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A one, two, three... | 0:00:02 | 0:00:03 | |
Folk-rock legends Fairport Convention | 0:00:09 | 0:00:12 | |
are a national institution. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:14 | |
In the late '60s they spearheaded a musical revolution, | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
which turned the rock'n'roll generation onto folk music. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
# ..ocean wave | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
# Each rise and fall... # | 0:00:23 | 0:00:25 | |
The band's been on the road for 44 years. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
Today they stop off at music lover, John Earl's shed in | 0:00:28 | 0:00:31 | |
deepest Somerset, to record a couple of tunes for his website. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:36 | |
The roll call of past and present members | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
reads like a Who's Who of English folk aristocracy. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:46 | |
Sandy Denny, Dave Swarbrick, | 0:00:46 | 0:00:48 | |
Richard Thompson, Simon Nichol, Ashley Hutchings, the list goes on. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:52 | |
Fairport have seen numerous line-up changes, | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
but the current vintage has been together for the last 15 years. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:59 | |
# And mountain waves, like avalanches crashed upon the deck | 0:01:02 | 0:01:07 | |
# And a screaming wind split ropes and spars | 0:01:07 | 0:01:11 | |
# And tried to have us wrecked | 0:01:11 | 0:01:13 | |
# But she rose and fell through storm and the swell | 0:01:13 | 0:01:16 | |
# Sails all ripped and torn | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
# Eight thousand tons tossed like a cork | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
# She made it all the way around Cape Horn | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
# Well, she had us kind of hypnotised | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
# No time to catch our breath | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
# Now you want to love your life well, you have to flirt with death | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
# Sail close to the harnessed wind treat all risks with scorn | 0:01:37 | 0:01:42 | |
# A farm boy and un-yoked team, | 0:01:42 | 0:01:44 | |
# Made it all around the wild Cape Horn | 0:01:44 | 0:01:49 | |
# A farm boy and un-yoked team | 0:01:51 | 0:01:55 | |
# Made its way around the wild Cape Horn. # | 0:01:55 | 0:02:00 | |
Fairport Convention, a collection of brilliant musicians, | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
who blurred the lines between folk and rock. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:12 | |
The way that they made folk music sound, it just changed everything. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
The band who launched a whole new movement - British folk rock. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:20 | |
Nobody had ever heard anything like that before. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
A distinctive sound that changed the face of folk for ever. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:28 | |
-Iconic. -Seminal, legendary band. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
You know, you can use all of those words to describe them. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
Wonderful songs and a legacy of music that means | 0:02:37 | 0:02:39 | |
so much to so many people. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:41 | |
Hugely talented musicians. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
After leaving John's shed, the current line-up | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
head for the next gig on their 27-date tour. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:51 | |
Next year's the 45th anniversary. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
You find that hard to believe, to understand it, | 0:02:56 | 0:02:59 | |
that it's only 45 years! | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
Founding member Simon Nichol and band veteran Dave Pegg | 0:03:04 | 0:03:08 | |
are at the very heart of the Fairport story. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:12 | |
This is actually the longest unbroken line-up that Fairport's ever had. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
Although we still obviously refer to the new boys! | 0:03:15 | 0:03:20 | |
And the current line-up, keep them on their toes. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
But, you know, the history of the band isn't really what | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
the band's about, it's there if people want to go and examine it, | 0:03:27 | 0:03:30 | |
but it's all really about tonight's gig. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:33 | |
These battle-scarred old warhorses still follow a gruelling schedule, | 0:03:33 | 0:03:38 | |
regularly recording new material as well as touring twice a year. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:41 | |
In the late '80s we actually did a tour with 42 nights, | 0:03:41 | 0:03:45 | |
but they were consecutive nights, so we called it | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
The 42 Nights In The Wilderness Tour, I think was what it was called. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
And that's quite going some, you know. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:54 | |
Now we're a few years older, we give ourselves a night off a week | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
if we can, but we've still got the better part of two weeks | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
without a break on this tour, so we like working. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
I think we like to think of the band as always ongoing, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
and we're not ever going to sit on our laurels. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
Chris and Rick are always writing, | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
so we have a songwriting source within the band, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
and that keeps us on our toes. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:19 | |
We've always got something new to achieve. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:22 | |
# We set a course for old Cape Horn | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
# And out across the ocean Go down... # | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
We're basically enjoying the process of making music, | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
and I think that's probably part of the secret of Fairport's | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
longevity, is the connection the band's always had with the audience. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
That's where it connects its music out to the world, I think, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
it's on the road, live. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:43 | |
Whether we're playing for the camera crew, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
and a few onlookers from the shed, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
or in the much larger arena of Cropredy Festival. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:54 | |
CHEERING | 0:04:57 | 0:04:59 | |
Showtime. Welcome your wonderful hosts, | 0:04:59 | 0:05:04 | |
Fairport Convention! | 0:05:04 | 0:05:06 | |
Not many bands can boast their very own festival, | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
but the annual Cropredy get-together | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
has been at the heart of Fairport's life for the past three decades. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
Here we go, and welcome. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:22 | |
20,000 Fairport faithful turn up | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
every year for a celebration of the band and their music. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
It provides a tremendous amount of energy. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
It recharges everybody's batteries, and reinforces your faith | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
in what you're doing. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:36 | |
Cropredy is the engine that propels us for the rest of the year. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
# A holiday, a holiday, and the first one of the year | 0:05:40 | 0:05:45 | |
# Lord Donald's wife came into the church | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
# And the gospel she did hear | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
# And when the meeting it was done she cast her eyes about | 0:05:50 | 0:05:55 | |
# And there she spied little Matty Groves | 0:05:55 | 0:06:00 | |
# Walking through the crowd | 0:06:00 | 0:06:02 | |
# Come home with me, little Matty Groves, come home with me tonight | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
# Come home with me little Matty Groves | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
# And sleep with me till light... # | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
With a vast back catalogue to choose from, | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
the band is constantly revisiting and breathing new life | 0:06:13 | 0:06:16 | |
into old favourites, like the classic, Matty Groves. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:20 | |
