So how did YOU get into Fairport?

[Pat Helms]

I found out about them at a Grateful Dead concert in '85.  There were a bunch of flyers passed around informing about Fairport reforming and how they were "Britain's Grateful Dead." 

Sounded interesting. 

At the time, you could not find a Fairport album to save your life in Knoxville.  So, after about a year(!), I finally found a copy of MOVEABLE FEAST.  It sounded okay, but not very much like the Dead.  Coincidentally, a couple of days later I was in Ohio (to see the Dead again!) and picked up a ragged copy of UNHALFBRICKING (the elephant cover).  Again, didn't sound much like the Dead, but much better than FEAST.  A couple of months later I heard that the RTB was coming to town.  I went, hoping to hear Genesis Hall, never having heard any of his catalog.  Instead, I got Calvary Cross, which totally blew my mind and changed my life forever! 

Shortly afterward, the Hannibal re-issues started appearing and I went to town on them!  Within about six months, I had all of it; Sandy, Richard and Fairport.  Knowing my serious appetite, my local used record dealer began finding the other unre-issued stuff for me.

The similarity of Fairport to the Dead is pretty intangible, but it exists.  I think it must be the connection fans feel with the bands - a shared perspective or some rubbish like that.  Honestly, I feel Fairport has been able to retain a more genuine manifestation of that perceived relationship.  I never had an opportunity to have beer with Garcia after a show and I've never had to worry about getting my head blown off with a bottle-rocket at Cropredy!

[rachel]

Back in the 70's thanks to one of my older sisters,

Got sidetracked by many other music genres but was reminded of them by daughters boyfriend

now busy kicking myself for so many wasted years

rachel

[Tullfanatic]

Saw them back in the 80's opening for Tull, thought they were awesome then.  Then my band opened up for them in Cleveland
in sept. completely blown away by the set and now I cannot get enough of them.
www.cuyuga.net

Yeah Marcus!!  

Unbelievably, I missed them opening for Tull but was turned onto them by my dear friend Ron from Israel, who goes to Cropredy and has met some of you. 

Now he's thrilling me with the sweet sounds of Steeleye Span! 

Annette

p.s.  You were fab that night, Marcus!

[steveb]

I was 14 in 1974 and bought the live album on a whim whilst in HMV in Manchester.  The first few bars of Matty Groves and I was hooked.  It's funny, every time I hear that song it seems as fresh as it did then and I listen to the words like I'm hearing the story for the first time.  I think great narrative is one element of many FC songs, traditional and band written.  I naturally progressed to the studio albums and have never not listened to them since.  A lot of my other musical interests are classical, Vaughan Williams, Tallis, but Fairport are very special to me and their music is right up there with the best and would comprise a large chunk of my Desert Island Discs in the unlikely event of my being asked to participate.

[folkicons]

School trip to York 1969, sitting on Castle Green listening to someone's tinny transistor playing "Si Tu.." The media get it right sometimes. Never looked back.

[JohnH]

Saw them late 80s at Bath Theatre Royal. I was 17 and was persuaded to go by a friend who thought they were one of those bands that we ought to go and see because they were meant to be good. Enjoyed it a lot, then went down to Bath library's awesome record section and discovered Expletive Delighted, Unhalfbricking, Pour Down Like Silver, Morris On, Liege and Lief, Flittin, Across a Crowded Room.... started to get the big picture.....went to Cropredy in 91... never looked back.

[Keith Taylor]

Like a lot of things musical, I guess it was all Steve Goodchild and Nick Michell's fault. If Nick hadn't booked Downes & Beer for the Raven Folkclub, and Steve hadn't dragged me along to see them back in 1982, I might never have found I really liked that sort of music.

One of the traditions at the Raven was rounding off the evening on singers nights with "The Farndon Philharmonic" (ie most of the performers present)  leading everyone in singing Meet on the Ledge. Certain of the regulars, which included Doc Mahone  were big Fairport and Richard Thompson fans (I heard Doc sing The Great Valerio long before I heard either Linda or Richard sing it), and hence off I went and bought The History of Fairport Convention and Small Town Romance...and the rest, as others have also said, is history. The world seemed to come full circle when 18 months ago I sat and thoroughly enjoyed Full House's complete performance of Babbacombe Lee at the Chester Folk Festival, reflecting that they had been talking about doing it for 20 years and now finally had.

Having said that, it was the Arizona Smoke Revue that made the biggest impression on me, which of course led (eventually) to the Phil Beer Band and Show of Hands.

