened to the song and thought it was probably Jethro Tull. Scoot forward to the point where I could afford tapes, and I met a girl at a bedsit in Newcastle. She had "Aqualung" on and I recognised the song on side two - My God! Talked to her all night - partially to listen to the album  ::). Bought several Tull albums, then had the good fortune to move in with Nick who bought their entire back catalogue - I was hooked.
Saw Jethro Tull many times in the late eighties, then one of our friends desperately wanted to go to a two day festival in Oxfordshire starring most of Jethro Tull. August 1990 dawned and a group of us turned up with a borrowed tent. Then again, and again and again.....
Early on we got rained on (1991 or 1992?) and so we bought our leather hats from one of the stalls, then we made cloaks and waterproofed them. This made us capable of staying entirely dry through the worst rains over the years. We grew up, got old, got kids, got chairs (very old!) and still keep coming back in variable numbers.
I'm hooked and love the music - one of us hates folk music, camping and any time away from internet access, but still turns up - must be out wit and charm  ???

"altogether now......"oh what a time you had down by the daniube,eating your goulash and ecaping from communism"apologies to a mr pegg" from Jim
 :) :-[ Didn't think many remember this song, not one to be played at on festivals or concerts I guess. The goulash communism had it's uses though, otherwise I would have had to discover FC in the west  :)

Zsuzsa

 it's almost a quote from"hungarian rhapsody" from the rosie album,but it doesnt say owt about escaping communismit goes"eating our goulash and drinking our wine"
sorry to mess you about, but we are glad to have you here

yeh, I know  :), I just followed you on in the same spirit. It's nice to be on "talkawhile".
Zsuzsa

Has anyone checked out the very end of the fade-out of this tune? A fantastic Trevor Lucas moment that almost justifies the songs inclusion on the 'Rosie' record....Go on....crank it up now. It's wonderful!

best of order gentlemen please ,yes we know what he says but his excuse for such language is that he was from a penal colony and they know no better

that is quite amazing!!!

could do with a few more observations from you Zsuzsa

mik

It goes somthing like this;
Top 40
Pop music
Rock music
Quo, Floyd, etc
Roy Harper
Led Zep
Four Symbols
Battle Of Evermore
Sandy Denny
Fairport
Always thought Sandy and Fairport brought the best out of each other. Never really got into Fairport without her though Sloth is something special. Cropredy 2004 was the first time I'd seen Fairport live and Sloth was awesome.
Being a big fan of Roy Harper and listening to Sandy and Fairport got me into other folk too;
Eric Bogle's No Mans's Land is so moving. No one I chatted to at Cropredy had heard of the Tannahill Weavers but they are another favourite (in fact I'd suggest a good band for Cropredy next year).
Thats enough waffling.
Cheers, Nigels.

Amazing the number of people who got into Fairport because of "Sloth" - still don't understand the song or the title though  :o

What do you think was the best "Sloth" - recorded and live?

It was the summer of '97. My wife had traveled East to visit her Dad for a few days and I was at home on a Saturday evening wondering what to do. The newspaper read -"Fairport Convention-Aladdin Theater-Portland, Oregon-USA- Tonight". I had heard of this band but had never listened to any of their music or knew anything about them. So I went alone. Take a chance. Four guys walked out with fiddles, guitars and chairs. They told stories, joked, and played a style of music I had never heard before. What I noticed mostly about this band was that they really seemed to enjoy what they were doing. I ran out and purchased "Who Knows Where the Time Goes". Since, I have accumulated twelve FC CD's. We went to our first Cropredy Festival in '01 and had the good fortune to camp next to and meet Nick. We haven't missed a festival since.

johnallen

Already posted on here, but been having a think about it. 

In addition to the reasons I have given already, I think that Fairport was in the blood a lot earlier.  Was telling my mother about Cropredy and in particular Morris On / Hutch and all that.  She is no music freak but she did remind me that my very first 45 single I bought as a child of about 6, with my pocket money, was All Around My Hat by Steeleye Span.  That obviously set my wiring for the next 25 years!

In addition, strangely, good mate of mine at College, who was from Carlisle, was good family friends with Maddy Prior.  In fact his father, who is a Doctor, delivered one of her babies.

johanna/ulla said her Biology teacher got her into it.  Strangely, so did mine.  Well, this was a few years after I'd left school, and I was already doing Morris - so he suggested that I ought to see them.  Went along to Guildford & thoroughly enjoyed them (this was before Chris Leslie).

Mark

I can't remember why but I bought my Brother the "History of Fairport Convention" in the mid 70's and naturally recorded it to a dodgy old reel to reel machine before handing it over. I loved it, so gradually bought the albums, most second hand from a very early Virgin shop in the haymarket, Bristol. - (also bought Blodwyn Pig, T.Rex albums second hand and have still got 'em, they used to stamp them as 2nd hand too, presumably so you couldn't tape them and re-sell.) The reel to reel of "History" has long since disapppeared as has the machine but I remember it was a good compilation.
I then saw FC live in 1973/74/erm...76/77/78/79 - loads anyway...wherever was within striking distance. I loved the Rowland/Swarb/Nicol/Pegg line-up, they always had a great time and they were fantastic gigs. A memorable one was at Dudley where the management turned the lights on at the end of the evening (presumably had over-run) but the band still did a hatful of encores.
I was also into the punk scene of the late 70's but still went along to FC gigs (also Rory Gallagher/Bad Company/Led Zep/Clapton etc), I could never dismiss any good music at that time (or now) despite derision from my mates!
Apart from a period in the 80's when I lost touch a bit (Didn't even realise Cropredy was going 'till '89! astoundingly amazing, I know! and what a shame!!!- I've attended every year for the last ten years from when my daughter was 5 -  that's since '95)
Thank you Fairport Convention - all members past and present - for some wonderful music/memories and here's to loads more!

  As a wee small boy I used to hear a lot of Incredible String Band due to one of my sisters,and I suppose that planted the seed....
  Veered more towards Zep and Sabbath in teenage years,although went with a couple of school mates to see Steeleye at Hammersmith Odeon(I think) in about'76,but didn't encounter Fairport until starting college in '79.....new town,new friends,new music  :)
   One mate was a Fairport freak (and is these days a damn good brewer!! )and Nine quickly became a favourite album.....along with the Incred's which I'd since bought myself.Dave and I first went to Cropredy in...er...was it '80 or '81? Camping by the railway bridge.Been going since......missed about 5 over the years,I suppose,although the Eighties in general are a bit of a blur.........  ;)
   My daughters have been going since birth and these days are persuading their friends along too.At the V festival last year,on the second day I overheard one say to the other "not as good as Cropredy so far,is it?" to immediate agreement  :)
   All being well,we'll all still be going when I'm in my blurry eighties    :)
Better stop there........Fairport on the radio in a few mins!    ;D ;D ;D
 Cheers,
Mike

Can't believe I haven't posted in this thread yet, it's been going for 5 months...

My folks came back from the Farewell, Farewell festival in 1979, but I don't even remember them going. They showed me the programme, but I wasn't really interested.

In the mid-80s I was exploring their album collection and noticed lots of FC albums along with lots of Steeleye Span. Listened to a few of them and made a compilation tape, which was mainly Babbacombe Lee and Gladys' Leap. Didn't really like the earlier stuff.

Then Red and Gold came out, which at the time was wonderful to me (some of it still is). I then bought Expletive and went off to Uni.

In December last year, after about 12 years of everything except Fairport (despite my folks lending me various new CDs) I decided to go to Cropredy, came across Talkawhile, and started to really listen to FC. Copied lots of the aforementioned LPs onto the computer, and learnt to love much of the older stuff (but still no time for most of the Dylan covers).

Now going to see Phil Beer, Fairport Acoustic, Show of Hands and David Hughes up to the end of November, despite having hardly any spare time. I think it's the eco-warrior in me that makes folk so attractive; real music for real people (or something like that).

Hey Mikemush, which Hammersmith Odeon concert did you see Steeleye at? The one where they dropped fivers from the ceiling? I was at the one after that. No fivers though :(

Paul

Hi Paul
   I don't remember any fivers,but there was a bit of Ian Dury style "Oi Oi" calling bouncing round the place between songs..........never did know why,though  ???

After a seventies-full of prog and heavy rock I had been dabbling on the Celtic fringes (with the likes of Planxty and Alan Stivell) in search of something I could really call my own. Working one summer in Jersey I was lent a cassette version of an album called Liege and Lief, and gave it the premier-with-volume-up on the walkman as I ambled one sunny afternoon around St. Helier. I still dip my toe in the celtic fringes - Silly Wizard, Tri Yann, Dan Ar Bras etc - but once I had been "Tam-linned" in the Channel Islands and especially once I'd been to my first Cropredy (1986) there was only one band in it, and has been ever since.

I "discovered" Fairport just a few years ago.

For many years, my brothers interest in Ralph McTell's music had rubbed off on me. For him, it was what he could play, for me it was the songs and lyrics (I don't play - at least not any reasonable definition of the word - Quite a literal case of "the right hand not knowing what the left hands doing" unfortunately!).

A few years ago, my exploration of other folk music bought me across the recent incarnations of Fairport. Immediately I was hooked - on the likes of "Close to the Wind" and "The Wood and the Wire"

The "through the ages" approach of the 30th Anniversary box set gave me a deeper insight into the bands history. Whilst my favorite Fairport lineups are the more recent ones, I can't help feeling that I really missed out by not paying attention in the Swarb era.