We've kind of developed musically since Chris has joined the band. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:25 | |
It became a different sound, and it's one that we're kind of happy with. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
What I like about the band is that it has that incredible, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
almost undefinable thing. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:35 | |
When people join they bring their strengths, | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
and that changes the direction a bit. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
Fairport's never tried to replace like with like, it's always | 0:06:40 | 0:06:43 | |
gone for a different musician that will fit in the line-up. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:47 | |
And so, Fairport's never remained static as a sound. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:50 | |
You can't really pigeonhole Fairport. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:52 | |
This line-up is definitely less rocky than some of the previous ones. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:17 | |
We're just playing to our natural strengths. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
Very proud of the line-ups that have gone before, | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
and the music they've left behind. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:25 | |
Proud of that history, but not prisoner to it. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:27 | |
It is about the next album. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
Same time, paying heed and respect to the music that's gone before. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
Fairport was formed during the summer of '67, | 0:07:40 | 0:07:44 | |
by a close-knit group of friends from north London. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:47 | |
# My mind keeps on telling me that this is no good... # | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
All in their late teens and early 20s, | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
the band was brought together by bass player Ashley Hutchings. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
I was known as a bandleader in my little area of north London. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:03 | |
Initially I'd been bandleader of a couple of jazz bands | 0:08:03 | 0:08:07 | |
and a blues band, and Simon Nichol, for example, | 0:08:07 | 0:08:11 | |
was a young teenager when I first met him. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
He was a fantastic guitarist. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
Ashley Hutchings had the little black book, | 0:08:16 | 0:08:18 | |
with everybody's phone numbers in. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
I was one of those people in his book, | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
and I had next to my name - "12-string guitar." | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
It's just a certain edge, because I was one of the few people | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
who had one of those in our part of the world. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
Vocals were provided by Iain Matthews, | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
and on lead guitar, an 18-year-old Richard Thompson. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
When the band started out, we were a pale, spotty, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
north London, suburban intellectuals, really. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
We really thought about the music, and we really rejected | 0:08:44 | 0:08:48 | |
what was around, and we really wanted to not be like other bands. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:53 | |
Completing Fairport's first settled line-up was | 0:08:53 | 0:08:56 | |
Martin Lamble on drums, and singer, Judy Dyble. | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
When they wanted to form a band, before they'd even thought up | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
the name, they said to me, would I like to sing with them? | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
I was there at the beginning It was just an amazing time. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
The band's early rehearsals took place at Simon Nichol's | 0:09:10 | 0:09:14 | |
family home in Muswell Hill - Fairport. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
It was very important to have Fairport house in Muswell Hill, | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
because you could set the drums up, and the amps, and leave them there, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
practise in a big room, make a bit of noise, but also be together. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:33 | |
In those days, people tended to very often live together in houses | 0:09:33 | 0:09:40 | |
or communes, or whatever, and make music together in that way. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
And I think that helped to speed the process up of melding | 0:09:44 | 0:09:49 | |
the band together, the Fairport group. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
The experimental musical landscape in the London of '67 exposed | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
the young pretenders to an eclectic mix of sounds. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
'Soho, vividly cosmopolitan, a place of the most unlikely contrasts.' | 0:10:01 | 0:10:08 | |
If you think about being in central London | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
on any given night between 1967 and '69, you could go to the UFO Club, | 0:10:11 | 0:10:17 | |
see Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, these kind of bands. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:21 | |
# Arnold Layne, Arnold Layne... # | 0:10:21 | 0:10:26 | |
You could walk a few hundred metres up the road, | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
and you could be in a folk club like Bungees or Les Cousins, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
things were quite mixed up then. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
Richard, Judy, Simon and Ashley would have all gone to folk clubs. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:39 | |
There was just a rich tapestry of influences already at work in 1967. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:45 | |
Although we'd all been exposed to it as children growing up, | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
and going to clubs, as well as blues clubs and jazz clubs, | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
the early days of Fairport, we were very much influenced by singer-songwriters, | 0:10:54 | 0:10:58 | |
and most of those were coming out of America's West Coast. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:02 | |
People like Dylan and Phil Oakes, Richard Farina, | 0:11:02 | 0:11:06 | |
we had all their records. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:08 | |
# Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me... # | 0:11:08 | 0:11:13 | |
The Byrds took Dylan's songs particularly, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
and turned them into three-minute pop wonders. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
The irony of Fairport is that they started out wanting to play | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
American roots music, | 0:11:25 | 0:11:27 | |
with a little touch of the West Coast thrown in. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
I think at the heart of it all was a love for the rural, | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
jug band music of America, | 0:11:33 | 0:11:35 | |
which found its electric voice with The Lovin' Spoonful, I suppose. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:40 | |
# Blues in the bottle blues in the bottle | 0:11:40 | 0:11:45 | |
# Where do you think you are at pretty mama... # | 0:11:45 | 0:11:49 | |
Fairport's early repertoire was dominated by | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
cover versions of American songs. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:54 | |
# Jack of diamonds one-eyed knave... # | 0:11:54 | 0:11:56 | |
And after just playing a handful of local gigs, | 0:11:56 | 0:12:00 | |
they were catapulted into London's thriving psychedelic scene. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
Fairport played a lot of clubs in London during the first year - | 0:12:04 | 0:12:08 | |
Blazes, Happening 44, Speakeasy. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:12 | |
# And it's guaranteed to brighten up your day... # | 0:12:14 | 0:12:18 | |
We joined groups like The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
The Blossom Toads, weird groups, psychedelic groups. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
It was very diverse, and people would listen to everything. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:30 | |
There was no, "Oh, you can't do that, because you're not folk. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:35 | |
"You can't do that because you're not R&B." | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
Anybody could do anything, it was a really free and easy time. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
# If I were rich enough to make you need me as much as I need you... # | 0:12:41 | 0:12:48 | |
Everything was OK at that point, you know, in 1967, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
you could have any style, and be broadly | 0:12:51 | 0:12:53 | |