[Simon Nicol]

It was 1970 I think, but maybe '71. Fairport was playing in Hungary with Sandy, and me and my friend got to talk to them somehow.

Zsuzsa: Your memory is playing tricks on you. The only trip we made to you plucky Magyars back then was in '71 with the four-piece Angel Delight line-up. In the Free Reed Swarb boxset, there's a handwritten itinerary of the 12/14 gigs we did reproduced. Certainly Sandy wasn't there - it was very much a boys' day out and has happy and exciting memories for us all! But I do think FC went back during my sabbatical for a summer festival (74 or 75?) so that must have been when you had the pictures taken with Miss Denny....

[Anna]

Well I guess I've always been a folkie - I have happy memories as a toddler (almost) and a kid going to folk festivals with my parents.  Sidmouth, Towersey, even Cambridge one year but that was too big for me and I got scared when I got lost one day!  Towersey was my favourite.  As far as I recall we never did Cropredy though.  Then I got into Heavy Metal, as youngsters are wont to do...  And the whole folk thing went dormant for many years.

Then a couple of years ago I joined a jazz band when I picked up the flute again after a 10-year layoff...  One of the other members introduced me to Jethro Tull, which obviously I took to rather quickly!  There's the Fairport connection!  And conincidentally my parents "dragged" me to see Fairport at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, which would have been the "Wood and the Wire" tour.  It's all snowballed from there...

Got to Cropredy last year, and that really was a dream come true, my two favourite bands ever on the same bill, and some new favourites to learn about too (Oysterband particularly)...

Have to admit I personally prefer the newer stuff to the older stuff.  Diligently listening to "Liege and Lief" at the minute but struggling with it.

_{PS.  How come the spell checker doesn't recognise "Cropredy"?}

[KenS]

Always been a folkiie myself - well, since the mid 60's anyway.  I was a huge Dylan fan and interested in his unrecorded work after snagging a copy of the "Great White Wonder."  Found out from a knowledgeable record store employee about Fairport's Dylan covers, so I checked them out.  I lost touch in the 70's until I heard of Sandy's passing - then started listening again.  Ever since, I've been a fan - especially of the Denny/Thompson incarnation of the group.

Ken

[peterryb]

A borrowed CD , but really when I went, on the spur of a Friday afternoon moment, to meet some friends at Cropredy 1994. Will never forget Roy Harper'd haunting voice floating across the darkened campsite, as I put up my tent and then wandered over to the arena. I fell in love with Cropredy and Fairport from that weekend on. Like the festivals of old, hippy times. Friendly, rural, bohemian, something very olde English, but also very 60's peace and love as well. Getting back to the land and all that.  Beer, great music, acoustic guitars late into the night outside the tents. And then, the horrible shock of driving back along the modern day M40, stopping at some awful service station and meeting some football yobs on their way to the Charity Shield match at Wembley. Expensive Burger King and flashing fruit machines, after all that great veggy food from the stalls and the canoe club breakfasts!  Cropredy and Fairport have been an important part of my life ever since. Their performance at the 30th. anniversary at Cropredy 1997 was the best for me- better than anything I've seen by such "heavyweights" as Led Zeppelin and the Stones in the past. Spiritually uplifting; even life-affirming!

[Anaphase]

When we got invited to join some friends at Cropredy just a few years ago in 2000.  Unfortunately, couldn't make that year but started of with a couple of CD's and we are still catching up! 

First Cropredy was 2001.  The first night, the 9th, was my birthday and the last night was our wedding anniversary.  We celebrated with champagne to Meet on the Ledge and haven't looked back since.

I'm still getting to grips with it all!

Ana

[James SftBH]

Skirky made me do it.

[jude]

Skirky made me do it.

Never mind James.

 Get your own back.

Make him babysit the twins.

But tell him you've lost the instruction book that came with them

 

Jude

[Shane (Skirky)]

Blimey, I mean really, how difficult could it be....
Now, the question is, how do we get them into Fairport?
SK

[mikemush]

hmmmm.......if memory serves.........drooling,incontinent,uncoordinated........do Fairport really want banjo players?     

[MikeD]

Fairport hmmm……… Was the summer of ‘69 & at 16 I’m free from O’levels & waiting to start the 6th form. A mate of mine has a Lambretta & he suggests we visit some of his mates in Noss Mayo. Anyhow we’re sitting on the beach & someone puts on this LP & the 1st track is all about Mary Queen of Scots: Sandy’s “Fotheringhay”. I was hooked on Sandy’s voice & RT’s guitar. I then realised I’d seen a local band play “Meet on the Ledge” a while before.