SteveK

When I went off to college in (cough) 1975, I was already drifting away from the mainstreamchart music etc and met friends who had already been listening to/seen Fairport.....I heard Rosie and Rising for the Moon.........and then went to see them - first live gig ever - at DeMontfort Hall in Leicester in the autumn of '75........... :)

My dad introduced me to FC, he dragged me and my brother off to Cropredy one year, can't remember why. But I remember not wanting to leave every time I've been since, and I think this was the year that got me truly hooked. I kind of got interested in one of the people in the party I was with, and FC music brought back memories of Cropredy, so.. it just went from there, really. I've been going since I was about 10 though. Now I'm 15 and can't wait for the next..
Currently addicted to The Youngest Daughter, Dangerous, The Golden Glove, Walk Awhile.. and so on.

Leila

When I bought my first Fairport album (and in my opinion, still the best, even though some others have come close): 'What We Did On Our Holidays' (2nd: Liege and Lief, 3rd: Gladys' Leap')
Lots and lots of concerts and several Cropredy's later and I'm still here - so they must be doing something right!

KeithP

Usually I used to ring the doorbell...................................................................................hee hee hee

I've been longing to say that

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Jude

nice one jude!  ;D ;D ;D

I've been waiting for Simon to say something along the lines of - It was his ball.  ???

Nah. Simon had a key!

JUde

Key of " D" perhaps as all good folkies should know!!!! ;D ;D

Saw them back in the 80's opening for Tull, thought they were awesome then.  Then my band opened up for them in Cleveland
in sept. completely blown away by the set and now I cannot get enough of them.
www.cuyuga.net

I found out about them at a Grateful Dead concert in '85.  There were a bunch of flyers passed around informing about Fairport reforming and how they were "Britain's Grateful Dead." 

Sounded interesting. 

At the time, you could not find a Fairport album to save your life in Knoxville.  So, after about a year(!), I finally found a copy of MOVEABLE FEAST.  It sounded okay, but not very much like the Dead.  Coincidentally, a couple of days later I was in Ohio (to see the Dead again!) and picked up a ragged copy of UNHALFBRICKING (the elephant cover).  Again, didn't sound much like the Dead, but much better than FEAST.  A couple of months later I heard that the RTB was coming to town.  I went, hoping to hear Genesis Hall, never having heard any of his catalog.  Instead, I got Calvary Cross, which totally blew my mind and changed my life forever! 

Shortly afterward, the Hannibal re-issues started appearing and I went to town on them!  Within about six months, I had all of it; Sandy, Richard and Fairport.  Knowing my serious appetite, my local used record dealer began finding the other unre-issued stuff for me.

The similarity of Fairport to the Dead is pretty intangible, but it exists.  I think it must be the connection fans feel with the bands - a shared perspective or some rubbish like that.  Honestly, I feel Fairport has been able to retain a more genuine manifestation of that perceived relationship.  I never had an opportunity to have beer with Garcia after a show and I've never had to worry about getting my head blown off with a bottle-rocket at Cropredy!

Back in the 70's thanks to one of my older sisters,

Got sidetracked by many other music genres but was reminded of them by daughters boyfriend

now busy kicking myself for so many wasted years

rachel

Yeah Marcus!! :D 

Unbelievably, I missed them opening for Tull but was turned onto them by my dear friend Ron from Israel, who goes to Cropredy and has met some of you.  :D

Now he's thrilling me with the sweet sounds of Steeleye Span! 

Annette

p.s.  You were fab that night, Marcus! :D

I was 14 in 1974 and bought the live album on a whim whilst in HMV in Manchester.  The first few bars of Matty Groves and I was hooked.  It's funny, every time I hear that song it seems as fresh as it did then and I listen to the words like I'm hearing the story for the first time.  I think great narrative is one element of many FC songs, traditional and band written.  I naturally progressed to the studio albums and have never not listened to them since.  A lot of my other musical interests are classical, Vaughan Williams, Tallis, but Fairport are very special to me and their music is right up there with the best and would comprise a large chunk of my Desert Island Discs in the unlikely event of my being asked to participate.

School trip to York 1969, sitting on Castle Green listening to someone's tinny transistor playing "Si Tu.." The media get it right sometimes. Never looked back.

Saw them late 80s at Bath Theatre Royal. I was 17 and was persuaded to go by a friend who thought they were one of those bands that we ought to go and see because they were meant to be good. Enjoyed it a lot, then went down to Bath library's awesome record section and discovered Expletive Delighted, Unhalfbricking, Pour Down Like Silver, Morris On, Liege and Lief, Flittin, Across a Crowded Room.... started to get the big picture.....went to Cropredy in 91... never looked back.

Like a lot of things musical, I guess it was all Steve Goodchild and Nick Michell's fault. If Nick hadn't booked Downes & Beer for the Raven Folkclub, and Steve hadn't dragged me along to see them back in 1982, I might never have found I really liked that sort of music.

One of the traditions at the Raven was rounding off the evening on singers nights with "The Farndon Philharmonic" (ie most of the performers present)  leading everyone in singing Meet on the Ledge. Certain of the regulars, which included Doc Mahone  were big Fairport and Richard Thompson fans (I heard Doc sing The Great Valerio long before I heard either Linda or Richard sing it), and hence off I went and bought The History of Fairport Convention and Small Town Romance...and the rest, as others have also said, is history. The world seemed to come full circle when 18 months ago I sat and thoroughly enjoyed Full House's complete performance of Babbacombe Lee at the Chester Folk Festival, reflecting that they had been talking about doing it for 20 years and now finally had.

Having said that, it was the Arizona Smoke Revue that made the biggest impression on me, which of course led (eventually) to the Phil Beer Band and Show of Hands.

Zsuzsa: Your memory is playing tricks on you. The only trip we made to you plucky Magyars back then was in '71 with the four-piece Angel Delight line-up. In the Free Reed Swarb boxset, there's a handwritten itinerary of the 12/14 gigs we did reproduced. Certainly Sandy wasn't there - it was very much a boys' day out and has happy and exciting memories for us all! But I do think FC went back during my sabbatical for a summer festival (74 or 75?) so that must have been when you had the pictures taken with Miss Denny....

Well I guess I've always been a folkie - I have happy memories as a toddler (almost) and a kid going to folk festivals with my parents.  Sidmouth, Towersey, even Cambridge one year but that was too big for me and I got scared when I got lost one day!  Towersey was my favourite.  As far as I recall we never did Cropredy though.  Then I got into Heavy Metal, as youngsters are wont to do...  And the whole folk thing went dormant for many years.

Then a couple of years ago I joined a jazz band when I picked up the flute again after a 10-year layoff...  One of the other members introduced me to Jethro Tull, which obviously I took to rather quickly!  There's the Fairport connection!  And conincidentally my parents "dragged" me to see Fairport at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, which would have been the "Wood and the Wire" tour.  It's all snowballed from there...

Got to Cropredy last year, and that really was a dream come true, my two favourite bands ever on the same bill, and some new favourites to learn about too (Oysterband particularly)...

Have to admit I personally prefer the newer stuff to the older stuff.  Diligently listening to "Liege and Lief" at the minute but struggling with it.

_{PS.  How come the spell checker doesn't recognise "Cropredy"?}

Always been a folkiie myself - well, since the mid 60's anyway.  I was a huge Dylan fan and interested in his unrecorded work after snagging a copy of the "Great White Wonder."  Found out from a knowledgeable record store employee about Fairport's Dylan covers, so I checked them out.  I lost touch in the 70's until I heard of Sandy's passing - then started listening again.  Ever since, I've been a fan - especially of the Denny/Thompson incarnation of the group.

Ken

A borrowed CD , but really when I went, on the spur of a Friday afternoon moment, to meet some friends at Cropredy 1994. Will never forget Roy Harper'd haunting voice floating across the darkened campsite, as I put up my tent and then wandered over to the arena. I fell in love with Cropredy and Fairport from that weekend on. Like the festivals of old, hippy times. Friendly, rural, bohemian, something very olde English, but also very 60's peace and love as well. Getting back to the land and all that.  Beer, great music, acoustic guitars late into the night outside the tents. And then, the horrible shock of driving back along the modern day M40, stopping at some awful service station and meeting some football yobs on their way to the Charity Shield match at Wembley. Expensive Burger King and flashing fruit machines, after all that great veggy food from the stalls and the canoe club breakfasts!  Cropredy and Fairport have been an important part of my life ever since. Their performance at the 30th. anniversary at Cropredy 1997 was the best for me- better than anything I've seen by such "heavyweights" as Led Zeppelin and the Stones in the past. Spiritually uplifting; even life-affirming!

When we got invited to join some friends at Cropredy just a few years ago in 2000.  Unfortunately, couldn't make that year but started of with a couple of CD's and we are still catching up! 

First Cropredy was 2001.  The first night, the 9th, was my birthday and the last night was our wedding anniversary.  We celebrated with champagne to Meet on the Ledge and haven't looked back since.

I'm still getting to grips with it all!

Ana

Skirky made me do it.

Never mind James.

 Get your own back.

Make him babysit the twins.