accepted by the audience, for some reason, | 0:12:53 | 0:12:55 | |
maybe it was just that people were stoned | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
and just accepted everything, I don't really know. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
It was a devil may care, hedonistic period. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
You could really let your hair down, musically, as well as physically. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:10 | |
We did do some strange things, I have to say! | 0:13:14 | 0:13:18 | |
We were part of that scene, very strangely, but we loved it. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
# Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning And the first thing that I saw | 0:13:24 | 0:13:30 | |
# Was the sun through yellow curtains | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
# And a rainbow on my wall... # | 0:13:33 | 0:13:35 | |
What marked them out at that point was not just the material, | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
but the way they were playing the material, | 0:13:38 | 0:13:40 | |
with intelligence, with light touches. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:44 | |
There was something about them, they were fresh, | 0:13:44 | 0:13:46 | |
and their naivete, in a way, was part of the appeal, | 0:13:46 | 0:13:52 | |
the fact that these were these very young kids, playing stuff that | 0:13:52 | 0:13:56 | |
I knew very well, and I was fascinated to hear it refracted... | 0:13:56 | 0:14:00 | |
..via Muswell Hill. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
And so I just figured, "what the hell, let's put them on," | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
so I invited them to open for Pink Floyd, actually, at UFO. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
# It's a long, long way down to Reno, Nevada | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
# It's a long, long way to your home | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
# And the change in your pocket is beginning to grumble | 0:14:17 | 0:14:21 | |
# And you reap just about what you sow... # | 0:14:21 | 0:14:25 | |
Having gambled by giving the young bucks a gig at his influential | 0:14:25 | 0:14:28 | |
UFO Club, record producer Joe Boyd, | 0:14:28 | 0:14:31 | |
was now even more convinced of their potential. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
# You can work day and night take a chance on promotion | 0:14:34 | 0:14:36 | |
# You can fall through A hole in the ground... # | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
What happened that made me think, | 0:14:41 | 0:14:42 | |
"Oh, I've got to make a record with these guys," | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
was hearing Richard play. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:46 | |
Listening closely to what was going on with the lead guitar, | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
I thought, "This is a talent." | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
Richard was hugely gifted. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:07 | |
All this music he'd been listening to for years, | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
it had all somehow or another seeped into his body | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
and was coming out through his fingers. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
Ashley was the core, in a way. He was older than the rest. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:34 | |
He was the guy that you talked to on the phone about things. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:39 | |
But when a real musical issue came up, "What does Richard think?" You know. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:45 | |
Richard was quiet, but everybody had huge respect for him. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:50 | |
The band released their self-titled debut album in 1968, | 0:15:51 | 0:15:55 | |
but with so many styles to explore, | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
Fairport's game of musical chairs was about to begin. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
The singing was kind of slightly less important to us in the early days. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:07 | |
It was more the choice of songs and how we arranged them. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
After a short while, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
it became obvious that we needed really good singers. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
# Missed the morning too didn't rise before noon | 0:16:15 | 0:16:20 | |
# She's a lazy lady today. # | 0:16:21 | 0:16:27 | |
As the band searched for a new lead vocalist, one voice stood out. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:31 | |
Playing the English folk circuit | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
was a singer well known to the band's producer, Sandy Denny. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:37 | |
# You're a crazy lady, I'd say. # | 0:16:37 | 0:16:42 | |
Somebody with a guitar and that big a voice singing her own songs, | 0:16:44 | 0:16:48 | |
singing Jackson C Frank songs, was jarring to me. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
But then I met her. And she was hilarious. She was a real character. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:57 | |
Kind of outrageous and sort of very big personality | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
and effing and blinding and drinking a lot | 0:17:01 | 0:17:05 | |
and smoking a lot and at the time, | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
the Fairport guys were wee timorous beasties, | 0:17:07 | 0:17:10 | |
who I felt wouldn't really know what to do with Sandy. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:15 | |
But then got a phone call saying Judy's out, Sandy Denny's in. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:20 | |
Wow! | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
# And she went away from me | 0:17:23 | 0:17:29 | |
# And moved too fast. # | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
Sandy was a very rare beast. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:37 | |
She was someone who was equally at home with folk music and rock music. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:43 | |
She could just move from one voice to another. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:45 | |
From a whisper, gentle whisper, | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
right through to belting out something. She was a great singer. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
# And then she went onward. # | 0:17:51 | 0:17:56 | |
I think Sandy Denny's voice sounds like heartbreak, I genuinely do. | 0:17:56 | 0:18:01 | |
She had this incredible mix of absolute clarity in her voice | 0:18:01 | 0:18:04 | |
but real kind of grit and pathos. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
I defy anybody not to fall in love with her. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
She was genuinely timeless, continues to be genuinely timeless. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
Sandy joining the band changed everything. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:19 | |
Not only did you have this powerful singer, but she was writing songs. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:23 | |
# How often she has gazed from castle windows | 0:18:23 | 0:18:29 | |
# And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall... # | 0:18:29 | 0:18:34 | |
She did shake things up, she changed the dynamic | 0:18:34 | 0:18:37 | |
and brought so much music with her to the feast that we were having. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:42 | |
Everybody's tastes and palates changed a little bit | 0:18:42 | 0:18:46 | |
because of that mixture. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
# The evening hour is fading within the dwindling sun... # | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
It really focused us much more and we really felt, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
"Gosh, now we are a real band. Now we can take this seriously." | 0:18:56 | 0:19:00 | |
# We used to say that come the day | 0:19:02 | 0:19:07 | |
# We'd all be making songs... # | 0:19:07 | 0:19:14 | |
Richard may have written a couple and dabbled in a few things, | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
but I think in a way Sandy's arrival triggered his start | 0:19:17 | 0:19:23 | |
of being a serious songwriter and placed the bar quite high. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
And you can hear that Richard is raising his game to keep pace with Sandy. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:32 | |
# The air is growing thin... # | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
Released in early 1969, Fairport's second album, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
What We Did On Our Holidays, | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
featured some of the band's most memorable songs, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
penned by Sandy and Richard. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
# Meet on the ledge we're gonna meet on the ledge | 0:19:48 | 0:19:55 | |
# When my time is up I'm gonna see all my friends | 0:19:55 | 0:20:00 | |
# Meet on the ledge... # | 0:20:00 | 0:20:03 | |
Joining Fairport was also a liberating experience for Sandy. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:07 | |
She could go up to the microphone and she could just relax and sing. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:13 | |