6th form beckoned & very quickly got into the underground music scene at the Van Dike Club in Plymouth. “Unhalfbricking” & then “Liege & Lief” blew us all away. But still no Fairport gig. And then horror of horrors Ashley & Sandy leave.

Meet my wife to be in the 6th form & eventually both of us end up at Birmingham Uni. Live in a house, which resembled “The Angel”, with fleas that could jump light years! Now RT has left & all we have to mourn is “Full House”. Again see lots of bands: Steeleye Span & The Albion Band amongst them.

Buy “Rising for the Moon” & eventually book to see Fairport but my Mother comes to visit so have to cancel.

The sad news of Sandy’s death means I’ll never see her play. In 1979 I eventually get to see the band in Horsham where we now live. They played in the old theatre, which is now a Marks & Spencer store. Every time I go in there I can picture Simon, Peggy, Swarb & Bruce in what is now the food hall! 

Don’t get to go to Cropredy for many reasons (this year it clashed with my daughter’s wedding). In 1987 I see them at Dorking which was fantastic as we had front of house seats. A bit wary of the new boys but Maart & Ric were 1st rate! We took along some friends who were sadly not impressed: too loud! I thought it was great! The “Hiring Fair” is now a favourite up there with Fotheringhay. Since then we bundle along as often as possible & also to lots of other “dinosaurs” from the 60’s & 70’s music scene. Doesn’t John Mayall look fit! Hoping to get to Cropredy this year.

[Tasha]

You have to get to Cropredy!!

[koho (Koen)]

'twas Late November (!) 1988 when first I got into Fairport, via a Dutch magazine article on Sandy Denny in "OOR". The description of the music, though I didn't know it, appealed to me, and strangely my first purchase was a bold one - the Sandy Denny/Who Knows Where The Time Goes 4LP box set. I was hooked immediately. What an eye opener; I had a musical coming-home. Evenings with curtains closed and lights out and just THAT on the headphones. I had always been a kind of Anglophile and this was just the music for me - quintessentially English. I had previously already discovered John Martyn and Nick Drake, so I was already on my way, and recognized a name or two.
Very quickly I got me some more vinyl - amongst first purchases were Liege & Lief, R/LT's Bright Lights and Shout Out The Lights, Fotheringay, Swarb's Flittin', and the Albions' Shuffle Off. A very eclectic mix of music all from the same family.
One album buying round later and I found Red & Gold, the then new album. In those pre-internet days I wasn't even aware there still was a Fairport there and then! There was a contact address there and mention of some festival. I decided to write - this must have been January 1989 - and soon got an answer from the wonderful Chris Pegg plus a free copy of the 1988 Cropredy programme. I HAD to go, I had decided by then.
So I found myself at Cropredy 1989 and have attended all of 'em since except 2003. I've never recovered and the extended Fairport family tree still occupies about a quarter of my whole CD collection which holds 2600+ shiny discies. (it's a *very* extended Fairport family).
I just wish I had discovered Fairport a few years later. It would have saved me a lot of vinyl buying (and selling, later onwards). From 1990 on I bought everything on CD (I was one of those very attached to my old albums, but had to give in in the end). But I got me a whole bunch of FC/family vinyl before that.

Things came round again when we had Fairport playing at our wedding, fifteen years since those mesmerizing autumnal lights-out-curtains-closed-headphone days, when I was just 20. Had I known in 1988 that I'd have Fairport as a wedding band in 2003, I would not have believed it. In those days they were a bit like the Beatles had been to me just a few years earlier. Big, big idols. I grew up a bit since 
 

[David Andrews]

It is the fault of my biology teacher ( in the early 80s).

OMG!!!

For me, it wasn't MY biology teacher's fault... it was my sister's biology teacher's fault!

We were in a band together, bringing some jigs and things in, because said teacher was a fiddle player.  Turns out (and I have both parties' confirmation of this) that said teacher is in fact and old pal of Ric's!

I was lent two LPs... one by Lindisfarne and one by Fairport.

I wore the FC one out.

Eventually, the band that said teacher and I were in took on a look of the FC thing that I would have loved to have seen for myself in 1971 (my band was back in 1978/9):

Rob Meakin- fiddle, vocal
David Andrews- guitar, vocal
Geoff Ward- bass, vocal
Frank Ellison- drums, vocal

I actually wanted to do more FC stuff but the band weren't all keen.  Me and the fiddle player were.  Would be cool to get Rob over here, and maybe Peggy... I could ask my pal Raimo to drum for us and I'd do guitar.... my graduation party band   Sparepart Invention maybe