But tell him you've lost the instruction book that came with them

 ;D ;D

Jude

Blimey, I mean really, how difficult could it be.... :o
Now, the question is, how do we get them into Fairport?
SK

hmmmm.......if memory serves.........drooling,incontinent,uncoordinated........do Fairport really want banjo players?     ;)

Fairport hmmm……… Was the summer of ‘69 & at 16 I’m free from O’levels & waiting to start the 6th form. A mate of mine has a Lambretta & he suggests we visit some of his mates in Noss Mayo. Anyhow we’re sitting on the beach & someone puts on this LP & the 1st track is all about Mary Queen of Scots: Sandy’s “Fotheringhay”. I was hooked on Sandy’s voice & RT’s guitar. I then realised I’d seen a local band play “Meet on the Ledge” a while before.

6th form beckoned & very quickly got into the underground music scene at the Van Dike Club in Plymouth. “Unhalfbricking” & then “Liege & Lief” blew us all away. But still no Fairport gig. And then horror of horrors Ashley & Sandy leave.

Meet my wife to be in the 6th form & eventually both of us end up at Birmingham Uni. Live in a house, which resembled “The Angel”, with fleas that could jump light years! Now RT has left & all we have to mourn is “Full House”. Again see lots of bands: Steeleye Span & The Albion Band amongst them.

Buy “Rising for the Moon” & eventually book to see Fairport but my Mother comes to visit so have to cancel.

The sad news of Sandy’s death means I’ll never see her play. In 1979 I eventually get to see the band in Horsham where we now live. They played in the old theatre, which is now a Marks & Spencer store. Every time I go in there I can picture Simon, Peggy, Swarb & Bruce in what is now the food hall! 

Don’t get to go to Cropredy for many reasons (this year it clashed with my daughter’s wedding). In 1987 I see them at Dorking which was fantastic as we had front of house seats. A bit wary of the new boys but Maart & Ric were 1st rate! We took along some friends who were sadly not impressed: too loud! I thought it was great! The “Hiring Fair” is now a favourite up there with Fotheringhay. Since then we bundle along as often as possible & also to lots of other “dinosaurs” from the 60’s & 70’s music scene. Doesn’t John Mayall look fit! Hoping to get to Cropredy this year.

You have to get to Cropredy!! ;D

'twas Late November (!) 1988 when first I got into Fairport, via a Dutch magazine article on Sandy Denny in "OOR". The description of the music, though I didn't know it, appealed to me, and strangely my first purchase was a bold one - the Sandy Denny/Who Knows Where The Time Goes 4LP box set. I was hooked immediately. What an eye opener; I had a musical coming-home. Evenings with curtains closed and lights out and just THAT on the headphones. I had always been a kind of Anglophile and this was just the music for me - quintessentially English. I had previously already discovered John Martyn and Nick Drake, so I was already on my way, and recognized a name or two.
Very quickly I got me some more vinyl - amongst first purchases were Liege & Lief, R/LT's Bright Lights and Shout Out The Lights, Fotheringay, Swarb's Flittin', and the Albions' Shuffle Off. A very eclectic mix of music all from the same family.
One album buying round later and I found Red & Gold, the then new album. In those pre-internet days I wasn't even aware there still was a Fairport there and then! There was a contact address there and mention of some festival. I decided to write - this must have been January 1989 - and soon got an answer from the wonderful Chris Pegg plus a free copy of the 1988 Cropredy programme. I HAD to go, I had decided by then.
So I found myself at Cropredy 1989 and have attended all of 'em since except 2003. I've never recovered and the extended Fairport family tree still occupies about a quarter of my whole CD collection which holds 2600+ shiny discies. (it's a *very* extended Fairport family).
I just wish I had discovered Fairport a few years later. It would have saved me a lot of vinyl buying (and selling, later onwards). From 1990 on I bought everything on CD (I was one of those very attached to my old albums, but had to give in in the end). But I got me a whole bunch of FC/family vinyl before that.

Things came round again when we had Fairport playing at our wedding, fifteen years since those mesmerizing autumnal lights-out-curtains-closed-headphone days, when I was just 20. Had I known in 1988 that I'd have Fairport as a wedding band in 2003, I would not have believed it. In those days they were a bit like the Beatles had been to me just a few years earlier. Big, big idols. I grew up a bit since  ::)
 

OMG!!!

For me, it wasn't MY biology teacher's fault... it was my sister's biology teacher's fault!

We were in a band together, bringing some jigs and things in, because said teacher was a fiddle player.  Turns out (and I have both parties' confirmation of this) that said teacher is in fact and old pal of Ric's!

I was lent two LPs... one by Lindisfarne and one by Fairport.

I wore the FC one out.

Eventually, the band that said teacher and I were in took on a look of the FC thing that I would have loved to have seen for myself in 1971 (my band was back in 1978/9):

Rob Meakin- fiddle, vocal
David Andrews- guitar, vocal
Geoff Ward- bass, vocal
Frank Ellison- drums, vocal

I actually wanted to do more FC stuff but the band weren't all keen.  Me and the fiddle player were.  Would be cool to get Rob over here, and maybe Peggy... I could ask my pal Raimo to drum for us and I'd do guitar.... my graduation party band :D  Sparepart Invention maybe ;)

A slightly stange friend of mine (later to become a swampy-style road protestor, GM crop destroyer and eventually respectable, with wife, job and child) played a very upbeat, melodic folky (but not too folky) tape at some party or other. To cut a long and boring story short, it turned out to be In Real Time.
When funds permitted, I acquired the CD (and a CD player!!!) and was, basically, hooked.
I had chased up most of the post-1985 FC stuff by the time the Five Seasons was released, and made my Cropredy debut in 1991.
I haven't missed a year since....

Funny, I had a couple of slightly strange friends who kept suggesting I ought to go to this place called 'Cropredy'
I made my debut a couple of years later and haven't missed a year since.

Laydeees and Gentlemen, let me introduce one of those strange friends .................Graeme H  :)

Also to be found under the sign of the penguin.

Ta mate

Clive

Welcome Graham H! I trust that you will be able to join the happy throng at the Alex on the 12th?  Keep an eye out for the fezzes and fez badges  [;-), do come up and introduce yourself old bean  ;)

The year 1981, I was 14 and everyone else was listening to either bog standard heavy metal of the time (Whitesnake, saxon etc) or even worse the awful synth pop which was coming through.
I sought something else - something different and I found it when visiting with some friends of the family and the husband put Son of Morris On on his record player. That year my elder brother went to Cropredy for the first time and in 1985 I caught the Gladys Leap tour and was blown away - not so much by the quality of the music but by the sheer joy and friendliness of the band. The die was cast and I have never looked back since, like many others on this I do ctiticise the band sometimes but my life is richer for being a fan of Fairport than it would have been without them.

Now all I have to do is convince Mrs Jackdaw (celebrating our 7th week anniversary on Saturday) but hope the chaps will do that on Thursday at Leamington.

Wassail,

JD 67

I did that too....only to find that 'Cropredy' was happening at Broughton Castle that year..... ;)

I did that too....only to find that 'Cropredy' was happening at Broughton Castle that year.....

Which could explain why he was very quiet about the event.

JD

a mate at work recommended Cropredy to me as a i am a Glasto regular
that was May 1999, and i do say that it has been a most enjoyable experience
as for FC, a mate gave me a CD of a FC compliation, some good some a bit naff
got a few of the older CD's out of the library (1/2-bricking, Leige, hoildays)
and enjoy most of the music on those.

As for violin diddy-dee, I prefer The Chieftains, they are the masters *coat*

   Good year,that one........after the castle,spent a few days camping at the Rollright Stones........magical  :)

when i was at school and a friend lent me the History of...double album,i heard Sandy Denny's voice and was hooked....and have been ever since :)

We had a 60s psychadelic hippy party (early 1980s) at school and for some reason (which now escapes me) Fairport Convention and Jefferson Airplane were the two bands that the collective memory of 80s teenagers in Hertfordshire associated with .  We bought the first album, unhalfbricking and the vinyl version of Heyday (iirc) from the 2nd hand record shop for the party and that was it, most kids never wanted to hear them again but I took the records home - yee ha [;-).

Decided the summer of 2000 to go to a festival, decided on Cropredy as it is near to Wantage (ish) My sister in law and I had no idea what we were doing never been before.  I knew of Fairport Convention but couldn't say i was a big fan.  I was more of a fan of Chris Leslie through Albion Band.  Any road up, Cropredy totally blew us away we had the time of our lives. Sheer Magic. A Fairport Conversion   Have been Fairport fan eversince.  We now have a party of 7 that go to Cropredy.  Seeing FC at Nettlebed 16th May.

Hi All,
At Jude's suggestion, as I've just joined the board today I'll introduce myself by a post to this topic.

I was Ok until someone played me Unhalfbricking in 1969 and I've been on a downward spiral of
addiction ever since and it's getting worse as the years go by.

I was convinced that I heard Unhalfbricking while on a 4 month works training course which ran from
Jan-April 69 but that can't be true so senility is setting in I'm afraid. I do remember taking my Dylan
record collection and playing them to colleagues on the course, so someone must have loaned me
Unhalfbricking later in the year and when I heard that gear change in 'A Sailors Life' I was hooked.
I was a folk rocker.

I didn't mind buying their earlier albums, trouble was no-one explained that this band would split and
then I'd be buying records by Span, Albion Band, Morris on, Mathews Southern Comfort, Fotheringay,
Sandy, Richard Thompson, etc. etc. etc.
I'm afraid I can't remember when I first saw Fairport live, I suspect it may not have been till after
Steeleye Span were formed as the first concert I remember going to was one of their early concerts
in Cecil Sharp House.