And it was just like being born again for her. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:18 | |
She was sort of just like a pig in shit. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
And then we were in business, we had a great singer, | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
singing these wonderful songs. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:27 | |
And that's when Fairport really became Fairport. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
# Who knows where the time goes? | 0:20:31 | 0:20:42 | |
# Who knows where the time | 0:20:42 | 0:20:49 | |
# Goes? # | 0:20:49 | 0:20:54 | |
Sandy's Who Knows Where The Time Goes | 0:20:55 | 0:20:58 | |
is and will for ever be an absolutely perfect song, I think. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:03 | |
And the version they did on Unhalfbricking was just so eloquent. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
# And I'm not alone | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
# While my love is near me... # | 0:21:14 | 0:21:20 | |
So eloquent in fact that it was voted favourite folk track | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
of all time by listeners of BBC Radio 2 in 2007. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:29 | |
But as well as expanding Fairport's original repertoire, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
Sandy was a key figure in the band's decision | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
to look closer to home for inspiration. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
She also forced them to listen to ballads. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
She could sing tons of them. And she did. In the bus. Going to gigs. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:47 | |
And I think it slowly began to alter their, you know, thinking about it. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:54 | |
And then she sang them A Sailor's Life. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:56 | |
# A sailor's life | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
# It is a merry life... # | 0:21:59 | 0:22:04 | |
We were in the dressing room in Southampton | 0:22:04 | 0:22:06 | |
and we started to just play along with her. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
It was just something that we really improvised. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
I'm not sure we had a clear plan of what we were doing. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
We kind of slid in around her arrangement. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
# Leaving them behind... # | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
At the end of it, we said, "That sounded good, let's go and do it." | 0:22:22 | 0:22:27 | |
And if you have to put your finger on the beginning of British folk rock, that was the beginning. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:32 | |
A Sailor's Life is a really crucial moment. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
You can hear there the gears shifting in some ways, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
in terms of thinking about what to do with English folk. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:45 | |
It's the first time a full rock drum kit played with sticks | 0:22:45 | 0:22:50 | |
was ever actually used on a traditional English folk song. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:54 | |
Although this was a radical departure for English folk, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:03 | |
Fairport's American contemporaries | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
had already been blazing the folk-rock trail. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
There were two key albums, The Byrds, Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, | 0:23:09 | 0:23:12 | |
and The Band's first album. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:16 | |
Both of them were reinventing American roots music. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:20 | |
So the hop towards thinking, we could do that with British music, | 0:23:20 | 0:23:25 | |
wasn't that big a one. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
We thought that we shouldn't be so derivative in our music, that we shouldn't be looking to America, | 0:23:28 | 0:23:33 | |
we should be putting more of our own culture into the music. That's where the balance changed. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:39 | |
If there hadn't been such a powerful influence from overseas | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
on British popular music, perhaps we would have been playing | 0:23:43 | 0:23:46 | |
something closer to our tradition all along. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
The recording of their third album, Unhalfbricking, | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
in early 1969, was a key moment in the band's development. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:57 | |
Unhappy with this new musical direction, Iain Matthews parted company with Fairport, | 0:23:57 | 0:24:02 | |
going on to form his own band, Matthews' Southern Comfort, | 0:24:02 | 0:24:06 | |
the first of many new outfits formed by departing Fairport members. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:11 | |
In their search for a more authentic British folk sound, | 0:24:11 | 0:24:14 | |
the band invited the acclaimed traditional fiddle player | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
Dave Swarbrick to join them in the studio. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
I'd never heard of them. I vaguely knew Sandy, but that was it. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:24 | |
# Come all you colliers far and near... # | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
Swarbrick played with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
the leading folk group of their day. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
But he was now one half of an exciting duo | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
with another rising star of the folk revival, guitarist Martin Carthy. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:39 | |
I remember his reaction was, "I don't want to play with these blokes. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:42 | |
"You know me, I don't know anything about rock'n'roll. What do I want to do that for? | 0:24:42 | 0:24:46 | |
"Oh, Christ! I suppose I've got to go and do it." Grumble, grumble. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
And he went off and did it. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
We did Sailor's Life and a couple of other things. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
I was intrigued by them. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:57 | |
He came back the next day and he said, "Don't misunderstand me, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:07 | |
"but I think I just met the guitar player I've wanted to play with all my life. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:12 | |
"Don't misunderstand it." I said, "Who is this person?" | 0:25:12 | 0:25:17 | |
"He's called Richard Thompson. He is fantastic." | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
He was absolutely blown away by Richard's playing | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
and the whole attitude of the band. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:27 | |
Just as much as a child today | 0:25:27 | 0:25:29 | |
has absolutely no fear of doing anything with a piece of modern technology, | 0:25:29 | 0:25:34 | |
we had that same musical attitude to the instruments | 0:25:34 | 0:25:38 | |
and to the musical doors | 0:25:38 | 0:25:41 | |
that we were sort of easing past, kicking open, in some cases. | 0:25:41 | 0:25:45 | |
# Mais si tu dois partir... # | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
One of the songs Swarbs recorded with the band, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
a French translation of the Bob Dylan song, If You Gotta Go, Go Now, | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
was released as a single and reached number 21 in the charts, | 0:25:54 | 0:25:58 | |
earning the band their only appearance on Top Of The Pops. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
To me, this Fairport that had made Unhalfbricking | 0:26:02 | 0:26:06 | |
was the same as the original group that I'd found, but they'd blossomed | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
and become this huge thing that had such potential and such power. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
And it was partly the power was the mixture. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:19 | |
They'd do British traditional folk, they'd do mock Cajun, | 0:26:19 | 0:26:23 | |
they'd do Richard's songs, Sandy's songs, Dylan's songs. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:27 | |
It was unique. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:29 | |
We were a happy-go-lucky bunch of friends | 0:26:29 | 0:26:33 | |
and we were doing very, very well and then we had the crash, of course. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
During the early hours of May 12th 1969, on the way home | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
from a gig in Birmingham, the van carrying the band crashed on the M1. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:46 | |
Richard's girlfriend, Jeanie Franklin, and drummer Martin Lamble | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
were killed. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
We all went into our own private shells. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
