TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Over at The Arms, Cocker Freeman is lamenting the fact that he now knows he will never appear on TOTP. As it approaches its last edition, it might be a good time to reckon up how many Fairport family members have made appearances on that august institution.

To start the ball rolling:

The L and L line up miming to Si Tu Dois Partir (1969)
Iain Matthews (in Matthews Southern Comfort, with Woodstock) (1970)
and (I think - one of you will know), the Angel Delight line-up doing an "album slot" (1971)

Bruce Rowland may well have appeared in Joe Cocker's band,
and of course there was Cathy LeSurf with Fiddlers Dram (1979)

Any others?

Did Ric/Chris ever appear with "All About Eve" or am I completely confused?

Did Peggy / Maart ever do a slot with Tull ?

DM's played with just about everybody ......but i can't think of a TOTP appearance just now.

Don't know if they made it live on TOTP but Jerry D and DM were both in a Joan Armatrading video I think..

Jackdaw

Gerry with Cat Stephens?

If you can count a performance for TOTP2 then Maart was on with The Reel and Soul Association

I think that DM and maybe others sessioned on Beverley Craven's Hit singles "Promise Me" and "Holding On" again not sure if they were on totp

I think DM did TOTP for the first solo single of Nick Heywood (sp.) ex Haircut 100 leader

I do recall DM appearing on TOTP with Andy Fairweather-Low doing 'Wide Eyed & Legless'.  He must hold the record as Fairport alumni with the most appearances on that progaramme!

Gerry certainly appeared on TOTP with Cat Stevens ('Can't Keep It In' I believe).

The only other one I can think of is Bob Brady from the short-lived 1976 line-up who was a member of Wizzard prior to his brief stay with Fairport.  There was a rumour, though, that Peggy & DM appeared back in the early 70's miming to some Jonathan King track or other - possibly 100 tons & a Feather.  The rumour had it that Peggy was on drums & DM on bass.  Anyone able to corroborate that one.

DM certainly did TOTP with AFL. They were a great live band. Bruce would have been on with Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance I suspect.

Was DM on the Chris Spedding hit " Motorbikin'" ? Think that might have been a TOTP appearance.

And I think Bruce Rowlands may have appeared in a very early bryan ferry solo hit song.

I recall speculation that one appearance by the wombles may have been fairport dressed up, but it might have been April 1st, I forget..

I think this was Steeleye Span !!

This was Simon wasn't it...I certainly saw him on tv with Beverley...can't remember if it was TOTP.  Didn't he also do some work with the awful Art Garfunkel as well....?

Hi,
I`m pretty sure tha eithr DM or Bruce played with Bill Wyman when he had a hit with "je suis en rock star"
Bruce played on the album.
If Ronnie lane had a hit with "How come" did bruce play on that?

Off topic:
can I wish everybody a wonderful Cropredy. We`ll see you next year for the 40th!
Excuse: mrs post and me have an 8th month old daughter (who will be coming next year)
We are moving house, and we live in Sweden!
Love to you all
Postiljon

Bruce was on TOTP as late as 1981 with Bill Wyman (Je Suis In Rock Star).* That may be the last Fairport appearance. Jerry Donahue played on the Proclaimers hits like 500 Miles but they always got someone more "fashionable" for the TOTP slots.

I don't think Tull have been on TOTP since Ring Out Solstice Bells in about 1977. They had a pretty big hit with Said She Was A Dancer in the mid-80s but presumably weren't considered hip enough to be on.

*Which I've just spotted Postiljon has more or less said but never mind...  ;)

If you'd seen the Proclaimers live a few years ago you'd never have made that comment!
But they're a great live band

didnt fairport have something to do with jonathon king's(spit spit) version of "sugar sugar" on totp?

I think there is a clip on youtube of FC on TOTP doing the hanging song. I would love all the old clips to be put on dvd.

That's the Old Grey Whistle Test

Sir Rafe was on TOTP.  Does he count as a Fairporter? (After all, he's performed with them many times) :)

I was on Top Of The Pops 2 with Robbie McIntosh (The Pretenders guitarist on mandolin) with The Reel And Soul Association (Me - bass, Paul Burgess (10cc) - drums, John Kirkpatrick - accordion, Michael McGoldrick (BBC Folk Awards Musician Of The Year) - Uilleann pipes, Thea Gilmore - (guitar, vocal), Nigel Stonier (songwriter for both Fairport AND Lindisfarne) - guitar, vocal) and the ultimately fab Kelly While (guitar, vocal).

