Liege and Lief - Not Influential at All

[Pat Helms]

I thought we all voted for L&L just so the guys could get an award? 

Some folks have talked about the Band influence and there were early comparisons with L&L to Big Pink.  I can't back this up, but it always seemed to me that Fairport was more likely following in the foot steps of the Byrds in creating a British version of SWEETHEARTS OF THE RODEO.  Ashley, himself, said that his vision revolved around creating a British counterpart to American C&W.  Also, although it was from an album after SWEETHEARTS, Fairport did record Ballad of Easy Rider during the L&L sessions.

Is SWEETHEARTS the most influential C&W record of all time?  Should it be considered even a C&W record at all?  Or, should it be considered an influential pop record?

I choose the latter because it changed pop music dramatically.  So much so, that it eventually changed C&W.

In this regard, therefore, L&L is not really a folk album at all.  Its a pop album.  It was intended for the pop charts and pop music buyers.  Neither the Byrds nor Fairport were interested in diving into the markets they were emulating. 

I hate seeing L&L stuck in the folk bends.  It don't belong there!  It belongs in the same bends as AMERICAN BEAUTY, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, LONDON CALLING and NEVERMIND.

And that's how I feel about it. 

[Matthew]

I agree.  Fairport were basically a rock band playing folk music.  Sandy Denny was a rock singer - and probably the greatest female rock singer of them all.

[Matthew]

Oh, and I agree about Ian Matthews as well.  A brilliant vocalist who went on to show just how great he was on those 3 Matthews Southern Comfort LPs.

L&L is a great, great album though and I know it turned my Dad on to folk-rock when a university pal called Marcus played it to him for the first time.  Any album with Matty Groves, Tam Lin, and Crazy Man Michael on has to be a classic....

[Matthew]

'I have criticisms of it [Liege & Lief], although if you ask anybody about the records they've made, they tend to see the warts...... But I do feel that on Liege and Lief we were too careful.  We could have been wilder.  But its influence was profound. I know people who took Liege & Lief as an example of what they could do within their own culture to revive their own traditional music.'

'Fairport played its first gig on the day Sgt. Pepper was released.  We played all the psychedelic clubs, so that was the context of the first couple of LPs.  But at some point we decided we wanted to be a lyric band and the people playing electric music with interesting lyrics were Dylan and The Byrds.....  It was a radical thing for Fairport to do - much harder than it was for Dylan, who was taking what was an American form anyway and connecting it with a bit of electricity...'

Richard Thompson, in the May 2006 issue of UNCUT.  Plenty more interesting stuff in the 2-page run through WWDOOH, L&L, I Want To See..., Shoot Out, Rumour and Sigh, and Front Parlour Ballads.

[greglin (Gregg)]

Wow - I thought L & L was pretty much sacrosant - surprised to see some negatives............................

Have to say that it is hard to do a critique of it now - it's a bit like giving a reason why you still like your best mate when he's a grumpy middle aged old git...........

It was a perfetly rounded album that touched a collective nerve. I knew that I loved traditional music, bt wasn't happy with the direction it was going and this album filled a huge gap. As a fledling drummer I was intrigued by what DM was doing. It's been perhaps bettered but it was incomparable on release. In that sense I suppose it's hard to arge that it wan't influential in that everything that came afterwards would be compared to it - as Joe Boyd said " genuine originality and bravery"

[david stevenson]

" Principal Edwards etc" were on the Harvest label if my failing memory is correct?? I remember hearing some of their stuff on a sampler album - quite strange but quite good.

I thought they were on Dandelion (Peely's imprint) with the wonderful Bridget St John.

[stevethompson]

I knew Bridget St John when I was at Sheffield University. I was there 1965 to 1968 studying Chemistry, she was studying (if I remember correctly) French. That was, of course, before she was discovered by John Peel and dragged away to fame and fortune !!! In 1971 I moved to Northamptonshire and discovered the music of Principal Edwards Magic Theatre. A wonderful band - I still listen to their music lots. Bridget St John's, and very soon Principal Edwards, albums are being re-released on CD. Well worth getting...

[peterwales]

Prnicipal Edwards? i'd second that. Still play their stuff now - on dated copied audio cassette tapes. Best way to describe them?- whimsical, arty folk rock stage-theatre band. A hybrid of early Genesis and Incredible String Band with bits of Steeleye and Fairport thrown in. Very underrated- never achieved the success they dserved. Also, something very magical and 60's optimistic alternative  and mystical about their music.

[Jack O Diamonds]

Not that it's a worth a hefty waft of Abramovitch's wallet, but 10/10 for getting the correct answer to this one. WWDOOH and Unhalfbricking are radically "new" "influential" sounds... L&L is too in its own way but against a background of The Band doing the same thing in a parallel universe, The Byrds continuing experimentation in folk/rock/rock'n roll... well I ask you... Is it that much more "seminal"... Maybe... Anyway my totally rational (nay obsessive - ed) view of WWDOOH as FC's GREATEST EVER BLOODY ALBUm seeks to provide a resonant harmonic to your post!

[Jack O Diamonds]

Big subject which, I think, is more to do with the continuity of FC than the tracks involved although there are only two completely newly written non-trad.arr tracks (Farewell, Farewell is Willy o' Winsbury with new words).

I always thought Richard thompson wrote this song? Did he just do the words? if so shouldn't the credit read Traditional / Thompson

From Rob

I suppose so, but as with most trad. tunes, they were only written down in the recent past, so variations must exist. I am no expert on copyright or what has to appear as credits, though.

Willy O'Winsbury... old trad song... sung by Sweeney's Men a couple of years or so before FC did L&L... Gawd does anyone here remember Sweeney's Men.

[Jim]

yeah

[Jack O Diamonds]

yeah

I knew you'd know Jim! Are you attending Cropredy this year?

[Curt]

Anne Briggs was doing Willie of Winsbury in the folk clubs at the time (or so I am told) 

[Jim]

yeah

I knew you'd know Jim! Are you attending Cropredy this year?

no
 maybe next year though ,ifn the good lord's awillin and the creek dont rise

[Mebber]

First I think Leaf and Leige is a great album and whatever music that has come out since doesn't change that. Whether Leaf and Leige is an influential album is very subjective. Some are going to feel it is and some aren't. It's all up to the person. Personally I couldn't careless if you find it influential or not. You're just one of 5 billion people on the planet and your opinion doesn't mean a thing to me or probably anyone else. I don't think it's a influential album except for the fact that I love it and think of it as a great album. I doubt even the artists find it a great influential album. It's just great music and influential or not nothing will change that.

[Jack O Diamonds]

First I think Leaf and Leige is a great album and whatever music that has come out since doesn't change that. Whether Leaf and Leige is an influential album is very subjective. Some are going to feel it is and some aren't. It's all up to the person. Personally I couldn't careless if you find it influential or not. You're just one of 5 billion people on the planet and your opinion doesn't mean a thing to me or probably anyone else. I don't think it's a influential album except for the fact that I love it and think of it as a great album. I doubt even the artists find it a great influential album. It's just great music and influential or not nothing will change that.

A splendidly well-argued and exhaustive exegesis on the relativity of taste, the subjectivity of opinion and the inexorably increasing standard of the GCSE curriculum in the land of Milton , Shakespeare, Shelley and Lydon. I await the next critical examination of the influence of Bulgarian folk music on the development of Eastern European cultural mores with barely bated breath. Liege & Lief is, indeed, a fine album. Amen. That's all. Prayer optional. (Could you see me after the seminar, please?).