So how did YOU get into Fairport?

[Zith]

It's all my Dad's fault!  I was brought up listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull & Fairport.  I remember him struggling a few years back to get a CD copy of What we did on our Holidays and when he played it I just fell in love with it.  That was the first real album of theirs I got into - always preferred Tull before then...

[Nigel no longer of Lysander]

I too started on the prog rock route but kept driving down interesting roads Roxy Music, Van Der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, King Crimson. Then I started to notice that most of my fave albums included a violin/fiddle player, the jump to Fairport came via my father's ambivalent love of Folk Music and a pursuit of something folky to annoy him with!!!

Sadly he didn't live long enough to be really pissed off but at least I tried 

Cheers Lysander

[fat Billy(Bill)]

My Big brother (a beatles fan) had 'Olidays and I had a listen when I was about 11, then in about 77 an old pal mentioned fairport and lent me a couple of albums and that was that. saw then on the 1st farewell tour at cliffs pavillion southend in 79?. this led to my hanging around folk festivals
trying to hear something simular.

[Folkie (Jen)]

Ok, here comes the story. Sorry it took me so long to write it.

First of all, my dad very wisely always kept an eye/ear on the music I listened to and I was certainly influenced by what he was playing (Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson,...)
But I didn't get into Fairport until I was about 13.
It started with the decision to go on the school exchange between my school in Mannheim, Germany and a school in our twin-town, Swansea (Wales).
It was the farewell evening and I was standing outside in the foyer waiting for my dad to pick me up when I suddenly noticed this boy standing there. It was the T-shirt I recognised but I wasn't sure what the real connection was; all I knew was: dad's got the same and he got it at this festival in summer last year.

So I walked up to this boy, asked him where he got it from and we started talking about Cropredy and how many years we'd been going there and actually had to realise that we'd been sitting about 2 metres away from one another all those times.

Yes, so he started with the "hardcore" bits, how he liked Ric's fiddling and this and that and I just stood there, nodding and smiling as you do when you don't know what to say.
So I said to myself: You'll be seeing him next August, make sure you actually know a bit about this band before you meet him again. And so I did.

We met on the exchange year after year and the friendship developed as it did only because of the Cropredy festival.

Now his family is like my family and one of the reasons I ended up in Swansea. 

Jenny 

[Sandra]

Jenny
That is a lovely story.
I got into Fairport in the early 70's going to festivals etc. I then lost interest until I happened to be in lunch at College one day when one of our students had a Fairport CD with her. She persuaded my husband and I to accompany her to Cropredy last year and, well, here we are. In turn I introduced her to Led Zepplin! We have some lively nights in!

[Kev]

Randomly bought "Babbacombe Lee" in the NAAFI in West Berlin, aged 17. Addicted ever since, through their highs and lows. Finally made it to Cropredy for the first time last year...

Kev.

[Sir Robert Peel]

Randomly bought "Babbacombe Lee" in the NAAFI in West Berlin, aged 17. Kev.

A very warm welcome to new poster Kev with an amazing story of acquiring a copy of Babbacome Lee on military premises - buying it randomly - and becoming hooked.  Such taste and independence at the tender age of 17 years. 
We are delighted that you have posted and would be intrigued to find out how that 17 year old's tastes progressed over the years.  When you have the time, would you join me for a drink and a chat in the Corporation Arms?  If you go to the 'new members' reception party', I will be waiting with questions, a glass of sherry (or whatever your having) and I'll send out for some scoff from the NAAFI, if you don't fancy the canapes.  Oh and bring your favourite CDs, as background music.  Welcome, Kev

Sir Robert Peel
Minder to Members 

[vickie]

It's all my Dad's fault!  I was brought up listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull & Fairport. 

very much the same here. my dad brought me up on Floyd, Zeppelin, Tull and just about every thing else as his record collection was so massive and my mothers influence on my upbringing was Fairport and Steeleye. i never really realised how much i appreciated folk music until i gave up learning the violin in school because i hated classical, but instead found a burning sensation to play folk music, and was then given a fiddle for my 18th birthday. i absolutley luurrrvvee the fiddle!! i saw swarb when i was in my teens and was hooked! there were only 6 of us at the gig and so i sat right in front of him and watched every movement he made on that fingerboard!

...bliss!

[Kev]

After Berlin: Returned to the UK the following year, 1972, to study at Leicester and Sussex. Memorable Steeleye gigs at the De Montfort, Ashley's Albion Dance Band at Sussex, supported by R&L T, if my memory serves...

Was anybody out there at a FC gig at the Half Moon. Putney, Circa 1979-1980?It  featured Swarb, Peggy, Mattacks, Simon, plus Conway, Donohue, and, I think, Trevor Lucas and forgive me if I"m conflating two gigs, a fleeting  appearance by Linda Thompson. Very crowded stage, as I recall...