I realised just the other day when Jude made her correction that I'm exactly the same age as
Richard Thompson,  difference is he can play guitar and I can't.

I took up walking/camping some years ago and suddenly realised in 1998 that I was fully equipped to walk
to Cropredy ( only from Banbury station) and pitch my tent on the cricket field and now I make that
wonderful annual pilgrimage. I got very emotional as I expect we all did when we were singing MOTL
last year, just in case it was the last time, but all is well, Richard is coming and I've got my waterproofs ready.

Bryan

I blame the two men in my life..... dad and himself. Dad for getting me into annother great band and english folk and himself for teaching me about fairport while I taught him about Steeleye Span. Suppose I should blame Ashley Hutchings.... It's all his a fault we have so much in common! ;D

A certain friend of mine was insistent in her opinion that folk music wasn't entirely populated by people in arran jumpers and finally persuaded me to listen to Fairport. I was impressed!  :) She took me to SwarbAid, and I was hooked! Why did nobody tell me about folk music and Fairport before? Think of all the time I've wasted!

Newbie alert...........  :-[

I was at a Gary Numan gig at Fairfield Halls in Croydon in 2001 - I saw a leaflet for Fairport's upcoming winter tour and thought I'd impress my new girlfriend (who I knew was into Fairport, although I'd never heard of them) by buying a pair of tickets.  I went along expecting to have to endure rather than enjoy!!  Hey, I liked  a couple of All About Eve tracks, so it wouldn't be too bad.... ;)

Anyway, cutting a long story short, instantly hooked ;D!  Went out and bought a mandolin the following day, and several Cropredies and countless gigs later, I have bought a ridiculous amount of mandolins and other folk instruments (which the missus has blamed Chris Leslie for - a fact he was quite proud of...).  Most of the music I play and record has Fairport influences, we've had the pleasure of meeting the guys on several occasions and I even recorded some tracks with one of them recently. 

Am I glad that I didn't decide to send her to the gig with a friend that night!!!!!

Kris

hallo Kris

Welcome to here. Come and join the rest of theidiots wonderful people here


Jude ;D

Don't go crossing the word out, Jude... I rejoice in my idiothood!

Sorry J.O'D, of course you do. Lovely! have you found Sycophants Corner yet? It's wonderful

Jude

Of course I'd heard of Fairport Convention when growing up - you do when you live in Oxfordshire and you hear all about the Cropredy festival in every local paper and on the local news every year.  But it was proving impossible to get to any of their gigs for reasons I won't go into here. 

Anyway, last year some friends who are long-time FC fans had tickets for High Wycombe and invited me along too. I felt a bit guilty actually about having a second row seat with them because it was my first time seeing Fairport in concert and I couldn't help thinking that the longer-term fans were more entitled to that seat than a newbie like me.

I loved the songs, I loved the music, I loved the banter (Gerry's story of Morris Bloom had me in hysterical giggles for weeks afterwards).  I was amazed that the band mingled with the audience in the bar during the interval and after the show - this was totally unheard of in my mind and it reinforced my interest further.  You can tell a lot about an act by the way they treat their fans.  I got to meet them all and discovered that Chris Leslie and I had a mutual friend in Eynsham which is where I live. :)   Ric Saunders managed to charm me (this was Valentine's Day 2004) by telling me I must have had hundreds of Valentine's cards.  I told him the truth - I'd had none!  His response was to give me two great big kisses and a big hug "to make up for it" ;D.  It's a daft anecdote but, to be treated like an old friend at my first ever FC gig did mean a lot to me. 

And I've been coming to shows ever since - even went to Cropredy last year and loved it.  I'm coming again this year - you have been warned.

What else have Fairport done for me?  Well, they cost me a fortune on gigs and things.  I've located "Talkawhile", I've been to gigs that I'd never have normally gone to, I've started to drive 25 miles some Wednesday evenings to go to the Folk Club in Banbury (not every Wednesday though - it's a long way in the dark on my own). Oh, and I keep threatening to buy a violin but my parents won't let me until I learn how to play it. :-[

We went to our first Cropredy in 1986 and haven't missed one since  ;D ;D.  But the reason for going to that first one was not Fairport, but the one and only Richard Thompson - who, if my memory serves me, headlined the Friday night with his band of the time.  I was aware of Fairport and had heard some of their albums - I had also seen them once years before at the short-lived Chorley Folk Festival when Swarb took his jeans off on stage!  But having experienced one Cropredy I was hooked  ;D ;D  We have seen Fairport and various offshoots many many times since and depleted the bank balance buying much of their back catalogue and other Merch.

Roll on August 8)

Jon

Got dragged along to Cropredy some time around mid / late 80's by some friends, was blown away by what I heard and, well, this year will be my 11th and I can't wait.

Fairport Convention are just completely addictive ;D
Maybe they should carry a health warning?
"Warning...Fairport Convention can seriously Brighten up your life!!"

Mic ;)

Lovely post Suzanne! At the first gig I went to that wasn't Cropredy both Ric and Chris asked me loads about my violin playing (which isn't very good!) and were so nice to me that that was the main reason I decided to go to the next tour! And the rest is history...

*looks at bank balance* Yep, I know what you mean!

This is my first official (non-test) posting and I hope it’s not too late for this topic.

I first heard Fairport Convention ‘live’ on the radio probably in late ’67 on one of the David Symonds/John Peel shows, thinking is really my kind of music (Beatles/Byrds/Lovin Spoonful/Jefferson Airplane) – and I thought Ribbon Bow was quirky and unusual.   Then the line-up was mentioned…on drums, Martin Lamble…..goodness, I was at school with him (year above) and he was always distinctive in his Parka riding a Lambretta.

Forward a couple of months and I got a Saturday job in Golders Green, and I’m taken by meeting Helen (C) and she happens to know Fairport Convention.     She asks me to go along to one of their concerts but I reluctantly decline (probably cos my Mum wouldn’t let me).

Well, I bought the first single and album and Helen became a good friend; and she persevered and eventually around mid-68 I went along to the Country Club, Haverstock Hill with a schoolmate, Roy Deane, to see them – my first live gig!   It was the ‘Holidays’ line-up and there couldn’t have been more than about 50 in the audience –initially seated uncomfortably on the floor in the dark, the concert was beyond my wildest expectations.   LIVE music - I was mesmerized and HOOKED!   

Then Helen C starting ‘going out’ with Martin and I got to know him more than I had at school.    I saw Fairport a half-dozen times in the next year and each time was a thrill and a delight.    Looking back, it’s remarkable to realize……just how unique Fairport was and……considering the quality of the music, to realise just how young they were – Richard was prodigious, Sandy was, and remains, the finest British singer and Martin was a very fine drummer – versatile and sensitive – and a lovely young man.   After the crash, I went to University and Sandy left and things were never the same again.   

In 35+ years of watching and photographing concerts NOTHING compares to that very first concert - halcyon days.

Anyone for a North London/FC get together?

Neil

PS   Judy, would you kindly e-mail me, I have a favour to ask?

Neil...

Hi there... never to late to add your twopen'orth  ;)

There is a personal message option which relays messages between folks on the TalkAwhile Board which avoids the need to communicate directly via e-mail and disclosing addresses - obviously, this retains privacy while giving the opportunity to pass more personal messages... I am sure that you will understand the sense in this.

Anyway.. good to 'meet' you, and watch out for Sir Robert and his tray of limp crudites and schooners of sherry. ! You'll see what I mean soon enough, I am sure  ;D

I think they should Mic, I was just counting up over 50 vinyl and  50 cd albums that can be directly attributed to my
hearing Unhalfbricking thats an awful lot of Brightening, how dull life would have been without 'em.

Bryan

Absolutely Bryan.........actually, maybe Fairport CDs should be available on free prescription from the GP.     
Thank goodness they are still going strong......long may they reign (and if RT is around long may they rain....sorry I'll get me coat ;) )

Mic

After being enthralled with "Fog on the Tyne (pre Gazza - 1989) - my first foray into Folk Rock, I took "What we did in our Holidays" out of Central Library, St Helens.  This was followed a week or two later by Red and Gold.

"Bloody hell - sounds nothing like the other one!"

By then hooked............

I think in this context it is traditional for one to say "Respect"... Not many as old as me on this site I don't think and I guess few who hung out at Middle Earth and UFO (when it was in Tottenham Court Road)... However lovely and endearing the latter day Fairport are I too adored those early days... I still have not heard any outtakes of Richard Thiompson stretching out on Paul Butterfield's "East West".... "Morning Glory"... sigh... I'd give a lot to see one of those gigs again... Magnificent band... FC were one of the absolutely seminal Underground bands... and no, Munchkins, I do not mean Mornington Crescent...

Get in touch... I'd love to trade memories of 1968... although (heavens forfend!) it looks like you beat me to FC... In  fact I didn't see them until Sandy had just joined them in mid 1968... New Fan, huh?

My mates dad used to knock around with Sandy Denny in the years she used to play the folk clubs , and as, we as kids ,were there we followed her to Fairport and the rest is history so to speak jamesc

Hey, Jack, I think I might be even older.

Like so many of the stories in this thread, it was an Island sampler that started it - can't remember which. The one that had 'Meet On The Ledge' on it...?

