TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

While going through my 60s stuff trying to systematize my own musical youth and my artefacts from the times, I went through the music magazines with Fairport connections - I am a librarian after all  8) .There I found this ad (Melody Maker, September 23 1967 ) making known that Fairport Convention shared this coming Monday's bill with Doc K's Blues Band.The name seemed familiar and my memory told me that I'd read somewhere that this was the name of one of many bands that Ashley had formed or played in before Fairport. They seem to have an all-nighter together, maybe Ashley played in both bands and never left the stage the whole evening.  ;D  Or was he just kind and offered the support slot to old chums?  ::)  Or have I remembered totally wrong and Doc K has no connection whatsoever with Ashley.
It's great fun to stumble across things like these in the archives sometimes.... :D



[attachment deleted by admin]

Doc K's Blues Band was definitely a band that Ashley played with, but it was a loose arrangement of local musicians.

There is more about it in Ashley's biography The Guvnor (pp25/26)  :D

Thank you, Jude.
I picked down Ashley´s book from the shelf and reread about Doc K. On page 26 Ashley says: "Then I met Simon and Dr K came to an end!"
But the two bands shared stage at least once!  :D

Ah, what an opportunity to reminisce, though.  I was living in rural Bucks at the time of Middle Earth but was close enough to London to hear about it.  It was a mythical place - Tolkien aside - and somewhere the cool kids from school got to because they had transport and a few quid. The stories I heard!
So, in my other role as an annoying, cloying camp follower, I'd latched on to a band based in Leighton Buzzard whose name I've completely forgotten, but who regularly would play a weekend gig before getting in the Bedford van to drive to Covent Garden for the all-nighter.
One night they played just such a gig in Woburn before heading down the M1, with me in train, to see The Brian Augur Trinity - remember them?  It was the only time I ever went and I regarded myself briefly as the most sophisticated youth in Edlesborough - near Aylesbury.  The following weekend it was back to the farmyard and my part time job there where my attempts to explain to my fellow workers what a paradise I'd visited were met with guffaws.
Little did they understand what an incubator for the next generation of music was there, little would they have cared, either; why should they, it wasn't going get the harvest in!  It's quite hard being a poet amid the dung-heaps.
But your wonderfully unearthed ad brought it all back.  Look at it! Apart from FC there's Graham Bond, Tyranosaurus Rex etc..
Now, if anyone can turn uop an ad for Les Cousins in Greek Street,  which I frequented much more often a year or so later, it would be fun.  Those were the days of Al Stewart, Davy Graham and, of course, Ralph!
Xome on, it's a rain-sodden Sunday on a bank holiday weekend with the peospect of the test being delayed!  memories are more fun that getting wet.

"This Wheels On Fire" must be one of the best Dylan covers after Hendrix´Watchtower. Auger/Driscoll/Trinity!
Browsed through some MM, couldn´t find ads but the music calendar. Feb-68 maybe is more up your street? ;D
Had problems with getting it into TAW- I´m not good at technical stuff and computers- but I hope it´s readable!  ;D

[attachment deleted by admin]

Oooh! All my old stamping grounds there.

The Starting Gate for one, that was my 'local'. That was one of the pubs that ran different 'nights ' on different nights.
I saw Clarence Ashley there once (with his red braces) on the folk night.

And Rufus Thomas ('Just a-walking my dog') on the Blues'n'Soul night

and I'm pretty sure Ashley was there watching as well

and the Enterprise at Hampstead..

heavens! ;D

Blimey. My old mate Jack King was on at the Troubador. Used to work with him, haven't seen him in years! Owned a lovely Martin, decades old.

From the same MM in Feb 68, Fairport will be playing Middle Earth in a week´s time:
(I think this is great fun  ;D ;D ;D )

[attachment deleted by admin]

And here is next week... I hope

[attachment deleted by admin]

Hell's teeth - not a "double equal bill", eh?   :)

That's what it said! and all for the princely sum of 55p...

I could have recieved a FREE MEMBERSHIP on application, had I been there and found my Happening 44 card. But I wasn´t there and the card...??  :-*
I still  have my TILES membership card, though!  ;D

Trader Horne and a bit later and possibly too small to read but.....

[attachment deleted by admin]

Interesting spelling of T Rex there.

That's what they were called when they started out, I think they became T.Rex when Marc went electric!

