The First Time

[mickf]

I was a big Steeleye fan from the early 70s, via my brother's involvement with a folk group at university - they were called 'Marrowbones' and did a lot of early Steeleye Span stuff - so I already had a foot in the folk/rock camp.  But it was borrowing 'Babbacombe Lee' around about 1975ish that really sealed it for me.  I just went out and tried to get my hands on as much Fairport as I could.  Cropredy in 1984 was the first time I saw them, though (Swarb/Peggy/Simon/DM were the line up if my memory serves me.)

[Poor Will (Bill)]

Ahh... Bunpers!!

Ahh Quintessence!!

 

Ahh Bisto!

[Amethyst (Jenny)]

Ahh... Bunpers!!

Ahh Quintessence!!

 

Ahh Bisto!

Spot the (deliberate) mistake.. I meant of course... Bumpers!!

[David VB]

Think I have said it before but Charnock Richard Folk Festival 1976. Over the tannoy between sets came this amazing music which I later learned was called A Sailor's Life. Not long after I acquired "History Of".

Quite a day as I also heard for the first time John Martyn, Dick Gaughan with Five Hand Reel, Hedgehog Pie, McGarrigles, Steve Goodman, John Prine and Alain Stivell.  The ticket was only cheap, but it has cost me a fortune since!

[Barry]

Dragged along to Greenwich Borough Hall by a friend in 1974.  Sandy had just rejoined.  Tickets were 50p!

And as I've said previously ... I hated nearly every second.  GBH had (has) terrible acoustics and their answer was to turn up the volume so much that you really couldn't hear it properly.  My most cherished memory of the gig was Sandy sitting alone at the piano singing "Like An Old Fashioned Waltz".

However the "Live Convention" and "Rising For The Moon" albums, followed by a superb gig at Drury Lane rectified the position  

[Mr Cat (Lewis)]

I bought a copy of "Hand of Kindness" in 1983 based on reviewers describing RT as the finest British guitarist etc and was impressed.  A couple of years later FC released Gladys's..featuring said Mr. RT so that was the start: shortly after that I found a second hand copy of Holiday, which was when I realized that FC were something special.  That led to the usual slippery slope - Cropredy, winter tours, acquiring back catalogue etc etc

[samnitzberg (Sam)]

1969, I was 12 years old: My older cousin Michael had all kinds of great music to which he introduced his younger brother and me.  Liege and Lief, Live Dead, and Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh are the ones that I always come to mind when I think about those days.

[Peter H-K]

It was 1982, so I would have been 17. I used to buy an album or two every payday: I wasn't into the stuff of the time at all, and used to buy Crosby, Stills & Nash; the Grateful Dead; Quicksilver Messenger Service; etc. This particular payday I remember very clearly: I bought Frank Zappa's Apostrophe, and also took a punt on some album called Liege & Lief. I loved it right from the get-go, and listened to it rather more than I listened to Apostrophe.

It took two more years before I saw them live: Simon, Peggy, Swarb and Bruce on the pyramid stage at Glastonbury '84. Wonderful. I remember Simon's Cornflakes guitar very clearly, as well as the very long herbal cigarette that Swarb smoked all through Sloth. I've never seen any photos from that gig: I wonder if any exist?

[fat Billy(Bill)]

Up against a wall in chapel St Billericay, 1974










Oh hang on that's not what you meant was it

[Dave.P]

Up against a wall in chapel St Billericay, 1974

Oh hang on that's not what you meant was it

Was that a version of Bonny Black Hare Billy?

[Dave.P]

Gosh ... I think Holidays was my first album ( or was it History??)

I had seen them at Rock City ( or Talk of The Midlands as it may have been then) in Nottingham
Then there was Nottingham Festival ... I think twice there  Its a bit of a mist but I've worked out it must have been 40 years ago (I didn't realise I was THAT old )
I remember buying Rosie ( the single)and seeing Swarb at several festivals...
Sandy was almost cited in divorce proceedings ( I had a picture of her on OUR bedroom wall)
So from a misty and fairly alcoholic beginning I have finally reached the new low of being a TAW member
I tend to follow Fairport family groups  but I do appreciate other genres of music but whenever I come in TAW ....it is playing (WAW) (like now!!!! )

[Shane (Skirky)]

It took two more years before I saw them live: Simon, Peggy, Swarb and Bruce on the pyramid stage at Glastonbury '84. Wonderful. I remember Simon's Cornflakes guitar very clearly, as well as the very long herbal cigarette that Swarb smoked all through Sloth. I've never seen any photos from that gig: I wonder if any exist?

That's where I came in! I remember thinking that the long one they played made a perfect accompaniment to a lazy sunny sunday afternoon.  

[hendo (Dave)]

68 i think, A mates house listening to loads of stuff he had recorded on a reel to reel and there was fairport.
I got properly hooked later with Sailors Life cos i found the interplay between guitar and fiddle stunning/new/ exciting/any adjective you want to throw in.