I was big into the West Coast sound at the time - Mamas & Papas, Jefferson Airplane - and it really struck me how Sandy sounded at times like Grace Slick at her more restrained - eg: 'Triad' off 'CROWN OF CREATION'. So bought the first two albums and was so absolutely wiped out by the breadth of styles they managed to integrate into their own. I was hooked!

Didn't think 'UNHALFBRICKING' was quite as cohesive and I missed Iain a lot. The plunge into trad; arr with 'L&L' really shook me - loved trad folk rocked up but devastated by the loss of such a broad stylistic repertoire. Then 'FULL HOUSE' and 'ANGEL DELIGHT' left me desperate for a singer who could really *sing* like Iain and Sandy could. Didn't take at all to Swarb's idiosyncratic style at all - though I've revisited it since and come to appreciate just how inventive and unusual his singing is. (No great range and the breathing's all wrong but such emotion at times!)

Of course, Sandy's return drew me back and I thought 'LIVE' was just tremendous - Jerry proved such a worthy successor to Richard he took my breath away - and still does! What I've come to really appreciate down the years is the way Jerry throws in lots of little 'Richardisms' - effortlessly! - yet is totally his own man. A real master of the instrument. However, 'MOON' seemed such a wasted opportunity - and the prospect of the Vertigo albums never appealed to me in the slightest.

I next caught up with FC at the end of the 80s, having missed most of the gradual re-emergence of the band. 'IN REAL TIME' was my first purchase. I was iffy about the retreads but loved 'Hiring Fair' and 'Close To The Wind'. From there I discovered 'GLADYS' - an album that, for me, remains *the* closest the revived band have got to the sheer genius of their earlier incarnations.

The love of 'GLADYS' - and especially the transformation in Simon's singing from nasal joke to master of a certain kind of ballad - led me to investigate and reappraise much of what I'd been missing - hence the re-evaluation of Swarb's singing (especially poignant given the last few years!) - regular purchases of the new albums (terribly uneven but usually a couple of corkers) and journeys to several Cropredys.

It's an awful long way from 'If I Had A Ribbon Bow' and they've probably disappointed as much as they've astonished - but the high points are so high I don't regret my fanship of this band for one second.

And I will be there hollering my lungs out in mid-August 2007!

You've said it perfectly Keith...thanks for that... :)

Seeing as this thread has been resurrected I had a quick look through...

There are SO MANY posts by people who never post any more  :(

I wonder what's happened to them all... ???

I was thinking the same the other day Jen- maybe we should have a where are they now thread ::)
some of them used to post quite often then suddenly stopped.
Zith for instance and Vickie ah and Steve JW, Paul JM Uk etc etc

They've been sacked.

Good idea Tasha.. and there was Otts too of course.. what happened to him?

Sacked.. Oh dear... :o

Otts started acting the goat....

You're kidding  :o

So he was baaaad then was he ???

That'll be the same copy that I got out, at around the same time! My dad had the Plainsong LP (Iain Matthews, Andy Roberts and others) which I really liked and so this led me to Fairport. Got WWDOOH, Unhalfbricking and Leige and Lief out of the local library and was blown away, especially Nottamun Town, which seemed so eerie and otherworldly. Really powerful.

Like, it seems, a number of others I was originally into heavy rock in my late teens - Quo, Rainbow, etc, etc - veered off towards the Prog Rock revival that was going on then (Marillion, Pendragon, Haze, Twelfth Night, etc).  Through that I discovered Steeleye Span through the Original Masters compilation album.  I don't remember when I first heard about Fairport, but thought 'if they're anything like Steeleye they can't be bad'.

I remember being very disappointed that I couldn't see them when they played at my university (Sheffield) in January 1985 (clash of commitments), but did see them there the next January and have been hooked ever since!  I think I saw them three times on that first tour.

Didn't make it to Cropredy until 1989 though.  But have bought almost all the official albums and a numebr of others since.  Just can't get enough  ;D

I'm sure we've done this before, ho hum...

I used to be a rock fiend in the 80s, a bit of a festival botherer, Reading, Donnington, that sort of thing.  Then a group of friends convinced me to go to Cropredy with them in the late 80s, I'd heard of FC but hadn't heard much at all.  Needless to say, I was blown away, had a fantastic time etc and the rest is history.  Next year will be my fourteenth Copredy.

PS. Why isn't Cropredy in the spell checker mods ?

I can not actually remember when I first heard Fairport, I think it was in about 1976. I know it was the L&L album and I know I had borrowed the LP for some considerable time before I returned it back to its rightful owner. However I only finally got to see Fairport in 1982 at Cropredy and have continued to see them ever since. In 1985 I think I saw them five times during the Glady's Leap tour - including the Sheffield Octagon gig which 'Will S' would like to have attended - I was a student at Sheffield at this time and spent most of my grant money for the forthcoming term on attending Fairport Gigs and buying original Fairport LP's from record fairs (as you do) If I remember right the Gig at Derby in '85 succumbed to a power failure and DM undertook a rare drum solo until the power was resumed once more. Ah the memories!

How does one get OUT of Fairport? Bit like a tattoo innit, very difficult to remove.

I noticed absent friends e.g. Otts were mentioned. I thought Otto got a job so didn't have so much time for boarding - I believe he also had/has some involvement with the Bluebell Railway so maybe steam has taken over - not difficult, see the late Fred Dibnah.

I also noticed people nearly got to swapping ages just now. Well I'm 60 in March so there, which is STILL younger than most of Swarb.

Cheers - Ed

 

As a lifelong fan of the kind of music where rock meets folk, I had been meaning to get into Fairport for years.  My brother hurried me along by buying me the remastered Unhalfbricking for my birthday two and a half years ago.  He thought I'd like it, though he didn't actually have it himself.  Thanks, Marcus!

After a while I decided to add to my collection.  It has been growing at an alarming rate for the past 18 months, and yet there's still so many titles on my "Fairport To Buy" list.  Not to mention all the spin off releases by RT, Sandy, Swarb, Ashley et al.  Still it's a fascinating and entertaining journey, even if I do feel like the out-of-breath kid at the back of a cross country run.

Jules

Bit of a latecomer I am afraid.
Teens were spent listening to 'eavy stuff and especially punk, then reggae and Blues and Dylan kicked in later.
Only the last few years I've started getting into country and folk, but didn't really pick up on FC until a couple of years back  :-[  having some of their tracks on cheap compilations I'd bought,  and then I got dragged to Cropredy, which was great.  :D

I wish I'd been into them yonks ago, but you can't listen to everything. Folkwise I discovered the likes of Nick Drake, June Tabor, The Oysterband,  Cara Dillon, before FC.

I grew up in a village in Northants not far from Cropredy and started going to the Festival from about 1988 onwards. There were a group of us at school who listened to all sorts of stuff and a friend of mine, Paul lent me What We Did On Our Holidays and Liege and Lief. From then on I've been hooked, not just on Fairport but all sorts. I like the fact that each week I discover something new. I've been a Cropredy regular for a number of years with a hiatus in the mid 90's due to re-location and some er, other issues.

When I did return I found it quite emotional as none of my school friends were there. Instead, I met new ones, took new ones with me and so introduced other people into Fairport Convention and so it goes on. The best thing for me now as that my 7 year old daughter, when she can't sleep, asks me to put some folk music on and drifts off to sleep listening to Red and Gold, Who Knows Where The Time Goes and the mellow FC stuff I've put on a CD for her. Every week she asks me if I've got anything new for her and I try my best to find something. At the moment she likes Flook, she says it makes her think of happy people dancing at a festival. I can't think of anything more apt.

I too a Tull fan in the early 70's, but was also bowled away by Steeleye Span. Went to see them at Southport Floral Hall and ended up dancing up and  down the aisle with Maddy.  Got more into the rock thing with a band I was involved with called Restless in the late 70's. Grew up and went to college. At end of year 1 introduced to John Martyn who brought me more back to folk again. In Holland found a copy of Nine which reawoke my enjoyment of folk.  Not much more happened for 30 years. listened to a bit of Swarb, Carthy etc. mourned the impending retirement of Swarb and Martyn. Had a heart attack! Swarbs and Martyn's determination was immense in my rehab. Saw John was on at Cropredy this summer so bit the bullet................... What happened was a re-awakening. I remembered why I enjoyed the dingy folk clubs in Liverpool and later Manchester.  I'm back home were I belong

My father is into them and so always played the music in the car and at home, and occasionally ran off to Cropredy every now and then (well, when the festival was on) and I just liked the music so listened to it. He had lots of CDs all nicely available for me to steal and listen to so it worked quite well really  ;)

Since I seemed to miss this thread in it's previous resurrections, here's the tale.

As a young child various folk related music was a part of life. My parents were enthusiastic scottish country dancers, and we grew up with the sound of reels and strathspeys as a constant backdrop. They also listened to people like Ian & Lorna Campbell, Rory & Alex McEwan, The Critics Group and The Young Tradition. Dad could play a mean set of reels on the fiddle as well. So I grew up with a link to the folk world all around me.

Then, in 1969, I went away to boarding school, and my musical horizons were instantly widened. From Hendrix to Wagner, with lots of Tull, Zeppelin, Purple, and of course, The Doors. But one friend had an album that stood out as interesting, different and enjoyable. "What We Did on our Holidays" This album opened the door to Fairport, and I bought most of the albums up until "Nine"

I never got to see thema s such, but in around 1975 saw a cut down version of Simon, Swarb and Peggy under the title "Swarbrick, Nicol & Pegg" at ul University.