I always used to think 'lard' when I saw T.Rex written anywhere ;D (showing my age ::))

I think PLW is pointing out that the spelling on the advert is wrong... Tyrannosauras as opposed to Tyrannosaurus Rex

On the morning of June 25th 1967 I left Gothenburgh on the ferry to Tilbury - it took 25 hours so I missed The Beatles TV show- to spend a month on a language course in New Malden, Kingston-upon-Thames. Included in the course fee was a month's railway ticket to London, Waterloo. Did we use that? Into town after morning class, back for dinner and then back for London nightlife.It was a fantastic month in every way, but had I then known what I knew later, I would have gone to Middle Earth, Electric Garden and other smaller, more obscure music places and not only to clubs like Marquee, Tiles, Flamingo etc. I would have passed the Fairport track earlier, now that didn't happen until two years later. But I listened to loads of music and bought all these music magazines. This one is from my "London 1967" file.  ;D
Enjoy

[attachment deleted by admin]

P.S. The Librarian wants to be accurate about the source info: Melody Maker, July 8, 1967 D.S.

And look who was appearing at Croppies (top right of clipping)... Linda Peters! Future CD title there, I think: From Croppies to Croppers  :)

I do remember that Electric Garden gig.

It was the first time I heard 'Say You Don't Mind' sung live and it was brilliant 8)

Mmmmmmm. Pineapple Truck!  ;D

For those not familiar with this, I just found this:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/sft1/190452/190452-01-004_mp3_192k.mp3 on this site: http://www.soundflavor.com/track.php?trackId=1578964

Must be one of the first festival appearances. Rather interesting Sunday.
I wouldn´t get there* until two years later to watch Fotheringay start off things, midday in heat and blazing sun on Plumpton racecourse!

*National Jazz (Pop, Ballads) & Blues Festival

[attachment deleted by admin]

That NJF clipping reminds me of a story doing the rounds back then that the PA there was so powerful that when The Nice hit the opening chords of "America", the pressure generated by the main speaker stacks blew a roadie off the front of the stage.  Probably apocryphal, but you never know...

This thread is reminding of how much I kick myself for throwing things like concert ticket stubs and old programmes away

Indeed, JBM has (or had, must ask him if he still has it) a scrap book bursting with ticket stubs, the first being Deep Purple at the DeMontfort Hall in 1971, 30p IIRC.  I also had dozens of wrist bands and ticket stubs going back to the early eighties, unfortunately I parted company from them in a hasty exit from a relationship :(

Funny you should that Goaty, most of my memorablia went when my marriage ended.  :(

Never thrown one away yet.
My first stub is Genesis April 1975 Colston Hall Bristiol.

I must thank my parents for having a large attic in their house. When I finally fetched all my old stuff in the 80´s,it survived in my own house and a 2nd marriage.
But to some extent it´s genetic. My father was a squirrel* too!  :)



* a swedish expression to label a person who saves most things that come in their way. "It might come in handy".  ;D

Indeed, a true story. I believe the victim was Charlie Watkins head of WEM amplifiers who were doing the pa.  

I'm having trouble finding a source for this. One would think this story would appear amid the many stories found in the history page (http://www.watkinsguitars.co.uk/history.htm) on the Charlie Watkins website, but no mention is made of this. Is the source that convinced you of the story's veracity available on the web?

Couldn't say. I'm relying on own (admittedly fallible) memory. I seem to remember it appearing in either Melody Maker or NME, at the time, along with the unpleasantness (seating or barriers collapsing) that occurred during the Arthur Brown set. The details you mention all accord with my own recollection; same festival, band & song. I stand to be corrected as the tale may yet prove to be a (sub)urban myth.

A minor classic.  Melody Maker, March 1, 1969

[attachment deleted by admin]

A favourite of mine from MM, December 7 1968.  A couple of years later I would be the equivalent in a Gothenburgh Student's Union Club, but miles and miles from this -rather pompous - title : The Entertainments Officer!  8) ;D  ::)


[attachment deleted by admin]

Interesting to see that these flyers advertise "The Fairport Convention".  Was the "The" ever really part of their name - it's not even on the first CD?

Not as far as I remember! I think promoters/clubs were so used bands having 'The' in front of their names, they just assumed there was one... :D

Remember watching programmes about the music scene of THE late sixties and have seen acts including The Led Zeppelin, The Pink Floyd etc...

Probably comes from introducing things like The Royal Philomonic and other clasical stuff on the wireless.  

Even as late as the 80s I remember George Michael's ensemble being introduced as "The Wham!"

Surely you mean the first LP.  ;)

 ;D

Yes, you are right; I do mean that of course!  ;D  However, as I only started buying FC things about three years ago, all I have is on CD (apart from "Expletive Delighted", which I got on vinyl from the Oxfam Music Shop in Reading.)