[richardkendell]

1968 ish at the Southbank (QE Hall I think) with Martin Lamble on drums. Ian was in the group but I have to admit I can't remember if it was Judy or Sandy.The memories of Suzanne and Reno Nevada stay with me to this day.

[iPat]

I came to FC via Tull in '82 and bought the U.S. "Chronicles" (is that right?--the one with Stonehenge on the cover) double album along with Leige and Lief. Live-wise: saw the Angel Delight lineup with Steeleye in '84(?). (Then a very memorable last-night-of-the-tour show in Boston in '86 during which Simon got so drunk that ragged rock n' roll numbers with support act Dan ar Bras seemed the only way to keep the music going after the interval. Good times.)

[Andy Tuck]

Not sure quite how I decided I liked folk. As a kid I was taken to see the Spinners several times and my parents also had a couple of Seekers LPs. Growing up I initially was in to T Rex, Slade, Sweet and Suzi Q. Then got in to Quo, Sabbath etc and by the time I was 15 Space Rock. In 1977 I was a Punk, though still going to see Hawkwind, Ted Nugent etc. That year I bought the double album History of from a work colleague, though can't remember playing it that often.

The following 15 years I totally bypassed folk, then finally saw Fairport Acoustic at the Cresset, Peterborough and soon after that first went to Cropredy. But, it's really only in the last 10 years I have really got in to Folk. I now attend at least 4 or 5 folk gigs a month and have a very bad CD habit. Though as you'll know, still in to rock, metal, space rock and anything a bit weird.

[Will S]

Like many, I think it was the History album that first introduced me to Fairport, but I think the 'habit' started after I first saw them at Sheffield Uni in Jan 1986 - if I'm not mistaken.  Then ended up seeing them at least two or three times more that year, including one of the Cropredy warm-ups at the Half Moon, Putney, though I didn't go to Cropredy itself until 1989.  

I must have seen them at least once a year (if I've been in the country) since 1986, and iTunes tells me I now have 3.1 days worth of Fairport music on my computer!

[Bridgwit (Bridget)]

Around 1989/90 I used to follow a local band called SuYu and got quite friendly with the singer (and awesome lead guitarist) Mick & his girlfriend Sue. The two also did an acoustic act Harry And and they sang quite a bit of FC. Then Mick played me In Real Time and I was hooked. My first love was (is) rock but I had been brought up on folk and this seemed a natural progression. Around the same time there was a series of concerts on BBC2 late at night and FC was one of them. I loved Ric's manic fiddling, and Maart's incredible guitar and was delighted to see them on the 5 Seasons tour in Cardiff. And they were in the bar afterwards! What a bunch of guys   then I divorced and stopped listening to them.

Fast forward to 2004 & my sister Ancient told me that year could be the last Cropredy so suggested we went along, but first we went to see FC in Pontypridd - I was concerned to see Maart & DM had gone but I now see that this is how the band progresses. I've since bought nearly every one of their CDs and I love the earlier stuff as much as the new stuff in fact the only one I never play is XXXV as it's pants IMHO.

Sorry I'm wittering!  

[KascadeDan]

Being played Over The Next Hill in the car one day as a kid. I never looked back.

[Sir Robert Peel]

'My sister has gone back to London and has left some L.Ps behind, shall we see what they are like?'

I was sitting, Christine Keeler-like, on a chair reading Ovid in preparation for my Latin O Level the following day.  Marianne was sketching me (hence the uncomfortable pose).

The records had to be good since Marianne's elder sister was a notoriously racy sort:  she was living in a 'squat' with a hippy without being married; she smoked herbal cigarettes, wore no brassiere and was probably on the Pill, whatever that was.  

Up first was a chap called Leonard Cohen.  I'd never heard such a voice and a strange delivery.  His poetry was uncannily like Ovid's and as I listened, a lightbulb went on in my head with Ovid.  I was rather keen to listen to it again but Marianne had other ideas, as she was already taking the second LP out of its cover.  

It was Leige and Lief.  She looked at me as 'Come All Ye etc' started up.   I looked at her.  Then we fought over the LP cover in a bid to find out more about the group.  Who the hell were they and how did they know that we had been waiting for folk rock/britfolk/whatever it was called?  Studying was impossible for this was no background music - joyous, dark, strange, familiar but most of all, involving.  

After a few days, the racy sister took back her LPs and that was that.  

I got a prize for getting an 'A' in Latin O Level (good old Leonard Cohen, eh!)  in the following school year.  It was a two pound record token.  Leige and Lief cost £2.50 so instead I bought 'History of    '   and got a penny in change.  (Correction:  I had to forfeit the penny because WH Smith didn't give change on tokens, the robbing blighters).

That LP has followed me through life and times to different places.  The battered sleeve bears testament to the fact that it is cherished, though its rosette is frayed and loose, and the insert has been 'enhanced' by small children.  Just like me, I suppose.