'Fairport by Fairport'

[Malcolm]

I haven't read the book and have no intention of doing so.

I just think that it is very sad that, after a number of people have worked together most of their adult lives and have previously agreed to various anecdotes etc appearing on sleevenotes, FC website etc, that anyone should expect or want a 'warts and all' publication. It would be surprising if a group of Musos hadn't had the odd tiff during their careers but the camaraderie has always seemed to have shone through.

Regrettably we live in an era of gossip and celebs, with the most intrusive personal reports about them appearing on a daily basis in all newspapers and TV. FC have never been celebs and I am sad that such a book appears to have cast them in that mould (at least for the purpose of salacious or inaccurate gossip). If there has been bad blood between Swarb and current members it has never been apparent on stage at Cropredy, Birthday Bashes etc but this book appears to have either created bad blood or, certainly, aggravated it.

I had been looking forward to the eventual publication of Swarb's memoirs. Indeed I helped his wife in a very small way to obtain an interview re the Angel. I hope that when it does hit the shelves that it it doesn't create the sort of aggro this book has done.

[fat Billy(Bill)]

I'm with Mr L I don't normally read this sort of stuff and I found the book really difficult to get into and discarded it after 4 chapters......glad I borrowed it!!

[Jules Gray]

I didn't want 'warts and all', but, you know, maybe a couple of blisters and a paper cut, to keep things interesting.

What I did expect was accuracy and fairness.  That's what this project appears to be in short supply of.

Jules

[Andy]

I just think that it is very sad that, after a number of people have worked together most of their adult lives and have previously agreed to various anecdotes etc appearing on sleevenotes, FC website etc, that anyone should expect or want a 'warts and all' publication.

May I remind you that the advance publicity for this book said "Members of the band past and present have spoken frankly and fully over the past forty years to author Nigel Schofield about the music, the tours, and the life they led as Fairporters." Expecting at least a mini-wart was encouraged by the use of the words "frankly and fully".

[hendo (Dave)]

I just think that it is very sad that, after a number of people have worked together most of their adult lives and have previously agreed to various anecdotes etc appearing on sleevenotes, FC website etc, that anyone should expect or want a 'warts and all' publication.

May I remind you that the advance publicity for this book said "Members of the band past and present have spoken frankly and fully over the past forty years to author Nigel Schofield about the music, the tours, and the life they led as Fairporters." Expecting at least a mini-wart was encouraged by the use of the words "frankly and fully".

I'm with Andy on this.
'Warts and all sounds' a little tabloid. Honesty is a completely different thing.
The book was aimed at 'fans' to make a few bob. Nothing wrong with that, it's their livelihood. It just didn't live up to the pre publicity.

[MarkC]

The book was aimed at 'fans' to make a few bob. Nothing wrong with that, it's their livelihood.

Well said! As a professional musician myself, I am sometimes appalled at how some people get mad at musicians (and artists in general) for trying to put food on thew table. Do bricklayers get slammed for charging for their services?

[Jules Gray]

Well said! As a professional musician myself, I am sometimes appalled at how some people get mad at musicians (and artists in general) for trying to put food on thew table. Do bricklayers get slammed for charging for their services?

No, but bricklayers' autobiographies are entitled to get just as much stick as anyone else's.  

Jules

[Jan_]

I bought the book and am disappointed with the quality of it. I paid my £40 up front and expected a coffee table book with lots of glossy photos, I assumed the content would be free of errors and as for the signatures ... well, they might as well have photocopied them, as far as I am concerned, and saved everyone some time.

Maybe Fairport are a bit disappointed as well (I don't know) but they can't really say so in public, can they?

Swarb is getting some great publicity for his forthcoming autobiography - I mean, who wouldn't want to read it after all this?  

[Neil]

I have been following this with some interest, I have not bought or read the book although I may borrow it soon. I long ago gave up even trying to figure out what happened in the Fairport history, right after I read the Patrick Humphries book, and as time goes by it seems less and less important. As with our own lives they probably have their own best version of events that puts themselves in the best light. Which maybe none of the other members past or present would agree with. It does seem relevant to me though that it appears only Swarb is voicing a problem with the book, of course he is notoriously outspoken.

