TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

I would be interested to hear the oddest Fairport connected bootlegs anyone has heard. There are obviously the advert "We're a lot better for butter" featuring Sandy Denny and the Swedish Fly Girl soundtrack tracks, my personal favourite is Dave Swarbrick on the Radio Play "Fiddler of the Reels"?

Oddest?  Not sure I can match your suggestions (!), but I still think the Manor Sessions (Swarb, Peggy, Farnell and David Rea - from the summer of '72) take some beating.  Fairport go all North American Country-Rock(ish).  An interesting experiment not without its attractions.

No particularly odd, & not a bootleg, but the 1975 "Ribbon of Stainless Steel" LP on which wrestler Brian 'Goldbelt' Maxine was backed by FC & friends is certainly different from the band's day job.

Side 1
Stainless steel (McDill-Reynolds)
Please don't tell me how the story ends (Kristofferson)
Don't she look good (Jerry Chesnut)
One of these days (Brian Maxine)
Pleasure and pain (Trevor Lucas-Dave Swarbrick)
West Virginia woman (Bare-Shaver)

Side 2
Sure didn't take him long (Waylon Jennings)
Pass me by (if you're only passing through) (Hillman Hall)
Woman, you have been a friend to me (Tom T Hall)
Hold you close in my mind (Brian Maxine)
Date with a heartache (Dwayne Detroit)
Mobile blues (Mickey Newbury)
Six days on the road (E.Green-C.Montgomery)

Sandy Denny, Linda Peters - backup vocals
Jerry Donahue - lead guitar
Trevor Lucas - thythm guitar, backup vocals
Dave Mattacks - drums
Dave Pegg - bass guitar
Dave Swarbrick - fiddle, mandolin, backup vocals

with

Reg Guest, Don Lowes - piano; Mark Lloyd - percussion; Harry Pitch - harmonica; Peter Willsher - steel guitar

I've heard that another LP was made/mooted...?

Well, there's a very interesting jingle featuring a certain lady of this parish, in duet with a whisperer of some renown  ::)   :-X ;D

whilst appearing as "Swarbrick, Nicol and Pegg" at salford university about '76, i was priveledged to see Brian Maxine join the chaps to do a chunk of that particular lp

The naughty Sailors Alphabet and Simons ditty about dogs bottoms.

What is Simon's ditty about dogs about dogs bottoms? I imagine you couldn't print the lyrics because of taste and decency.

So who was on the drum kit then?  Not Bruce?

To the tune of an old hymn, its about dogs going to a gathering and each hanging their btms on a peg. Someone shouts fire and they all grab the nearest one and scarper. Thats why they now sniff each others to try and  find their own. in a nutshell.
The NSA is mainly Peggy and Swarb with, I think, Martin Carthy.

it was a drummerless show

Interesting....I don't suppose it was recorded?  Lol  ;D

I'm going to need more clues than that, Nick!

Jules

It was when the three of them were appearing as The Three Desperate Mortgages, David.

Jules

I've *whispers it very quietly* got that one.... ;)

After "The Naughy Sailor's Alphabet"? "She Is Woman".

I forgot the origin of the song, but it has a -albeit utterly tongue-in-cheek, of course!- very male chauvinist pig viewpoint: "She is woman, after all / My brain is large, whilst hers is small". Simon used to sing this ditty now and again live when someone broke some string, but there is also a Simon-sung studio version of it, presumably mid-80s. "I'm an eagle, she's a flea/Cause I'm a man, whilst she's just she". It's very funny.
Now why on earth they ever did a studio version, I don't know - it was hardly album material!  ;D ... it wasn't written by any of them, it was taken out of context of some musical or so. Simon should know!

Back when the Fairport mailing list was in its early stages, I set up the Fairport List CD tree - For Fairport Listmembers Only, Volumes 1-2-3-etc - I compiled CDs every few months crammed with rarities not only by Fairport but also offshoots: RT, Sandy, Albions etc. I think I did around 8 volumes, for about 100 people on the list, from 1997-ish onwards, and then after 2 or 3 years someone else took over, and after 2 or 3 further volumes it kinda died as far as I know, years ago. It had it own mailing list after a while.