Kev.

[JamesM]

First my Mum gave me Steeleye Span's Original Masters, which she used to use in lessons as a music teacher. Then, my flute teacher, who was married to a fellow morris dancer, lent me a tape of History of, In Real Time and Expletive. Got hooked, bought everything I could find since, and started going to gigs when I was 15. Cropredy followed naturally from 96 onwards.

[ruthyie]

Must be mid-to-late-80s when my dad got Red and Gold on CD (I should have taken notes on the Red and Gold thread for an exact date). He had Fairport 9 (the history one) on vinyl and I owe my understanding of melody and harmony and the turn of a tune completely to a diet of Ralph McTell in my early years but, for me, Red and Gold was exciting and powerful. I played the album lots and learned R and G lyrics by heart, singing it to myself all the time for the next decade and beyond. I was proud that Ralph wrote it but I do love the FC version!

It was the first music that introduced me to the moment I describe as the drums and bass entering a folk(rock) song. Must have been Maart's electronica. Since then, I have found that pleasure in other bands and other FC albums.

Then we got a CD just of Sandy and I got interested in earlier FC as well.

[advent]

 :)well just had to reply on this one ,it was back in 68(,picture starts to go fuzzy)(then black and white) hippy club called middle earth in covent garden air heavy with josh stick scent and cannabiss,heads full of chemical substances,freaky groups playing phsyco stuff,third ear band pissing about would,nt get off stage,this unknown group start, good looking bloke(ian) and gorgeous girl(sandy) singing song called meet on something,made the other groups that night look a bit silly, and so it was the ledgened of fc was born,(you had to be there)old bill usually raided about 4.00 ,to wop some hippy arse ,so always get out before then,ha happy days

[johnottocleese]

Good morning, advent.

I see you have been with us for some time but this is your first post. Welcome, good sir. Please join me in the Corporation Arms so that we can learn a little more about you. Bring your favourite albums, and whatever tipple you wish.

Happy posting!

Sir Otto

[ollythedolly]

i came home from school last year and just put on Fairport 25th.....
this has influenced me to buy 19 fairport albums and into more trad music like Kate Rusby and so on. I don't listen to any other kind of music any more only folk and a bit of countrey.

[nmg]

It was fate.  Back in the early '70's, I turned on an FM radio for the very first time in my life and I heard Tam Lin.  I was absolutely enchanted, partially because I was a Tolkien addict, so a song about faeries had an immediate appeal.  But the sound of it was like nothing I had ever heard. 

[lesb/thesb]

I first saw Fairport at the age of 11 months and 15 days, that was at cropredy  folk festival.
Ifirst remember really seeing them in 1991 cropredy,despite going every year in between.
I got my first Fairport album (the five seasons) in 1992, for Christmas from my mum, it was only the fourteenth CD in the house.

I have been a fan of fairports for as long as I remember, my favourite songs been the wounded whale, and Sloth i also like all the songs and especially the more trad one (except the above)
I admit beeing a geek, but my ambition is and always has been to play on stage at cropredy with them, but i fear DAve Pegg has the upper edge in competition for the bass 'section'. 
Fairport keep it coming

[Staffan]

Walking down the snowy Avenue in Gothenburgh in december 1969 I went into a record store, browsed through the new albums and were caught by the fact that this group both played not only electric guitars, bass and drums but also violin. Since I had struggled with all instruments I found it so interesting that I bought the record -"Liege &  Lief" and was hooked.Both by the tunes, the trad.arr. and the band´s own compositions. Not to mention the female singer. Bought the earlier albums as well and FC became MY band. I don´t think I miss any musical output, apart from the bootlegs. Didn´t see them until 1974 but from then on my contact with the music - and sometimes Peggy-  has been rather intense over the years. With the children being born, I didn´t manage the live concerts since they didn´t do Scandinavia that much in the late 80s and 90s. But I´ve introcuced the live band to the family in Denmark 2002 and Sweden 2003 with some success. I´m still the only Fairport Fanatic in the family, though!
Cheers
Staffan

[Nick]

Nice one Staffan, and welcome aboard!

Are you coming over to Cropredy this time?

Cheers

Nick

[TheNeff]

Well, considering that the Cropredy festival was perfect for selling my dad's business (tape duplication) and also considering that my mum just so happens to be an ex-Fairport singer, I didn't really have a choice about getting into Fairport... 

Of well, it was always fun to go to (usually hot though), and it was quite funny seeing my mother get flustered when one of her fans recognised her!

[Amethyst (Jenny)]

Jude will be recognised by loads of us this year... hope she doesn't get flustered this time...

Amy