by Stuart Penney
Who knows where the time goes? 23 years ago I received a fax (yes, a fax. We had no email at that time) from Dave Pegg asking If I would write a short piece for Fairport Convention’s upcoming 1999 UK winter tour programme. Dave had read a live review I’d written for a 1996 Fairport show at the Fly by Night Club in Fremantle during their Old New Borrowed Blue Aussie tour and presumably liked what he’d seen. I duly faxed the completed piece to Peggy and shortly thereafter a bulky package of CDs landed on my doorstep. It contained not only assorted Fairport titles, but solo albums by Simon Nicol and other Fairport alumni. I was more than happy to accept payment in kind on this occasion. Below is that essay as it appeared in the 1999 Fairport tour programme.
It would probably not be too much of an overstatement to say that virtually everyone who prefers their folk music vigorous, danceable and served up with a generous side-order of rollicking fun also likes Fairport Convention too. After all, as a great philosophiser once said, what's not to like? During the late 60s Fairport altered the face of folk music, forever. Most of all, they made it accessible to just about everyone. Before Fairport, folk was often a dour, self-conscious affair, the domain of serious, scholarly types with chunky sweaters intoning interminable sea shanties and the like. But virtually overnight Fairport changed all that. They cranked up the volume, got the audience on its feet and generally injected the entire folk scene with a much-needed dose of spontaneity.
Musically speaking, of course, Fairport has few, if any, peers. Even if the only record they'd ever given us was Liege & Lief, that veritable Sgt. Pepper of the folk-rock world, we'd be forever in their debt. But of course L&L isn't the only great Fairport album by a long way. What about Unhalfbricking, Full House, Angel Delight and Babbacombe Lee, to name just a few other life-affirming FC classics? And yet, because their early music has scarcely dated, Fairport's appeal seems perpetually self-replenishing. Recent albums such as Jewel In The Crown, Old New Borrowed Blue and Who Knows Where The Time Goes have introduced a generation of younger fans to the delights their vast back catalogue has to offer. Consequently, neglected gems such as Fairport Nine, What We Did On Our Holidays and Rosie are constantly being rediscovered by an audience of new converts, eager to hear more of the music they encountered for the first time at last year's Cropredy Festival. And so, to coin a phrase, it all comes round again.
But what of those illustrious band members, past and present? You'd think that any band which had given us the combined genius of Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick would have every reason to sit back on its laurels, put its feet up and feel reasonably pleased with itself. Not a bit of it. Fairport didn't stop there. What about Dave Pegg, bassist extraordinaire and organisational wizard? How about Dave Mattacks, bespoke tub-thumper to the rock aristocracy? Let us not forget Simon Nicol, consummate frontman/vocalist/guitarist and Fairport founder member. Then there's the indefatigable Ashley Hutchings, the man whose perspicacity started the entire Fairport ball rolling back in 1967. He seemed to enjoy forming legendary folk-rock bands so much that he went off and created Steeleye Span in 1970 - and then a couple of years later he did exactly the same with the Albion Band and all its many and varied offshoots.
In recent times Fairport has continued to nurture new talent. Maartin Allcock, a skilled guitarist and master of just about any instrument you care to name, departed the band only recently after a fruitful ten-year stint. His replacement was fiddle player Chris Leslie, a man who honed his craft at the feet of the great Dave Swarbrick. Aside from his vocal prowess, Chris has proved a perfect foil for the manic maestro Ric Sanders and his arrival has given Fairport's music a new direction based on the duo's unique twin fiddle sound.
It hardly seems appropriate to call veteran skinsman Gerry Conway the new boy, but since he slipped quietly onto the departing Dave Mattacks' drum stool in 1998, that's exactly what he is. Gerry is well-known in Fairport circles, of course. Quite apart from his time spent with the legendary Fotheringay alongside Sandy and Trevor Lucas, he is also an in-demand session drummer, appearing on countless albums over the years, including many Fairport solo projects.
Yes, Fairport have given us much to be thankful for. Without his FC grounding all those brilliant Richard Thompson albums would probably sound very different - if, indeed, they existed at all. Without Fairport who knows what diverse career paths Swarb and Sandy might have chosen? Were it not for Fairport we might never have heard the wonderful voice of a certain lanky Australian named Trevor Lucas. Without FC to lead the way, there would almost certainly have been no Steeleye Span or Albion Band, at least not as we know them today. And the highways and byways of rural Oxfordshire would be very quiet indeed for one weekend every August were it not for Fairport's Cropredy Festival, now recognised as one of the largest and, let's not be coy about this, finest folk gatherings in Europe.
And so good gentlefolk, after thirty years and god knows how many albums, tours and line-up changes down the track since it all started, please be upstanding, charge your glasses and let's drink a toast to Fairport Convention: quite simply The Greatest Folk Rock Band Of All Time.
*Many thanks to John Barlass for supplying photos of the 1999 programme after my own copy went AWOL.