Actually I can't even play most of the CDRs anymore, so much for old CDR longevity, but at the time it was fun to do and it was also rather secret and hush-hush, well they were bootlegs, but FC knew about it (and received copies) and gave its OK provided it was all done small scale and it wouldn't ever get sold. A lot of the tracks, certainly FC's rarest, have since popped up on various box sets and I seem to remember the List CDs were even mentioned in the booklet of the UnConventional box set -I bet some people wondered what that was!- so it's not very secret anymore and part of the content is out officially anyway.
Source of these came from my old tape trading habit originally -I did this in the early 90s- but later on others also sent material. You could see these List CDs as a kind of best-of of what was available in tape trading circles back in the old days.

There's probably more than one!

Jules

And as David says, the Manor Sessions, yes. It has been years since I played that, but it was very un-Fairport, especially on the cuts where David Rea took the lead, who is as un-English as possible. Imagine a Neil Young kind of accent backed by a soft-country-rock Fairport. But it's a whole album's worth: it was pretty much version one of what was later started from scratch with a whole different line up - and became Rosie. It's understandable the album was shelved. It's even surprising they got as far as they did.

Actually that makes it sound much better than the few tracks I've heard.  I'm glad it proved to be a dead end for Fairport.

Jules

I like it.  I'm also glad that Fairport didn't ultimately go down that route (although to be frank the late '72-'75 material they did put out is very far from my favourite music the band has produced), but the results are anything but a total failure.....

'twas a genuine advert jingle for a very unlikely product (unlikely unless you know the background).

I shall say no more, except that it is a very pleasant, if somewhat surprising ditty  ;)

Cheers

Nick

From Jude's website (the reviews page).  Is this what you mean?

In the period between the 70s and the early 80s, Jude worked with her husband, Simon Stable, on their tape-duplication business in Oxfordshire, producing everything from cassettes for examination boards to radio commercials. One of these was a remarkable advertisement for Mirror Master chrome cassettes, on which Jude sang a version of ‘Amazing Grace’ in which she extolled the virtues of the said tapes in a voice which made one wish to hear her singing the original song

That'll be it...

...with the final surreal touch being a voiceover from Bob Harris!

You don't rate the Lucas/Donahue lineup?!?!   :o

Jules

Oh I rate them hugely, but not greatly on record.  Rosie has some great songs, Nine is a fab album, but the material is a load better live (there's some great 'Boots' about  :) ).  RftM has never hit my spot....it just doesn't gel in any shape or form for me.

Japanese TV 1974???

Anyone know the name of the show (a long shot I know)?

Still to be investigated but thanks to Philip Ward it seems that in the Aussie TV archives there is an interview with both Sandy and Trevor talking for 2 minutes about touring, etc.

Jamie

All I (and seemingly the compiler) knows is this: NHK TV, Japan Jan 1974

The tracks from it are:

Hexhamshire Lass
Rosie
Possibly Parsons Green
Interview
The Brilliancy Medley & Cherokee Shuffle
Cell Song
Pleasure & Pain

Ooh, Lordy.  I hope I come across that one on my travels on of these days!

Jules

It's not an oddbootleg as such and I don't know if this is well known, but I was listening to the 1997 Cropredy warm up at Banbury (6th August 1997) and in Matty Groves Vicky Clayton sings 'How do you like my feather bed and how do like my sheets and how do you like my curtains I bought in the sale last week" - this is sung completely deadpan and no comment is made afterwards - I've never heard those lyrics sung anywhere else. Did she sing it like that often?

Hi Shankly and welcome to this weird and wonderful place

I've heard it sung by Simon a couple of times.

Clive
(ex-pat Evertonian btw)

Vikki sings various versions.  I've also heard Simon sing do you like my curtains I bought in Ikea last week (I think...).

OK thanks for that...

I saw Simon do the doggy-bottom song with Swarb at the Half Moon in 2003.  Very entertaining.  Never heard him do it before or since.

In the early 1980's in those great, far-off days when Simon and Swarb used to do their truly memorable double act, Simon used to do the "Dogs" song (Hymns Ancient & Modern... Addendum) quite regularly. An excellent song which explains so much canine behaviour... never heard it on a bootleg or anywhere else for that matter. Of course Simon was also doing his "Goodnight Vienna Hello Helen Reddy" tribute in those days... the "She Is Woman" song. I think there was some reason or other why he was never able to record this terrific song but live it remains one of the great performances!