I would be more interested in learning the creative process of the recording of albums but who hurt who's feelings and who didn't get paid for what seems to be their business not mine. So for me I guess warts and all or even bumps and scrapes would be irrelevant.

I have to admit though I am in love with the band and the music and not the personalities that make it up. I have never felt the need for many years to have a greater connection with Fairport Convention than the music and Cropredy.

Of course they all need to make a living and none of them have ever been slow to sell merchandise and why not it is their livelihood.

Neil

[tarda (Gill)]

I bought the book and am disappointed with the quality of it. I paid my £40 up front and expected a coffee table book with lots of glossy photos, I assumed the content would be free of errors and as for the signatures ... well, they might as well have photocopied them, as far as I am concerned, and saved everyone some time.

Not just me then.

[Godzee]

The official FC website has a potted history by DP, which includes a reference to Swarb's non involvement with Gladys' Leap..

http://www.fairportconvention.com/dave_pegg_history.php

[slight OT, but hopefully within the bounds of this thread!] It's interesting going back to these interviews and seeing what a rough ride Maart gets when compared with both Simon N and Dave P's writing about the rest of the history. Both are quite 'frank' in what they write about Maart's departure from the band:

Maart was getting into all sorts of other things, developing his own ideas. I think that during his last two years, Maart wasn't really happy in Fairport. I think he'd had enough, he wasn't getting on too well with some of the band. I think he wanted to go but he couldn't really say it. Things came to a head, there were some bad gigs, we felt he wasn't really trying for the band anymore. So he split, it was a mutual thing, it was time to move on. It was very very sad, we all love Maart, but musically it was beyond repair.

http://www.fairportconvention.com/dave_pegg_history.php

Eventually Maart left. I remember it as being uncomfortable. We had the feeling he'd been wanting out for a while but he wasn't saying. He just made himself more, well, just difficult, unreliable. We lost not only the electric guitar but all the bigger stuff, the keyboard and sequences, the big production numbers.

http://www.fairportconvention.com/simon_nicol_on_fairport.php

[Martyn H]

No Gill, I got it as a present, so didn't actually fork out for it. But I did expect a little more, certainly in the photographic department.

[GubGub (Al)]

The official FC website has a potted history by DP, which includes a reference to Swarb's non involvement with Gladys' Leap..

http://www.fairportconvention.com/dave_pegg_history.php

[slight OT, but hopefully within the bounds of this thread!] It's interesting going back to these interviews and seeing what a rough ride Maart gets when compared with both Simon N and Dave P's writing about the rest of the history. Both are quite 'frank' in what they write about Maart's departure from the band:

Maart was getting into all sorts of other things, developing his own ideas. I think that during his last two years, Maart wasn't really happy in Fairport. I think he'd had enough, he wasn't getting on too well with some of the band. I think he wanted to go but he couldn't really say it. Things came to a head, there were some bad gigs, we felt he wasn't really trying for the band anymore. So he split, it was a mutual thing, it was time to move on. It was very very sad, we all love Maart, but musically it was beyond repair.

http://www.fairportconvention.com/dave_pegg_history.php

Eventually Maart left. I remember it as being uncomfortable. We had the feeling he'd been wanting out for a while but he wasn't saying. He just made himself more, well, just difficult, unreliable. We lost not only the electric guitar but all the bigger stuff, the keyboard and sequences, the big production numbers.

http://www.fairportconvention.com/simon_nicol_on_fairport.php

That is one of the issues that I hoped the book might provide a bit more clarity on. After a decade in the band, what caused the rifts? I realised that some will see this as dirty laundry but Maart's departure initiated a shift in musical direction for the band to a basically acoustic unit so I think this might be illuminating as to why they decided against recruiting another electric guitarist. Also how does all this relate to DM's departure shortly afterwards which I always got the impression was shrouded in bad feeling.