Very few of us survived without some physical scarring, | 0:26:53 | 0:26:57 | |
but the worst thing, I suppose, because the body will heal, | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
the worst thing is the psychological and mental scars of being | 0:27:01 | 0:27:07 | |
smitten so hard by this terrible... | 0:27:07 | 0:27:13 | |
tragedy, you know. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:14 | |
Two young lives just lost for no good reason. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:19 | |
Because we were all pursuing something | 0:27:19 | 0:27:22 | |
that was our raison d'etre. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:24 | |
# Farewell, farewell to you who would hear | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
# You lonely travellers all... # | 0:27:30 | 0:27:34 | |
It was a really difficult time. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:37 | |
I think it was almost a full-stop for the band. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
I'm not sure we knew what we were going to do after that. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
Do we owe it to Martin and Jeanie to rebuild the band? | 0:27:44 | 0:27:50 | |
To come out bloodied but unbowed? | 0:27:50 | 0:27:54 | |
The rebuilding process began | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
with Dave Swarbrick becoming a full-time member of the band, | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
swiftly followed by an unknown drummer from the world of ballroom dancing, Dave Mattacks. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:06 | |
They took a chance on an extremely green, somewhat precocious young drummer. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:11 | |
They were all obviously great players, but they were so friendly. All of them. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:16 | |
And Ashley is bringing these songs and Richard's writing with Swarbrick, | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
and we've got this tune and there's this fantastic singer. We're going to go in and make a record. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:26 | |
Just a few months after the crash, | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
the new line-up retreated to the country to record their next album. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:34 | |
We moved into a house in Farley Chamberlayne, in the countryside, | 0:28:34 | 0:28:39 | |
in Hampshire. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:40 | |
And we had a real rebirth. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:44 | |
We had a project to work on, to get our teeth into. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:48 | |
Liege & Lief was not just a significant musical record, | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 | |
it was a watershed for us to rebuild the band. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
Fairport's experiments with folk music gathered momentum | 0:28:55 | 0:28:59 | |
as Ashley Hutchings went in search of new material. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:02 | |
I love coming here to the library in Cecil Sharp House | 0:29:02 | 0:29:06 | |
and beavering away in the books, trying to find folk songs. | 0:29:06 | 0:29:11 | |
Comb the shelves, the fantastic shelves full of treasures. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:16 | |
And from being a rocker in the psychedelic scene, | 0:29:16 | 0:29:20 | |
to embracing all this, it was great fun to do. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:23 | |
What we have here are the massive collection of ballads | 0:29:23 | 0:29:28 | |
of Francis James Child. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:31 | |
Fantastic songs that go back centuries and centuries. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:34 | |
And each one tells a story, very often a powerful story. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:40 | |
And I think the stories grabbed us. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
The fact is we had to intellectually step back | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
and say here's the tradition, here's popular music now. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
Let's reconnect the two and it should sound something like this. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:53 | |
# Lord Donald he jumped up and loudly he did bawl | 0:29:53 | 0:29:57 | |
# He struck his wife right through the heart | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
# And pinned her against the wall... # | 0:30:00 | 0:30:02 | |
They were dark songs. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:05 | |
Songs of death and betrayal and loss. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:08 | |
It was just the music that came naturally to us. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:12 | |
It just made perfect sense. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:14 | |
Making the ballads and the powerful tunes... | 0:30:14 | 0:30:18 | |
MORE powerful with the instruments we had. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
It was an experiment, but we must've been doing something right | 0:30:22 | 0:30:26 | |
for people still to be discussing it this far down the track. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
And certain songs from that record just refuse to lie down and die. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:34 | |
GUITAR INTRO TO TAM LIN | 0:30:34 | 0:30:37 | |
# I forbid you, maidens all | 0:30:40 | 0:30:43 | |
# That wear gold in your hair | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
# To travel to Carterhaugh | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
# For young Tam Lin is there...# | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
Tam Lin, I think, is one of the most successful tracks on Liege & Lief, | 0:30:52 | 0:30:56 | |
just because it pushes the envelope furthest. | 0:30:56 | 0:30:59 | |
The song they're singing describes magical transformations, | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
and the music somehow seems to do that, as well. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:06 | |
It feels like the group's performing on full capacity at that point. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:10 | |
# Janet tied her kirtle green...# | 0:31:10 | 0:31:14 | |
On the back of the '60s folk revival, | 0:31:14 | 0:31:15 | |
many musicians were interested in breaking down the barriers | 0:31:15 | 0:31:19 | |
between folk and rock. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:20 | |
But with the release of Liege & Lief in December, 1969, | 0:31:20 | 0:31:24 | |
Fairport raised the bar again. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:26 | |
Their radical approach divided opinion even within | 0:31:26 | 0:31:29 | |
bands on a similar quest. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:32 | |
As Steeleye Span's Martin Carthy recalls. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:35 | |
We were rehearsing with Steeleye | 0:31:35 | 0:31:37 | |
and Tim Hart had Liege & Lief when it first came out. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:41 | |
And he didn't like Tam Lin. | 0:31:41 | 0:31:43 | |
Said, "It's very weird. Far too weird." And he played me Tam Lin. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:46 | |
And I said "You're crazy. This is fabulous! | 0:31:46 | 0:31:50 | |
"It's absolutely just... mind-boggling!" | 0:31:50 | 0:31:54 | |
Liege & Lief took traditional songs and turned them all inside out | 0:31:55 | 0:31:59 | |
and shook up the folk scene. | 0:31:59 | 0:32:01 | |
The old finger-in-the-ear style | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
was still prevalent, and might have gone on | 0:32:08 | 0:32:11 | |
for several more years after that, had not Fairport done what they did. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:16 | |
# As I was a-walking... # | 0:32:16 | 0:32:20 | |
Some of course threw their hands up in horror and veered away, | 0:32:20 | 0:32:24 | |
and went back muttering in their tankards | 0:32:24 | 0:32:27 | |
in small pubs all over the country. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:29 | |
We had opposition and a few frowns from the folk establishment, | 0:32:29 | 0:32:36 | |
but, also, Bert Lloyd, Britain's greatest folklorist, | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
was someone who was open-minded, | 0:32:39 | 0:32:41 | |
and was very happy to see us doing those experiments | 0:32:41 | 0:32:44 | |
because he saw the importance of that reconnection. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:49 | |
Liege & Lief was a REAL statement. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:53 | |
The third of three albums released by Fairport in 1969, | 0:32:53 | 0:32:58 | |
Liege & Lief reached number 20 in the UK album charts. | 0:32:58 | 0:33:01 | |
But its influence has far out-stripped | 0:33:01 | 0:33:03 | |
its limited commercial success. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
In 2006, the album was voted | 0:33:06 | 0:33:08 | |
the most influential folk album of all time by Radio 2 listeners, | 0:33:08 | 0:33:13 | |
and a year later the original Liege & Lief line-up, minus Sandy Denny, | 0:33:13 | 0:33:17 | |
accepted a gold disc from Island Records at the Cropredy festival. | 0:33:17 | 0:33:22 | |
With a ground-breaking album under their belts, | 0:33:22 | 0:33:24 | |
the dawn of a new decade should have seen Fairport | 0:33:24 | 0:33:26 | |
take their unique brand of English folk rock to a mainstream audience. | 0:33:26 | 0:33:30 | |
But the very success of the band had become an issue for Sandy. | 0:33:30 | 0:33:35 | |