I then lost touch with them until the early eighties, when officially they didn't exist. Fate had deposited me in Masham, and that was in the days of the unofficial gigs in the town hall. What great nights! By then I was married, and Cath became as enthusiastic as I was. We also discovered the delights of Cropredy, where we have been without fail since 1987. One great delight was in 1990, when my parents decided to join us. It was their first festival, and they loved it!

Indeed it probably was.  Sounds like that album had a pretty profound effect on many of us!

Greatest FC album... Unhalfbricking come close.... L&L very good too.... but WWDOOH is one of the truly great British rock/folk-rock albums...

It's Liege and Lief all the way for me!  With the expanded Full House coming a close second.  I like the earlier albums, but they just don't move me the same way.

Jules

1. What We Did on Our Holidays
2. Unhalfbricking
3. Full House
4. Fairport Convention
5. Liege and Lief

but the order will change by tea time...  ;)  One thing that won't is that these first 5 albums are one of the best runs of any band at any time.  Ever.

Like, erh... I think I ... erh... love you .... erh... maaaan... Excellent judgement methinks!

Sounds like one of my kids !!

I am one of probably several Tull converts. First decided to try Fairport around 1990 starting with In Real Time and Maart's first. First saw them live in '96

I'd heard of them, being a bif Tull and Steeleye Span fan, then a friend introduced me to them while at University (this would be about 1981-2).

Eventually I cracked abd bought the 'History of' comp and took ti from there.

First Gig was Masham town hall the year I graduated (1984) which blew my socks off - really energetic. Bought all the albume I could find on vinyl, first Cropers wass the following year, then of course I bought a CD player and bought them all again on CD....

I think the first Fairport I ever heard was a scratched copy of Fairport Nine that my parents had. My mum used to work in the Barclays Bank in Banbury and someone from the band bought a copy in for her one day! That was around my early teens, when I started devouring my parent's record collection. I then remember ordering Leige and Leaf from Boots around the age of sixteen, and went from there. I've been to cropredy twice, and took my fiancee this year, who seemed to enjoy it. I've also seen Fairport in Swindon a few times when they've passed through.

At Cropredy this year I bought the Fiddlestix compilation - I wanted Nine on CD, but they'd sold out. It was great to hear Polly on the Shore for the first time in about 10 years, and the first time without scatches! I actually became a little obsessed with the song and listened to it on almost constant repeat for about two weeks in the car....

I'm a guitarist and have been influenced loads by Richard Thompson, Simon Nichol (I'm always playing end of a holiday!), and Jerry Donohue more recently, as well as other non-fairport folk musicians like Bert Jansh and Nick Drake.

Careful, or Mr Nicol will come after you....he's an esteemed member here.

Welcome Monkeybob....

And Boots are probably still looking for an album of that name too...  ;D

Oh golly it's so long ago I can't remember... (Well it was the 60s, and I think I was there...)

I must have seen them in one of the studenty/folky gigs in Brighton in 68?? I still have my treasured original vinyl WWDOOH. I can remember listening to it in a sound-proof booth in Boosey & Hawkes, much better than on the dansette! But sadly the first LP and Leige & Leif vanished in shared student house chaos.   :(

Ha! I'm normally the first person to correct other people's dodgy spelling!  ::)

The royalty cheque's in the post Simon.... honest.....

I got into Fairport after seeing Richard Thompson live. I wasn't too aware of Richards music so i reluctantly went along with a friend and was instantly hooked. After that show i collected all of his albums  and then all of Fairports albums  (actually only the albums that feature him). I suppose i'm a bit of a purist.

Fairport - Who they?

Well thats were I started; daughter's best friend ( and family and friends) went to Cropredy each year.  Sounded like REALLY good fun  and we (me & daughter) eventually managed to wangle an invite to the 'gig in the field'.  Thats was 1998 and I've been ever since!
{First time EVER under canvas (at my age!!!!!!)  What more can I say?}

That makes my 10th anniversary co-inciding with their 40th!!!! WOW

Tend to buy 2 things at Cropredy (well other than T-shirt!)  1) the best band there and 2)  Fairport CD/ box set/allied recording!!!!!!!!
Actually know now that I DID know and like FC "back-a-long" as they say down here!

Early 1989…my paisley-clad, wavy-haired, slender, 18 year old self was round at a friends house, where we were playing his cousin’s selection of weird and wonderful records.  One track really grabbed me – it sounded like it had been dragged kicking and screaming from medieval times and was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. That track was Doctor of Physik, and I was hooked. I bought one Fairport record each month thereafter, and went to my first Cropredy later that year with said friend.

Fast forward some 14 years. My comfy-jumpered, balding, noticeably-wider self was standing in that Oxfordshire field with wife and old school friend, when the first few notes of Doctor of Physik start…friend and I glance at each other, with a huge grin growing on our faces. For a moment I’m back in 1989…. 

Must be expensive on the pocket! No wonder bands rarely come back to cRopredy.......:-))

You're lucky you're only back in 1989. When I hear those chords, I'm back in the de Montfort Hall, Leicester in 1970!

Back in the early eighties a mate of mine was sold a compilation album called 'Nice Enough To Eat' which had several tracks by bands we knew little about at the time, one of which was 'Cajun Woman'. I remember taping it and one or two others off the LP for myself, and for a while it was the only Fairport song I knew (and became part of the soundtrack to our Great Round England Hitchhiking Expedition of 84). When later someone pointed out that the singer was Sandy Denny, she of the golden voice on 'The Battle of Evermore', I began to take more notice and it took off from there.
I wonder how many others got a nudge towards Fairport's music from that vocal on Led Zep 4?

I see you haven't answered the question!!!!!

It's interesting to see how many people were influenced by parents.  Being of a certain age, I got my parents into Fairport - well, Dad at least.  (Mum likes Beth Nielsen Chapman.)

I, by accident, also have a Tull link.  May 1969 - I went to a sort of festival at the equestrian centre in Balsall Common (Warwickshire) to see Amen Corner.  It was the most bizarre venue - seats on three sides round an arena and earth in the middle.  Tull was the second act and I didn't stay for AC.  Hooked on a different kind of music.  Then, there was Nice Enough to Eat and Liege and Lief and I was hooked on Sandy's voice.  She inspired me to learn guitar and try to sing but that was then.  I have to admit that I lost interest when Sandy wasn't in the band.   I saw FC at Warwick Uni just after she left and then saw her there a couple of weeks later.  I loved the reformed FC in 1985? 86? beause it rocked a bit and then started to rock more but never got to Cropredy until '94.

Funny how life works out.

Jan

Merry Christmas Everyone,

being new to this forum I thought maybe this thread could be appropriate for a brief introduction. I follow Fairport and relatives for about 20 to 25 years now. I first heard of them in a radio broadcast about the hippy culture (no, really...) in NDR 2, a Northern Germany radio station, in the early 80s. The song they played was "A Sailor's Life", full length. I was immediately taken in by the beauty of the music. Unfortunately, the first album I then bought was "Live at Broughton Castle", but "History" then really brought me into it. Meanwhile I have collected almosted everything I could get my hands on, including books, videos, whatever.

My first Fairport concert was in 1987, in Mannheim, Germany. My first Cropredy was in 1988, then was a long hiatus and I went again in 2001, 2002 and finally in 2006. This one I liked most, especially for the excellent selection of music - I thought Steeleye Span was fantastic, I stood centre front row during Lazarus, and was delighted with 10cc. My wife and I like the atmosphere of the festival, although this time we had some unexpected and unwanted visitor in our tent (later we learned about the theft problem this year...). We also visted the church and climbed up the bell tower to enjoy the views.

Maybe someone has noticed a not so tall guy with a beard and a "Steal Your Face" baseball cap on the field this year, that was me. Anyway, that might give you some idea on my other musical preferences which include the Grateful Dead, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Renaissance (Annie Haslam), the Grateful Dead, Richard Thompson (do I really have to mention this?), 3 Mustaphas 3, Pink Floyd, Marta Sebestyen and other Hungarian stuff, the Grateful Dead, The Move, Natacha Atlas, Buddha Bar sounds, Cowboy Junkies, Achinoam Nini, the Grateful Dead, the Afro Celts, Yehuda Poliker, the Grateful Dead,  etc. (unsorted, kind of...).   ;D

I hope we will be able to come to Cropredy in 2007, and I am really curious what the line-up will be!

With best wishes from freezing Germany,

Karl

 8)

I got into Fairport through the parent route.  My Dad has been into folk and folk-rock since his University days when a friend played him 'Liege & Lief', which blew him away.  He got into FC and particularly Steeleye and saw the latter about 5 times at Leicester De Montfort Hall (he was at Leicester University) as well as several other performers, including Euan MacColl.

Fast forward, and it was 'Liege & Lief', played to me by my Dad, that got me hooked.  Sandy Denny's voice entranced me (and still does, whether solo, with FC, or with Strawbs - if only she was still with us!) and songs like Matty Groves and Crazy Man Michael are firm favourites of mine.  My favourite FC albums are the early ones, right up to 'Angel Delight' and 'Babbacombe Lee', but I think 'Over tHe Next Hill' was their best in years.  For me, part of the fascination with liking Fairport is all the other people (both past members and FC friends) it leads to - Richard Thompson, Ralph McTell, and Iain Matthews are all favourites of mine as well.

