A Sailor's Life - Marmite or Wine?

[davidmjs]

I'll echo that the Barbican performance was my favorite moment of that concert and a highlight of concert-going.  I mused that they might end the 2nd half with Sloth as its counterpart, but alas...sometimes one just needs to be grateful for the riches already received.

Good points, well made  

[David (terrrrrrrr)]

31st January 1969. Bradford University. They ended the show with this. For me, it remains 15 special minutes. The only way I would ever skip a record is to get to this masterpiece. This was months before the Unhalfbricking LP was released. Bloody magic...

[Dave B]

Wine.  Definitely. The very finest vintage.

[dooovall [Daniel]]

My first exposure to Fairport Convention: in 1988, I was a high school student, and the cool older kids I hung around with had a cassette of In Real Time that they'd play in the car whenever we drove anywhere.  I became a fan and later heard A Sailor's Life for the first time when I acquired the documentary video It All Comes 'Round Again (which includes footage from Cropredy 1987 of a multi-generational hybrid lineup performing A Sailor's Life).  Maartin Allcock on bass, Ric Sanders on violin, Richard Thompson on lead guitar, Simon Nicol on rhythm guitar, Dave Mattacks on drums, and guest June Tabor as the vocalist.  'Twas not until the turn of the millennium that I heard the original studio version on CD, and another decade or so passed before I heard the Swarbless studio version.  I was intrigued by the guitar/violin jamming in the outro upon my first viewing of the Tabor version, but at the time I was interested primarily in the then-current lineup.  Now that I'm a middle-aged bloke with a much more comprehensive Fairport Convention album collection, I've grown to love the studio versions of A Sailor's Life.  Sandy's vocal timbre always mesmerizes me, and there's magic in the prolonged outro with RT working his fretboard, Swarb (on the Unhalfbricking version) jamming away on fiddle, Ashley Hutchings & Martin Lamble pounding out their steady rhythms, etc.  It's a beautiful bit of ear candy.  

[Chris]

You make me feel old!

Remembering that this was my 6th Cropredy & I'm in the photo on the front....

[Keith E Rice]

Astonishing stuff!

Not being a GD fan - "the poor bastards can't sing" (Rolling Stone, 1970) - the closest comparison I had at the time was the Airplane's 'Hey Fredrick' - and SL is every bit as captivating. None of the soloing carries on so long it loses attention before there's another change in tempo/pulse/emphasis and another solo/duet starts. It never gets boring...which so many jams do.

Swarb and RT, of course, are attention headliners...but, as several Forum members have commented, the rhythm section needs much praise. Martin is master of the first half - his transition from punctuating cymbals in the first half of the song to wave-rolling toms on the second half and into the jam is just masterful. Never heard anything quite like it. (If Martin had lived, I reckon he could have overshadowed Ginger Baker!)

Ashley is very much master of the jam - his  grating and grinding ascending/descending bass riffs at times putting him into the Jack Casady/Jack Bruce league of bass players. Though Martin's switch from tom rolls to snare drum hard cracks momentarily steals the attention back. Even the way the bass ends the jam with single pulses on the root note is just so perfect.

Truth to tell, I thought and still think 'Nottamun Town' and SL were far more revolutionary than ' LEIGE & LIEF' or any of the 'electric folk' stuff that came after.

[davidmjs]

Truth to tell, I thought and still think 'Nottamun Town' and SL were far more revolutionary than ' LEIGE & LIEF' or any of the 'electric folk' stuff that came after.

Yep  

[Alan2]

Truth to tell, I thought and still think 'Nottamun Town' and SL were far more revolutionary than ' LEIGE & LIEF' or any of the 'electric folk' stuff that came after.

Yep  

Yep +1

[Jules Gray]

But A Sailor's Life was, in many ways, the blueprint for what they did on Liege & Lief.  That album was a continuation.  Less jammy perhaps (and I, for one, am glad of that).  I see it all as part of the same experiment, not as an opportunity to mark Liege & Lief down.

Nottamun Town, for me, isn't quite so remarkable.  There were plenty of 60s groups doing the odd "trad arr" song, and this was just another one of those, to my ears anyway.

Jules

[Keith E Rice]

But, Jules, using Indian raga scales?!?