She felt so proud of the record, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:37 | |
and then all these offers were coming in. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
People wanted them to go out on the road | 0:33:40 | 0:33:42 | |
and play Tam Lin and Matty Groves every night. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
How do you fit Who Knows Where the Time Goes into that? | 0:33:45 | 0:33:47 | |
Or the new songs she's starting to write? | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
So she just said, "I'm outta here." | 0:33:50 | 0:33:52 | |
Sandy left to form her own band, Fotheringay. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:56 | |
She released one album with them before resuming her solo career. | 0:33:56 | 0:34:00 | |
And then almost immediately afterwards Ashley... | 0:34:01 | 0:34:05 | |
found he hadn't really adjusted, and threw the towel in, too. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:09 | |
Emotionally, it was a very difficult time, | 0:34:09 | 0:34:11 | |
because we were getting over the crash, | 0:34:11 | 0:34:13 | |
getting over the loss of two people, | 0:34:13 | 0:34:15 | |
and I kind of cracked up. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:18 | |
Just after I left the band. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:20 | |
And had possibly a delayed reaction. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:24 | |
Ashley went on to play a key part in the English folk scene, | 0:34:24 | 0:34:29 | |
both as a musician and a producer. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
Most memorably, as a member of the newly formed Steeleye Span. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:34 | |
And later forming The Albion Band. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:36 | |
With the loss of two key members, | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
it once again felt as if the heart of the band had been ripped out. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:45 | |
It was challenging, yeah, deeply challenging, | 0:34:45 | 0:34:47 | |
For those of us that remained. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
But, no, I didn't think for a minute we should give up hope. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:54 | |
Swarbrick's fellow Brummy, the charismatic and hairy Dave Pegg, | 0:34:54 | 0:34:59 | |
came in on bass. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:01 | |
But one major decision remained - how to replace Sandy. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
We had to reconsider ourselves as an all-boy band suddenly. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
# She's a runaway, she's a runaway...# | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
We were all reluctant vocalists. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
It's hard to step out from behind someone like Sandy | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
and reveal yourself, you know, as a mediocre singer. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
So I sang a bit, Simon sang a bit, Swarb sang a bit, | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
and we just about got away with it. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:25 | |
# Just a roll on your drum...#. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:34 | |
In 1970, in an effort to regroup, | 0:35:34 | 0:35:36 | |
the new line-up moved with their families | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
into The Angel, an old pub in the village of Little Hadham. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:43 | |
The local paper a couple of weeks after we moved in - | 0:35:45 | 0:35:47 | |
Hippies Invade Little Hadham was the headline, | 0:35:47 | 0:35:50 | |
and a picture of The Angel. And us lot. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:54 | |
It was cold. It wasn't particularly clean. | 0:35:56 | 0:36:00 | |
But we rubbed along very well. | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
Yeah, we had very good times. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:05 | |
Youngbloods together, you know. Good fun. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:08 | |
It was a good job it wasn't a pub any more - it used to be - | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
or God knows the state we'd have been in. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:13 | |
It was very boyish. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
A far more irresponsible personnel came into the band at that point. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:20 | |
We kind of all bonded. And we got to know each other incredibly well, | 0:36:20 | 0:36:26 | |
because there were 16 of us living in The Angel. | 0:36:26 | 0:36:30 | |
And only one toilet. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:32 | |
And the hot water didn't last very long. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:34 | |
There was a lot of hair that needed washing. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:37 | |
And it was always a fight to get into the toilet. | 0:36:37 | 0:36:41 | |
You'd have to get up really early in the morning. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:44 | |
It was such pleasure to see that band play. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:46 | |
Richard and Swarb soloing. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:49 | |
Competing. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:51 | |
You can hear us kind of exploring each others' music. | 0:36:55 | 0:36:59 | |
Very interesting. Swapping phrases and seeing what would happen. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
Rub off each other and spark. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:10 | |
Hear what's being thrown to you and throw something back. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:13 | |
Swarb is obviously an established virtuoso on the traditional music | 0:37:13 | 0:37:21 | |
and Richard was playing catch-up, | 0:37:21 | 0:37:23 | |
developing guitar techniques, which nobody else had ever done. | 0:37:23 | 0:37:29 | |
Playing unison lines with a fiddle on an electric guitar | 0:37:29 | 0:37:31 | |
was pretty strange back then. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
For me it was an instrumental challenge. It still is! | 0:37:38 | 0:37:41 | |
To play fairly fast dance music on the guitar - | 0:37:41 | 0:37:45 | |
an instrument that is tuned all wrong to do it, really. | 0:37:45 | 0:37:49 | |
The Swarb-Thompson partnership | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
was at the heart of Fairport's Full House. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:53 | |
The 1970 album also featured the first outing | 0:37:53 | 0:37:57 | |
of the celebrated rhythm section of Pegg and Mattacks. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
The Full House line-up... | 0:38:03 | 0:38:05 | |
Extraordinary collection of talents. You know? Simon... | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
..he's absolutely at the heart of what makes those things work. | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
So that even the people who aren't who you think of | 0:38:15 | 0:38:18 | |
when you think of the big personalities, you know... | 0:38:18 | 0:38:22 | |
are monsters! | 0:38:22 | 0:38:24 | |
With a dynamic new line-up, the band's future looked bright. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
The Angel Inn was a hot-bed of ideas and inspiration. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:31 | |
But Fairport's world was turned upside down again, | 0:38:31 | 0:38:34 | |
when a lorry drove through Dave Swarbrick's bedroom, | 0:38:34 | 0:38:37 | |
killing the driver and shaking the maverick fiddler. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:40 | |
Richard had the room above me, but he was away for the weekend. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
And all of his room - the contents, the floor, the ceiling, everything - | 0:38:45 | 0:38:52 | |
just came down into my room. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
And the lorry went up it. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:56 | |
So the bottom of the front wheel of the lorry was level with my head. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:00 | |
Actually, a few days before I'd bought a beautiful brass bed. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
But the bed didn't fit where I normally I slept - by the window. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
And the lorry came in through the window. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:12 | |
So if I had not gone out and spent my money on antiques, | 0:39:12 | 0:39:16 | |
I wouldn't be here. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:18 | |
Richard's absence from The Angel that night | 0:39:18 | 0:39:19 | |
was due to his growing commitments outside the band. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
And in January, 1971, he announced he was leaving. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:26 | |
I just felt I needed time to do something else, you know. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
I wanted to write, and I was writing this sort of eccentric stuff, | 0:39:30 | 0:39:34 | |
and I thought, "Well, what am I gonna do with these songs? | 0:39:34 | 0:39:37 | |
"Erm... Who's ever gonna sing these?" | 0:39:37 | 0:39:40 | |
And I thought, somehow I'm gonna have to sing these songs. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
And it'll have to be on a different kind of record than a Fairport one. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:47 | |