Have never been to Cropedy, or camping, but 2007 will be our first and we can't wait.  Might try and catch FC at their Preston gig in the New YEar as well. :)

Well, it was back in the mid seventies, I was a student in Cardiff, going to as many of the Union gigs as possible, as well as whatever was half decent in the Capitol, which is where, unless my memory fails me (I'm pushing 50 now, so it might be...), I first saw Fairport live. Around the same time I saw Steeleye Span and Jethro Tull for the first time and loved them too.

Didn't see them again until their Five Seasons tour in 1991, different line-up but same great atmos! Have caught them a few times in S Wales since, but there's nothing like going to Cropredy to see them in their natural habitat.

I thought Over the Next Hill was an excellent album, no comparison with much of the earlier stuff but shows how they have moved on musically while staying true to their roots. Still haven't got a copy of Liege and Lief, very remiss of me!

I had already been introduced to folk music at a club near where we were staying on holiday when I was 17 and loved the atmosphere - I've been an occasional visitor to the Llantrisant folk club ever since and seen the Chartists, Capercaillie, Kathryn Tickell and loads more there. Also go to the Roots Unearthed nights at Cardiff's St David's Hall, some good stuff coming up.

At the moment I'm heavily into Flook and Dead Can Dance - I wouldn't call DCD folk, more of an acquired taste, but worth listening to.

Sure I have already posted in this category (apart from commenting on another's post) ?

Perhaps there is a similarly-themed topic ?

I was introduced to the music of FC when I joined the ranks of Croydon YHA Group in 1974, and saw my first FC gig at the Fairfield Halls in that town soon after. It was to be the first of many, many, many ......

A mate of mine, when heard that I was to be recruited into a folk-rock band (in 1973), produced 3 albums for me to listen to.

1. Pentangle - Cruel Sister
2. Fotheringay
3. Fairport Convention

I'd no idea what folk rock was at that time.

Fotheringay I loved, Pentangle was OK and FC sounded a bit brash. By the time I'd heard Liege and Lief, I was converted. I sort of began to lose interest when Swarb finally left and I'd got hooked on mainly on acoustic trad, jazz and baroque.

Hi, All!

I finally signed up having been a lurker on this board for ages, really enjoying all the opinions and information being shared here.

My early musical influences were Lonnie Donegan (wasn't he responsible for all of this?), Trad Jazz, Dylan, L Cohen, John Mayall (especially the Clapton/Green/Taylor years), King Crimson, Colliseum. At some point towards the end of the 60's a fellow student lent me FC and WWDOOH, and that's how it all began. I first saw the band as the Full House line-up (I though it was at Aston Uni, but Peggy assures me they never played there...). The first album I bought was "History", which led me to start a collection of pretty much all of their output. Up to and including "The Five Seasons" is on vinyl, the rest on CD.

When I retired three years ago  (;D) I took up the guitar again quite seriously, and my partner (Rebecca - keyboards) and I play for our own amusement most weekends, and have recently done a couple of small gigs for friends. Our repertoire is mostly FC/RT/Sandy-based, and we have some very well-thumbed copies of Songbooks 1 & 2, and Sandy (thanks, Maart!), and are eagerly awaiting the upcoming RT collection.

In the last couple of years we've seen FC at St Albans and Acoustic at Lewes, RT at Northampton and Lazarus at Rugby. This year we'll be in Brum next month, St Albans in March (note to Anna - you'll miss them if you wait 'till May!), and for the first time (well, better late than never) at Cropredy. Also looking forward to Peggy's bash in November - he's about six weeks older than me. I hope he manages to get Steve Winwood for that gig, as I have been a great fan of his, too, ever since the Spencer Davis Group days.

I'd better stop there - serious danger of slipping in to autobiography mode and getting seriously off-topic; I wouldn't want to raise the ire of the mods in my first post...

Best regards to all,

DC

that was good , dont ever apologise for good posts
and with the average age of the punters in here another doctor is always welcome
 get the beer in and youre in

post of the week.

Stevie for Cropredy.

Good post DC and welcome.  Get yerself along to the Arms, a pint and a warm welcome await!  ;D [;-)
BD

Sirs,

With these comments you are really spoiling me! "Post of the week" in my first one - it must be down hill all the way, now.

Btw - for the benefit of the infirm (see Jim's comment), I'm not medically qualified, it's a PhD (in pharmacology), but I'll try resus if absolutely necessary.

DC

So you will be the board's main dealer in authority on "pharmacological substances" come festival season then?

 ;D

Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink........know what I mean guv? Say no more....... ;D ;D

and back on topic.. ;)

when i was 18 and at college there was a slightly older, hairy hippy sort of bloke we all hung out who was really into FC with so i first heard fairport through him (thanks john), then some years later i foound them on a compilation i borrowed from the library, and liked them, so i borrowed a couple of albums (jewel in the crown and another i think) and liked them too, so when they played in kettering i got tickets, still liked them, went to my first cropredy in.....er, 2001???  and have been going ever since!

I got my first FC album "Bonny Bunch of Roses" in 1977, it's to this day still one of my favourite ever FC albums. Then for several years it all sort of passed me by.
Until one sunny day in May 1990, it was the 25th to be precise, I was walking in Brighton when I happened upon a couple of wandering minstrels. The rest as they say...........

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Ohh look there's Maart!!

 Groove.. I was at that Kettering gig!!

You could have given us a Mullet Warning with that photo...terrifying stuff...  ;)

its a small world innit!

May have said this before but it was the summer of '67 and I was an adolescent schoolboy in the west of Scotland when listening to John Peel's Saturday afternoon slot on the infant radio 1 and heard a new band called Fairport Convention singing a Joni Mitchell song (whoever she was) called Chelsea Morning, with traffic noise and stuff and a transcendentally beautiful lead vocal by a lady called Judy Dyble.  Hit me for six, and when my birthday occurred some weeks later I turned down the chance of getting Sergeant Pepper, no less, for Fairport's first on Polydor.  Followed them through radio plays, Sandy came in and I bought WWDOOH - still my favourite FC album after nearly (gulp) 40 years.  Saw that lineup (I think) at the old Green's Playhouse in Glasgow and carried on with the next three albums on vinyl.  Started playing guitar in 1971 - influenced/inspired by James Taylor/Ralph McTell - but first performance moves were with several drifting student bands in the early to mid-70s such as Dirty Linen and Sailor's Moon.  Interestingly enough, our contemporaries were the likes of Battlefield Band (headlining St Neots Festival this May, plug, plug) and the Tannahills, but we stuck with the late 60s FC mix of west coast covers and trads, tho our Trads were Scottish rather than English.  Must have seen FC at least annually in those days

Left Uni, moved south, solo singing, marriage, family, career, , no singing, then career hiatus four years ago, started writing and performing again and that's it, apart from renewing my acquaintance with FC live every other year.

Good choice. I'd still prefer the first Fairport album over any of the Beatles' albums.



They were my very first contact with folk music. They came as support act of a Mike Oldfield tour in 1980 or 81 and left the crowd excited and shouting for more - Mike Oldfield, who is this guy anyway...  ;D  Whatever, they woke my passion for English and Scottish folk (although more towards the folk rock side, actually) and here I am, 26 years later, waiting for the Cropredy tickets sales to start...

Karl

I'm a bit of a late comer, my mum bought my dad a fairport CD (then and now) for his birthday about 3 years ago. unfortunately it turns out that my mum mixed up fleetwood mac with fairport (how I have no idea!) so my dad didn't really listen to it. So I nicked it as I had heard a few of their songs on the radio....and I fell in love with it. And then I bought Liege and Lief. And wow....

Being a big Jethro Tull fan I had always known of the band Fairport Convention because Mr. Pegg was almost always referred to as "former Fairport Convention bassist", but I had never heard the music until they opened up for Tull on the US tour back in '87. I was immediately hooked, as I am to this day. At the time they were promoting "In Real Time". These were the days before the easy and convenient access of information from the internet and I was unable to find a record/cd shop that actually carried Fairport discs. About a year later I finally stumbled into a shop that actually had a selection of Fairport discs. I bought "In Real Time", loved it and went back the next day to buy the rest which included "Leige", "Gladys Leap" and "Full House". Because I came on in the band's "latter" days I have much more fondness and connection with the Allcock/Leslie versions of Fairport. Chris' playing is just fantastically tasteful and Maart?? What can be said? I just LOVED the way he would weave in and out of a tune with his bouzar. Just a fantastic sound imho. Now if only we could get Maart and Chris in the band at the same time... :)

I think Chris and Maart did play together at the Cropredy when Chris stood in for Ric after the latter's "arm/window interface" problem - can't remember the year?

DC

'92 I think - 25th Anniversary Year

I was hoping for something of a more permanent nature!!  :)

Definitely 1992.

And the resulting double live album is sensational - one of the best of all Fairport's album. Well, I think so anyway.

I do have this album, and I agree that it's absolutely fab! A great "History of..." for anyone wanting an introduction to the band over it's history (musically and personnel-wise) up to that point.

DC

First saw them in 98 on DMs last tour, had only vaguely heard of them beforehand, brought an album(Angel Delight) prior to the gig to get a feel. Was totally blown away by the gig especially the twin fiddles, which is probably why the current lineup is my fave.

Promptly bought every othe album, except bonny and tipplers (soon to be rectified, thanks to the rereleases ;D) and have been to Cropredy every year since.