Perhaps I shouldn't want to know about these things but I grew up on books about the Beatles where those sorts of stories are legion and are now part of the legend.

[YaBB Master (Colin)]

Also how does all this relate to DM's departure shortly afterwards which I always got the impression was shrouded in bad feeling.

I try very hard not to know too much, but I was 'hanging around' a lot on DM's final Wintour and his departure seemed very amicable to me.

[Gouty (Gary)]

Despite starting this topic, I still haven't read the book.  

For me, though, the thread's been interesting because of the way the publication of Fairport by Fairport has laid bare our expectations, as fans.

[hendo (Dave)]

Last word from me re 'warts and all'
The pre publicity on FC's site said the book, 'tells the full unexpergated story.'
It doesn't.
So much missing.
End of.  

[AdrianW]

Here's the link to Swarb's corrections - http://www.folkicons.co.uk/fbfcorrections.pdf

Thanks Ollie. I will put the corrections, unread, with my unread second hand copy of the book.
The comments made about the book have put it way down my reading list.

[Sue & Chris]

Well, I've just finished reading 'Fairport by Fairport' and I have to say that I enjoyed it.  I found it readable, engaging and entertaining.  I also learnt a lot (I speak as someone who discovered Fairport in the early nineties and who has since acquired a general, but by no means detailed, knowledge of the band's early history.)  I can see why those who are already well-versed in Fairport's life story, or were expecting 'warts and all', might be disappointed but, for me, it was fun.  

I particularly enjoyed listening to the early albums (and the BBC recordings) alongside the sections relating their genesis in the book - a very evocative experience.  I also liked the digressions from the chronology that occur at various points - these felt very natural to me and lent the narrative the feel of a conversation.  For example, mention of the performance of 'The Battle of Evermore' at Cropredy prompts a discussion of the various ways in which Sandy Denny has been represented at the festival, almost as it would if you were chatting about the topic in the pub.

It's by no means perfect - there are bits of repetition and the penultimate chapter is redundant and smacks of something knocked together to bump up the page count.  Certainly there are errors in the book - some of which are so glaring that even I can spot them.  However, these seem to me to be borne from a lack of revision (signs of haste, perhaps) or poor proof-reading, as opposed to any fundamental lack of knowledge on the part of the author (I'm certain that he doesn't think that Sandy rejoined the band in the 80s, for example.)  Anyone can make mistakes - as evidenced by Swarb who makes one in his list of corrections (he states that 4-Play is omitted from the discography.  It isn't - it's there at the top of p411 and is credited to him.)  

Talking of Swarb - I don't know whether I was influenced by my knowledge of his unhappiness at the book, but I did begin to feel that he was being presented in a less than glowing light at times - culminating in the author virtually accusing him of being responsible for Sandy's departure from the band (on both occasions.)  This contrasts with the respectful (some might say too respectful) tone adopted towards the other band members.  But then he embarks on a lengthy panegyric of Swarb (in the section headed 'Violins'), lauding him more than he does any other member of the band, including Sandy.  Certainly Simon and Peggy don't get remotely the same treatment.  A crumb of comfort, maybe?

Anyway, I think it would be a pity if people did turn their back on this book, because it is a good read for a Fairport fan.  Not revelatory or scandalous, perhaps, but worthwhile nontheless.  It also provides a lot of fascinating background information about the operation of the music scene of the late 60s and early 70s.  I know it is expensive for a book, but the cost roughly equates to that of seeing Fairport on the Wintour, once ticket price, transport, programme and a couple of drinks at the bar are all taken into account.  Looked at that way, I think it gives fair value for money (although my copy, like that of many others, was a gift.)

And no, I am not Nigel Schofield and you cannot claim £5.

[Jules Gray]

And no, I am not Nigel Schofield and you cannot claim £5.

If Swarb is to be believed, then you certainly wouldn't be!

Jules

[MarkC]

Sue & Chris, for whatever it's worth, your review seemed to me objective and very well written. Good on ya!