So, I was very sad to leave. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:51 | |
That was a big blow for the band. Certainly for me. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
I'd only been there for one album, and I thought, ""Oh, Rich has left. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:10 | |
And Richard was always considered by the rest of us, | 0:40:10 | 0:40:12 | |
although we wouldn't admit it at the time... | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
Richard was our leader. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:17 | |
Richard was not a pushy kind of person, | 0:40:17 | 0:40:19 | |
but whatever he wanted to do, we'd go along with. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:25 | |
And when he left, the band without him | 0:40:25 | 0:40:28 | |
had to then find a method of carrying on. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
You can't replace a Richard Thompson. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:34 | |
Still only 21, Richard left the band he'd help found four years earlier, | 0:40:34 | 0:40:38 | |
to launch a solo career that would see him hailed | 0:40:38 | 0:40:41 | |
as one of the world's great guitarists. | 0:40:41 | 0:40:44 | |
Not only had Fairport lost their lead guitarist, | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
but also one of their main songwriters. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
Rather than trying to replace Richard, | 0:40:51 | 0:40:53 | |
the band looked within its line-up for ideas on how to drive their music forward. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:57 | |
Swarb was definitely the driving force after Richard left. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:02 | |
Swarb had incredible energy. | 0:41:02 | 0:41:05 | |
Especially around the time of Babbacombe Lee. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:07 | |
# Little did I think | 0:41:07 | 0:41:08 | |
# When the judge first spoke | 0:41:08 | 0:41:11 | |
# Those awful words to me...# | 0:41:11 | 0:41:14 | |
Fairport's 1971 concept album, | 0:41:14 | 0:41:18 | |
Babbacombe Lee, is based on the true story of John Lee. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
In 1885, Lee was found guilty of the brutal killing of his employer, | 0:41:21 | 0:41:26 | |
Emma Keyes, and sentenced to life by hanging. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:28 | |
Three times Lee stared death in the face, | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
but each time the trapdoor failed to open. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
Almost 100 years later, | 0:41:35 | 0:41:38 | |
antique enthusiast Dave Swarbrick stumbled across the story. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:41 | |
I was walking down this village in Hertfordshire. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
I came across a junk shop. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:48 | |
Went in. And they had this series of newspapers, Lloyds Weekly News 1907. | 0:41:48 | 0:41:53 | |
I was fascinated by this John Lee of Babbacombe - | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
"the man they could not hang." | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
So I took it home and read it. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:00 | |
Decided to write a song about the man who was hanged three times. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:03 | |
But then I found that it was impossible to speak | 0:42:03 | 0:42:06 | |
the agony of John Lee in one song. | 0:42:06 | 0:42:08 | |
The man went through too much. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:10 | |
So it turned out there was about ten songs. | 0:42:10 | 0:42:13 | |
# John Lee, your chances are good, | 0:42:13 | 0:42:14 | |
# You better touch wood, We think things must get better...#. | 0:42:14 | 0:42:18 | |
It became something that we could all get involved with | 0:42:18 | 0:42:20 | |
and attempt to write an album. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:24 | |
And it was the first time that certainly Simon and myself | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
had ever had a crack at songwriting. | 0:42:27 | 0:42:29 | |
Luckily all the material was there. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:33 | |
We were putting the music together in a very equal-handed way. | 0:42:36 | 0:42:41 | |
You know, the piano parts... | 0:42:41 | 0:42:44 | |
Mattacks would suddenly just come up with them and there they'd be. | 0:42:44 | 0:42:47 | |
And we'd incorporate them. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:49 | |
It wasn't a matter of Swarb saying, | 0:42:49 | 0:42:51 | |
"Right, I've written this song and it goes like this. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:53 | |
"I want you to play this, I want you to play that." | 0:42:53 | 0:42:56 | |
It was very much a cooperative thing. | 0:42:56 | 0:42:59 | |
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the album, | 0:42:59 | 0:43:01 | |
the current line-up gave the first-ever complete live performance | 0:43:01 | 0:43:06 | |
of Babbacombe Lee in 2011. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:08 | |
# My life was spared that morning but it wasn't theirs to take | 0:43:08 | 0:43:12 | |
# Three's the most the law requires A man should feel the stake...# | 0:43:12 | 0:43:16 | |
As Fairport's always done it's looked to the back catalogue | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
to think what it can bring forward again into the current line-up. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
And Peggy said, "What do you think? | 0:43:23 | 0:43:25 | |
Should we have a go at doing the whole album?" | 0:43:25 | 0:43:29 | |
I was a bit worried that you could fall between two stools - | 0:43:29 | 0:43:32 | |
either make them too similar to the originals - not be creative - | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
or you could make them too different | 0:43:36 | 0:43:38 | |
in which case people wouldn't like 'em. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:40 | |
I hope we found a route down the middle. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:44 | |
CHEERING | 0:43:48 | 0:43:52 | |
Babbacombe Lee's release in 1971 marked the end of an era. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:57 | |
Just four years after Fairport had formed, Simon Nicol, | 0:43:57 | 0:44:00 | |
the last of the original line-up, decided to call it a day. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:04 | |
I was still only 20 at the time. | 0:44:04 | 0:44:07 | |
I just thought, | 0:44:07 | 0:44:08 | |
I'm not sure I wouldn't rather do something different. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:12 | |
I got a truck driving licence, | 0:44:12 | 0:44:14 | |
and I did a lot of record production and engineering. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:18 | |
After that the band went through various stages of disarray | 0:44:18 | 0:44:23 | |
with various people coming and going. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:25 | |
There was only Dave Swarbrick | 0:44:25 | 0:44:27 | |
and myself that were trying to keep it together. | 0:44:27 | 0:44:30 | |
The next few years were dubbed "Fairport Confusion", | 0:44:30 | 0:44:33 | |
as a bewildering number of members came and went. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:36 | |
Fairport's revolving door saw Dave Mattacks leave | 0:44:36 | 0:44:40 | |
to join The Albion Band, only to later returned. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:43 | |
Sandy Denny herself rejoined the band for a brief period in 1974 | 0:44:43 | 0:44:48 | |
before her tragic death in April 1978. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:51 | |
By the time Simon Nicol rejoined the group in 1976, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:55 | |
Fairport were struggling to find their niche | 0:44:55 | 0:44:57 | |
in a changing musical landscape. | 0:44:57 | 0:44:59 | |
# I am an antichrist | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
# I am an anarchist... # | 0:45:02 | 0:45:06 | |
There was a period during the '70s | 0:45:06 | 0:45:09 | |
where folk music was really kind of looked down upon. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
The punk thing was happening. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
You wouldn't have a girlfriend if you were walking along | 0:45:14 | 0:45:17 | |
the street carrying an accordion or a violin. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:19 | |
# Anarchy... # | 0:45:19 | 0:45:23 | |
The band had signed a new album deal with Vertigo Records, | 0:45:23 | 0:45:26 | |
but by 1978, it seemed there was little appetite for fork. | 0:45:26 | 0:45:31 | |
We delivered two albums to them. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
Tipplers Tales and The Bonny Bunch Of Roses. | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
They put them out and then we got a phone call from them | 0:45:37 | 0:45:41 | |
saying, "We don't want any more albums." | 0:45:41 | 0:45:44 | |
"Thanks, but you're not going to be on our label any more." | 0:45:44 | 0:45:48 | |
And we said, or rather I said, | 0:45:48 | 0:45:50 | |
"But we've signed a deal for six albums. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
"We're going to deliver the next four in a couple of weeks' time. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:57 | |
"You'll have to pay us off." And they did pay us off. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:01 | |
They paid us half of what we would have got | 0:46:01 | 0:46:04 | |
for the subsequent four albums | 0:46:04 | 0:46:06 | |
and it was the first time we ever made money | 0:46:06 | 0:46:09 | |