About that time I remember a gig in Hampstead at which (Heavens forfend) Swarb was on the cadge for fags and whisky and someone sent up a very large Brandy... Now DM had (I think) just been playing lucrartive sessions for Elton John or Paul McCartney and Swarb gratefully accepts the brandy and peers out into the audience saying "Oh... is DM in the house?" Correct in one Swarb!

Time you did a double A-side (or whatever passes for same in the mp3 world) of Dogs and Woman, Simon!!

That line is a variation from 'Fatty Groves' by the Kipper Family of course.

I would love to hear FC do the Kipper version one year for a laugh. Indeed, I wilsh I had a recording of the Kippers version.
The Kippers played Darlington beer festival one year, supporting Whippersnapper. Half way through 'Fatty Groves', Swarbs head appeared around the curtain and gave them 'a look'.

I've never heard that.  A quick google dredged up the following, is this the one ?  It would certainly be amusing to be taken unawares by it at Cropredy.


A holiday, a holiday, and all the people dozed
Lord Ormsby's wife went into the town, but everything was closed

She couldn't get no shopping done, and so she looked around
And there she saw big Fatty Groves a-lying on the ground

"Go home, go home, you Fatty Groves, you are a drunken lout;
Go home, go home, you Fatty Groves, you shouldn't be let out."

"Oh I can't go home, and I won't go home, and I can't go home for my life
For the ring off my finger I have lost, I'll be murdered by me wife

"Well if I am quite frank with you, your wife is not at home,
For she is in my husband's bed, and she is not alone.

So as I've nothing else to do - no really not a thing -
I might as well come back with you and help you find the ring."

A servant who was standing there, just why nobody knows,
He swore his cronies they should know before the pub was closed.

And when he come to the broad mill stream he did not see the plank
And in his hurry to carry the news he fell on his belly and sank.

Big Fatty and Lord Ormsby's wife they hunted high and wide,
Till Fatty fell upon his bed and she fell by his side.

Big Fatty Groves he got up to go and wash his face,
When he returned Lady Ormsby's husband lay there in his place.

Saying "Well, I like your feather bed and well, I like your sheets,
And well, to be frank, I like your wife who lies in my arms asleep.

"Stay there, stay there," said Fatty Groves, "I shall not rant and curse
For you have got the better of me and I have got the worse."

"Stout fellow," said Lady Ormsby's husband, "Taken like a man."
But in then come Mrs. Fatty Groves and in amazement stands.

Saying "How do you like my feather bed, and how do you like my sheet
And how do you like my curtains that I got in the sale last week?"

And then up spoke Mrs. Fatty Groves, never heard to speak so cheap,
"You told me you didn't like your wife, and now with her you sleep.

Lady Ormsby's husband he jumped up and ran right out the door,
"I didn't know it was her", he cried, and was never seen no more.

Fatty fainted clean away at the closeness of the call,
The ladies picked him up, and they leant him against the wall.

They leant him up against the wall, and that was a disaster,
For Fatty weighed full twenty stone and the wall just lathe and plaster.

The wall gave way and Fatty fell, oh Fatty fell outside,
And when he came to the broad pavement he fell on his head and he died.
"A grave, a grave," the ladies cried "To bury Fatty in,
But better you make it extra large, or you won't get him all in."

"Now isn't that just typical," these ladies they did say,
"The men can be relied upon to spoil a holiday."

Thanks for that, Goats.  Excellent fooling, i' faith!

Jules

Well done Goaty, just been splitting my sides at that! Never in my FC life have i heard that performed , over to you Simon!  ;D ;D

A lot of beer has flowed under the bridge since those days, so I'm not ceertain thats the version I heard, although the 'servant missing the plank' bit I definately remember.

Live the vocals were a little coarser as well, I'm sure;
 
"But better you make it extra large, or you won't get
him all in."

was

"But better you make it extra large, to fit the b*gg*r in"

Edit - checked the Kippers web site, so it must be right!

I'd like to hear the different version of Spanish Main with Maart.