The Silkie and Fairport

I've just been listening, via Apple Music, to the Silkie's album You've Got to Hide Your Love Away (I guess it's from 1965 or so). What struck me is that it contains a lot of the same sort of repertoire Heyday-era FC played, and I guess quite a few other people played at the time, but that Fairport did it in a way that really differed from everybody else, The Silkie included. They played it in, for want of a better phrase, a much less worthy way.

I don't want to slag The Silkie off by calling them worthy, mind. It's a nice album. I also have quite a soft spot for the band, having got to know one of their guitarists, Ivor Aylesbury, very well in the 80s (under quite unusual circumstances, but that's another story!). I heard that Ivor died a few years ago. Two Fairport-related things I remember when I think of him are these. First, I remember talking about my intention to rebuy Liege and Lief, having somehow mislaid an earlier copy. He seemed amazed that a young whippersnapper (as I was in 1987!) would even have heard of the album, and I recall him talking of it in utterly reverential tones as one of the best albums ever. Secondly, I remember him saying that he'd gone to watch RT in London, and had sat on the front row right in front of him, watching his fingers like a hawk all evening, and yet still couldn't tell what he was doing!