So how did YOU get into Fairport?

[Goaty]

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.

[Mix (Mic)]

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

Mic

[leafbyniggle]

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!

[London Refugee]

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?

[Nuthouse]

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 

[Bryan]

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

Mic

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

[Mix (Mic)]

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

[Neil Morrell]

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............

[Jack O Diamonds]

Anyone for a North London/FC get together?

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?

[jamesc]

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

[Keith E Rice]

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!

[davidmjs]

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...

[Amethyst (Jenny)]

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...

[Tasha]

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

[Cocker Freeman]

They've been sacked.

[Amethyst (Jenny)]

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

Sacked.. Oh dear...

[Chris]

Otts started acting the goat....

[mikec]

You're kidding 

[Goaty]

So he was baaaad then was he

[DarrenWilliams]

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. 

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.