[Jules Gray]

But, Jules, using Indian raga scales?!?

Oh, can't say I noticed.  But then there was a lot of that around at the time too!

Jules

[Keith E Rice]

Yes, there was indeed, Jules. But, as far as I know, not done to traditional music.

'She Moves Through The Fair' is another left-field arrangement.

For all its grandeur, the intensity of the playing and it being one of the most sensitive jams ever put on record, 'Sailor's Life' is actually relatively conventional compared to the 'HOLIDAYS' trad arrs. Its time signatures and scales are pretty straight-forward.

I understand the significance of 'L&L' but it's never grabbed me the way those first 3 albums did. 'L&L' was about electrifying folk music, making it rock while being relatively true to the traditional idioms. But the 'HOLIDAYS' trad arrs are something else all together.

If it is true that early Fairport were boozers rather than druggers, then they must absorbed the acid influence by osmosis from the other bands of the time. (Didn't they share some bills with Floyd?)

[davidmjs]

I understand the significance of 'L&L' but it's never grabbed me the way those first 3 albums did. 'L&L' was about electrifying folk music, making it rock while being relatively true to the traditional idioms. But the 'HOLIDAYS' trad arrs are something else all together.

I couldn't agree more.  Whilst also agreeing with its rightful place in the pantheon, L&L is the least listened to of all the first 5 albums for me...by a long shot.

[Jules Gray]

I think there are wonderful heights reached on the first 3 LPs, and arguably Liege & Lief doesn't match those heights with its individual tracks, but for me, as an album, it's much more consistent and much more cohesive.

Jules

[GubGub (Al)]

I think there are wonderful heights reached on the first 3 LPs, and arguably Liege & Lief doesn't match those heights with its individual tracks, but for me, as an album, it's much more consistent and much more cohesive.

Jules

Certainly than Unhalfbricking. I have never quite understood the reputation of that album. Yes, individually it has wonderful tracks but it is all over the place as an album.

[Jules Gray]

Certainly than Unhalfbricking. I have never quite understood the reputation of that album. Yes, individually it has wonderful tracks but it is all over the place as an album.

Agreed.  But the best tracks are definitely amongst the things the band ever did.

Jules

[DarrenWilliams]

I think there are wonderful heights reached on the first 3 LPs, and arguably Liege & Lief doesn't match those heights with its individual tracks, but for me, as an album, it's much more consistent and much more cohesive.

Jules

Certainly than Unhalfbricking. I have never quite understood the reputation of that album. Yes, individually it has wonderful tracks but it is all over the place as an album.

Quite. Si Tu Dois Partir and Million Dollar Bash are quite gimmicky, and I never really liked Cajun Woman, it just doesn't sound Fairport to me. The rest of the tracks are at least as good as anything on WWDOOH. All IMHO of course!

I wonder what a post L&L album would have sounded like, had the line-up stayed together? I imagine a sprawling double album dominated by Sandy and Richards songwriting, with a few trad-arr's and Full House style instrumentals.

[Alan2]

I understand the significance of 'L&L' but it's never grabbed me the way those first 3 albums did. 'L&L' was about electrifying folk music, making it rock while being relatively true to the traditional idioms. But the 'HOLIDAYS' trad arrs are something else all together.

I couldn't agree more.  Whilst also agreeing with its rightful place in the pantheon, L&L is the least listened to of all the first 5 albums for me...by a long shot.

Again ditto. I think it's in large part due to the production/recording. It always sounds muddy  to me, where say Holidays sounds clear and 'right', as does Full House. (Audiophile alert: the Ryko FH is the one to get)  L&L is to the Fpt canon what Aqualung is to the Tull catalogue. IMO of course.  

[Jules Gray]

I think it's in large part due to the production/recording. It always sounds muddy  to me, where say Holidays sounds clear and 'right', as does Full House.

I think that was largely down to the group themselves wanting the kind of 'boxy' sound that they loved on The Band's first two records.

Jules

[Alan2]

I think it's in large part due to the production/recording. It always sounds muddy  to me, where say Holidays sounds clear and 'right', as does Full House.

I think that was largely down to the group themselves wanting the kind of 'boxy' sound that they loved on The Band's first two records.

Jules

I didn't know that. . .