It was our only gig, though we did get together for the video...

"Sugar Sugar" was the song, unaccountably a cover of The Archies US hit by the aforementioned child-botherer under the nom de guerre Saccharine. The line up was King himself vocalising, DM playing bass (there was a wee solo tag line calling for a close-up, so the wag unloosed the A string, tied an elaborate knot in it and replaced it - tres drole..) Peggy and Phil Pickett (not the medieavalist, the songwriter from Culture Club and Sailor) playing guitars, and Tony Cox (not Yoko Ono's ex, the other one {God we're running out of names here}) and ME PLAYING well miming the drums. Much water under bridge since. As you all know. Pan's People eh? Lovely Babs! (What was her name again??? R.Barker)

How about DM with the McGarrigle sisters?

Oh dear - I bought that record and you had to go and remind me.

Was Said She Was A Dancer actually a Top 40 chart hit in the UK, then?  ??? I don't remember that at all.

I've got most of the singles that were released from Crest of a Knave, but I don't think any of them made any kind of dent in the UK charts, not even the more radio-friendly ones like Steel Monkey.

EDIT - I've just checked, and no, none of the Crest of a Knave singles ever cracked the UK Top 40 (hence their lack of a TOTP appearance). After the Solstice Bells EP reached #28 in December '76, they didn't trouble the Top 40 again until May '93, when Living In The (Slightly More Recent) Past reached #32. Pop pickers.

Did it not, Danny? Funny how the memory plays tricks.

Perhaps it was more of a radio hit then - certainly the video was shown quite a bit at the time, with a moody Ian Anderson walking about on a beach (a Scottish type rocky one, not a Costal del Sol sort of beach), it still crops up on the Sky music channels.

Just checked here too & couldn't lay my hands on my Guiness Book of Hit Singles but the best a web search could do was a reference to it being "top twenty single" and also an appearance on an album called "1987: 20 Original Chart Hits":

1 You Sexy Thing (Remix) Hot Chocolate [UK] (3:47)     
2 Rise to the Occasion Climie Fisher (4:48)     
3 Have You Ever Loved Somebody Jackson, Freddie (4:18)     
4 Sexy Girl Thomas, Lillo (4:01)     
5 Radio Head Talking Heads (3:32)     
6 Dominoes Nevil, Robbie (4:06)     
7 Southern Freeez Freeez (3:49)     
8 Respectable Mel & Kim (3:22)     
9 Said She Was a Dancer Jethro Tull (3:40)     
10 Mony Mony Amazulu (4:04)     
11 Living in a Box Living In A Box (3:04)     
12 Comin' on Strong Broken English (3:51)     
13 In Love With Love Harry, Deborah (3:21)     
14 Who Found Who Jellybean (3:44)     
15 Letter from America Proclaimers (4:00)     
16 Incommunicado Marillion (3:57)     
17 I Want to Hear from You Go West (4:48)     
18 Let It Be With You Some, Belouis (3:33)     
19 When You Walk in the Room Carrack, Paul (3:25)     
20 Simple as That Lewis, Huey & the News

That looks like an English release rather than a US one so it must have been there or thereabouts. Maybe it was just outside the top 40?

It got to number 55 in the Uk charts according to te Chrysalis home pages. ;D

 http://www.chrysalismusic.co.uk/media/asset/throughtheyears.htm

Thanks Tasha (yer little clever sh*te yer... >:( ;D)

You're welcome Alex! ;)

Most likely in Germany or Denmark or somewhere like that.


During the 80s and early 90s, it was very common practice for UK record companies to pad out those sorts of compilations with one or two tracks that were released during the year but were never actually Top 40 hits. It was a way of gaining extra exposure for their more "chart-challenged" artists. If you look back through the "Now..." and "Hits" albums and their ilk, you can see this sort of thing happening a lot.

BTW, there's an online searchable database of all the UK Top 40 charts from 1952 to the present day available at http://www.everyhit.com/ (http://www.everyhit.com/).