My bank balance and sanity have been in ruin eversince, but i love the band and the music and ive made some good friends. And in this world that cant be a bad thing can it?

I've only just found this topic, and I have an interesting story to tell....

It all started about 2 years ago in my last year of Primary school when one of the teachers played Fairport's Portmeirion from XXXV as we came into assembly. I thought to my self, mmmm, I like this and went up and asked her if I could borrow the CD. She was worried about giving a student a CD case with a oint of beer on the back and worried about what my parents might think!! Anyway, I took the CD home and liked all of the different tracks, becuase they were so different from each other. After that, I brought the Some of Our Yesterdays double CD a) becuase it had Portmeirion on it (from the original album) and b) becuase I couldn't find XXXV in the shops. And it all took of from their. My liking of Fairport has meant that I got into Steeleye Span, Dave Swarbrick and all sorts of Folk music. It has also meant that my parents have had to pay for 3 Winter Tours, 1 Cropredy, about 70 CD's and some DVDs and vinyls. It has also meant that I took up the mandolin, guitar and tin whistle. I now have 3 mandos, 2 guitars, a new amp and several tin whistles. My teacher has cost my parents a lot of money!! She is still really impressed that she has managed to, well, transform my life, I guess.

Good for you, Ollie!  ;D

My dad's a big RT fan with a bit of FC on the side, so i've always liked them and listened to them. And the older i get, the more interest i take in them and the more i can appreciate the music.

Ooh, this is an interesting topic that has crawled out of the woodwork! (Woodworm?) And...... I can't remember the answer but  think it was as follows.

Sometime in the mid 80s I heard RTs Hand of Kindness & Daring Adventures albums. I was immediately hooked and knowing that he had once been a member of FC and being a bit of a student of 60s/70s music, when I saw a poster for their gig at Worthing Assembly Hall that winter I thought I'd give it a go. That night changed my life, musically speaking. It was the Nicol/Pegg/Sanders/Maart/DM line up and the musicianship was outstanding, far beyond anything that I had expected to see at a small provincial gig. But I also loved the bonhomie between the band, the rapport with the audience and the slightly chaotic nature of the procedings. I immediately bought a few albums (In Real Time, Liege & Lief & History Of were my first) and an obsession was born.

Now, every album, hundreds of gigs and every Cropredy (except one, story elsewhere on this board) later and I'm still here. This thing shows no sign of going away.... I'm glad to say.

I took a school trip to a poetry event at the Anvil in Basingstoke about 3 years ago and saw a Fairport concert advertised. I had heard the name, but never the music, and for some reason impulse bought tickets!  When I heard the music, I realised that this was what I had been missing all my life.

There were flyers for Cropredy in the auditorium and by the time we had driven home after the concert I had convinced my husband that the family canal holiday we had been thinking of taking for several years should take place on the Oxford Canal in August. And so it came to pass...

Very impressed by Ollie, even though he has obviously cost his parents a lot of money! My daughter, who must be about the same age, is also a fan now. Like Ollie's teacher, I am doing my bit to corrupt the nation's youth. The other day I made a slide show about the First World War, to accompany a novel the class are reading, and I used "The Battle of the Somme" from House Full to give it atmosphere. I could hear a few of them humming along by the end!

If you are doing Private Peaceful, you should check out the Coope Boyes & Simpson and Michael Morpurgo collaoration CD of the same title. and BTW, I haven't cost my parents the money, it was my teacher. We still kepp in contact and she comes to see Fairport with us every year

I was walking down Mermaid Avenue with the ghost of Robin Hood, and then I took a really long detour.

Cheers, Hester
NP: Steeleye Span, "Padstow May Carol"

I was there. With a pregnant wife and a group of friends. One of the friends was a tad dissapointed, because he thought we were seeing Fairground attraction. The rest enjoyed it though.

Paul

Bit too young to fully appreciate 60's hippy-type music at the time, (although always loved Jethro Tull and Led Zepelin from an early age-i.e. 14!) and too old, I think to ever really like punk, (despite being a decadent 2nd. year student at Manchester Poly at the time), I came across Fairport by accident- a chance buy of a compilation CD- can't remember it's name now- but a friend's recommendation to go to Cropredy really did it for me. I took up her offer and went to Croppers 1994; and that was it; I was hooked on the band and more importantly perhaps, the festival itself; what Glastonbury once was, and a celebration of an almost late 60's/early 70's alternative lifestyle and idealogy which many us had thought was sadly forgotten, but happily lives on in an Oxfordshire field, even if only for a few days a year.

That's interesting...I've never really thought of Fairport in those 'hippie' terms...in fact in some ways the folk(-rock) scene is actually quite a conservative one (small c please, dear God)... There's a decent doctoral thesis in there somewhere!

I could feel the "vibe", for want of a better word, the first time I walked into the main field at Cropredy. It just felt nice and safe.
 :)
Maybe one day I'll take the degree I should have done 25 years ago and do the thesis on Cropredy! How on earth would I fit THAT into earth sciences ...!

Same here, though I think that "vibe" has been less apparent more recently. 2004 especially. Or perhaps I am just getting old and my cynicism gene has kicked in?

Well, 2004 was my first year and I loved it! I'm just peeved to think of all those years I missed. I first heard about FC and Cropredy in 1989 but never got around to going.

Never mind. I have this year's ticket and I can't wait!

Sorry, I've lost track of what year we are in! I meant 2005. 2004 was indeed great and very emotional as I recall.

Topic drift...

Couldn't go in 2005 so can't comment.

But 2004 was great!  ;D

Been going to Croppers since 1990 and the vibe is still very much as it always was for me...  it's almost a magnetic pull ...  just love it.. every minute of it.. and every year something special happens and i meet more and more new friends...

Ohh how long til we are there again??

I agree

I first went in 85 with a couple of mates. But I enjoy it so much more now what with meeting all the lovely people off this board. I am safe in the knowledge that should I ever go on my own I will meet people I now know most of the weekend. Its great now - it really is! but for different reason

see you in a few weeks!!

Methinks that was the year that the problems with "oiks" started to get a little more serious.  Also wasn't that the time of the major changes to the structure of the festival?

Yes. And it rained really hard all Saturday afternoon, though that is not the fault of the festival.

I was a bit discouraged and just did a day trip on the Saturday last year but things seemed to have got back on track and I shall be there for the full three days this year..

I did not get any sleep on the thursday night due to a bunch of arse holes who had no interest in the music. they just got pissed and obnoxious

Sorry fB I won't do it again this year.  :-[

if they had been half reasonable I would have joined them.

I heard so one say last year on Thursday that "Folk music is (I can't repeat the word) and I don't know why we came" Those people should be thrown of the festival site and not get their money back

I'm not entirely convinced that not liking something is reason enough for such action! Virtually all the bad behaviour I've witnessed at Cropredy (and I'm only talking about 3 or 4 'scenes' over 23 years!) has been alcohol-related.  But then if I'd been dragged along to Glyndbourne (like the pleb I am) I'd have probably resorted to the champagne bar and might have got myself a bit squiffy and created a scene, or I might have done when I still drank anyway...  ;)

These were two fairly young teenagers and the called folk music "w**ked"

Yep - you see...Folk Music Worked....I knew it all along  :)

What - wicked? that means good, doesn't it - in youthspeaK?   :)

I'll add another letter "wa*ked"  :o

Oh you mean WALKED then...

That must be why I'm so slow to take offence: I don't realise when I'm being insulted!

Well, I still remember wandering across from, I think field 4, the very first night I was ever in Cropredy, after "setting up camp" in 1994, and hearing Roy Harper's (almost forgotten) voice from the 60's/70's; (anybody remember his album "Valentine" from that time); and feeling I had been transported back to some magical time of a wasted but idealogical youth. Moon coming up over the Eastern end of the Cotswolds on a hot summer's evening and all that...yes, maybe it is a good time to write a thesis about what makes up the magic of Cropredy- can I volunteer to be a research assistant?

Do you think....? He's still got a pretty strong group of devotees I'd say....

I had their albums in the 1970's but never saw them live. I didn't do gigs in those days; don't know why, I just did other things.

I think it must have been 1985 and 1986 that we went to the Cropredy warmup, then held at the Half Moon and first went to Cropredy 1987, then only for the Saturday. First camped in 1989 and remember the next year turning up on the Thursday (it was only a two day festival then) - no Health'n'Safety, searchlights, generators - we just set up camp in one of the fields, already opened in readiness. Quite a few others did the same and enjoyed the village and the pubs. The water bowser turned up some time later - no mains taps. I remember a couple of years later Peggy writing in the flyer "please no camping before Thursday" - I met a bloke who said he had been sleeping in a cornfield at Williamscote since the Monday!

I remember in the first couple of years having a feeling of unease that such a happy, relaxed thing couldn't last but, after a few years realised that the cosmic force of Cropredy is more powerful than any negative forces which might come along.

Have never missed since 1989 and couldn't imagine the circs in which I might.

Now I live three miles from The Angel - small world isn't it?

 :)

A backdoor route I guess for a Brit..... heavily into Dylan as a teenager and through that to Unhalfbricking and What We Did and other Dylan covers ... but guess only really discovered the joy of Fairport in the mid 70s as a long haired student.
Personally I am still amazed how many artists I found through Dylan... aside from the obvious ones like Joni Mitchell and Phil Ochs, also Edie Brickell, Al Stewart, Mary Lee Kortes, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Steve Gibbons, Tiny Tin Lady