out of the music business. It really was. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
When his share of the money, Pegg moved to the same small | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
Oxfordshire village in which Dave Swarbrick had settled, | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
a community that was to play a huge part | 0:46:18 | 0:46:20 | |
in the Fairport story - Cropredy. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:25 | |
# Through Cropredy in Oxfordshire the Cherwell takes its course | 0:46:25 | 0:46:29 | |
# And the willows weep into its waters clear... # | 0:46:29 | 0:46:33 | |
Fairport's Cropredy Festival, | 0:46:33 | 0:46:35 | |
that now draws thousands of people every year, | 0:46:35 | 0:46:38 | |
grew from much humbler beginnings. | 0:46:38 | 0:46:40 | |
We went to a little farm out on the Daventry Road | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
and we had a one-off concert there. | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
That was a great success. | 0:46:46 | 0:46:48 | |
Then the village asked us to play at the village fete, | 0:46:48 | 0:46:51 | |
which was held at Prescott Manor. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:53 | |
By the third year, there were 1,800 people there. | 0:46:53 | 0:46:57 | |
The success of these annual shows couldn't hide the fact | 0:46:57 | 0:47:01 | |
that Fairport was without a record deal and this, | 0:47:01 | 0:47:04 | |
together with Dave Swarbrick's worsening hearing problems, | 0:47:04 | 0:47:08 | |
led to the band announcing that they would play | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
their last ever concert at Cropredy in 1979. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
That was it, that was the end of the band as far as we were concerned. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:18 | |
I went on to join Jethro Tull and was suddenly earning money. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:22 | |
I was able to move house and set up the record label, Woodworm Records. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:26 | |
# 40 miles off Aberdeen | 0:47:26 | 0:47:28 | |
# The water's 50 fathoms deep... # | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
The first album released on Pegg's Woodworm Records | 0:47:31 | 0:47:34 | |
was a live recording of Fairport's Farewell, Farewell tour. | 0:47:34 | 0:47:38 | |
Ironically, the success of that tour and the Cropredy farewell gig | 0:47:38 | 0:47:42 | |
persuaded the band to hold a reunion the following year. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
Another followed a year later and with that, | 0:47:45 | 0:47:48 | |
the Cropredy Festival was born. | 0:47:48 | 0:47:52 | |
There was something that clicked into gear based around Cropredy, | 0:47:52 | 0:47:55 | |
that gave them a focal point for the whole year. | 0:47:55 | 0:47:58 | |
There was a need to reconvene, | 0:47:58 | 0:48:01 | |
to keep something of the spirit. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:48:04 | 0:48:07 | |
These days, Fairport fans young and old make the annual pilgrimage | 0:48:09 | 0:48:14 | |
to Cropredy for a three-day extravaganza of real ale and music. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
Featuring the band itself, former members | 0:48:20 | 0:48:24 | |
and musical collaborators, the festival also provides | 0:48:24 | 0:48:28 | |
a showcase for the rising stars of the folk scene. | 0:48:28 | 0:48:30 | |
A combination of people who are known | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
and would have their own following | 0:48:33 | 0:48:36 | |
and some brand new stuff. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:38 | |
Bands who are breaking through. | 0:48:38 | 0:48:41 | |
With the likes of Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling | 0:48:41 | 0:48:44 | |
enjoying huge critical and commercial success, | 0:48:44 | 0:48:46 | |
folk music is on a high. Cropredy has always given a stage | 0:48:46 | 0:48:50 | |
to the younger generation | 0:48:50 | 0:48:51 | |
and the 2011 Festival starred the winners | 0:48:51 | 0:48:54 | |
of the BBC Radio Two Young Folk Award, Moore, Moss and Rutter. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:58 | |
It was really nice to be given the opportunity | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
as Young Folk winners to come and play. | 0:49:03 | 0:49:04 | |
It's nice to have lots of different young bands coming up. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:09 | |
They book other people who they have seen at different festivals | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
and they take a chance on people, which really works. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:16 | |
It's surprising how much of a following these bands have. | 0:49:16 | 0:49:19 | |
You look at how many young people are here | 0:49:19 | 0:49:21 | |
and what's happening in England today | 0:49:21 | 0:49:23 | |
is that it's not unfashionable now | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
to be a folkie or play the accordion or the violin. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:29 | |
It's great. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:31 | |
For this new generation of folk acts, | 0:49:31 | 0:49:33 | |
sharing the stage with Fairport is a huge boost. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:35 | |
# I work till late each night I wake up with the light | 0:49:37 | 0:49:43 | |
# My eyes too tired to fight no rest for the wicked... # | 0:49:43 | 0:49:48 | |
Very beneficial for us, definitely. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:49 | |
It has really raised our profile The fact that they have the power | 0:49:49 | 0:49:54 | |
to give that opportunity to a band or a duo | 0:49:54 | 0:49:57 | |
is just fantastic. | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
All the musicians receive a warm welcome from the Cropredy crowd. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
But the most anticipated appearance of the weekend | 0:50:02 | 0:50:05 | |
is the closing set by Fairport themselves, | 0:50:05 | 0:50:09 | |
usually joined by a special guest. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:11 | |
Would you please make him very welcome, the author and giver | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
of this next good thing, Mr Ralph McTell. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:16 | |
CHEERING | 0:50:16 | 0:50:17 | |
The boys have recorded one of my songs, | 0:50:17 | 0:50:19 | |
called Around The Wild Cape Horn. | 0:50:19 | 0:50:22 | |
They said would I like to come and do it with them. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
Well, of course I would. The trouble is I have to unlearn my version. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
So it's going to be a seat of the pants job, but I'm sure we'll | 0:50:27 | 0:50:30 | |
be forgiven, we'll all get through it and it will be a bit of fun. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
# For 17 days we were becalmed then Friday 13th | 0:50:33 | 0:50:40 | |
# 68 great ships were lost in the storm of the century | 0:50:40 | 0:50:45 | |
# But we blew into the Atlantic on a sun-lit sparkling morn | 0:50:45 | 0:50:51 | |
# But the turkey got sick so we ate him quick | 0:50:51 | 0:50:54 | |
# On the way around the wild Cape Horn... # | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
Ralph McTell's links with Fairport stretch back over 40 years, | 0:50:57 | 0:51:01 | |
just one of the many musicians who have contributed | 0:51:01 | 0:51:04 | |
to the band's remarkable legacy. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:08 | |
The Fairport family embraces all of these people | 0:51:08 | 0:51:12 | |
who at some time in the past have been touched by Fairport, | 0:51:12 | 0:51:16 | |
and who now show that by coming here | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
from wherever it is that they spend the rest of the year, | 0:51:19 | 0:51:23 | |
all sharing something. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:26 | |
A lot of people have been to every one and then they bring | 0:51:26 | 0:51:29 | |
their kids, and then the kids have grown up | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
and brought their kids. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:35 | |
Cropredy isn't one thing. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
It's a mixture of new and old people discovering it | 0:51:37 | 0:51:40 | |
and telling other people who will listen, | 0:51:40 | 0:51:42 | |
"You should come here." You know, it's nice. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:44 | |
Because so many lives are wrapped up in this music, | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
it's quite spiritual. I mean, it really is. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
I don't want to sound too hippie about it, | 0:51:54 | 0:51:56 | |
but this particular field and this particular band | 0:51:56 | 0:51:59 | |
and this occasion means so much to so many people. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
We acknowledge that when we come here, that we are all part of it | 0:52:02 | 0:52:06 | |
and we're lucky to be here | 0:52:06 | 0:52:07 | |
and having a great weekend's worth of music. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:11 | |
For the first five years after the festival was established, | 0:52:23 | 0:52:26 | |
this annual event was the only time the band came together. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:30 | |
It was bassist Dave Pegg who persuaded Fairport | 0:52:30 | 0:52:33 | |
to go back into the studio. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:34 | |
Recorded in 1985 at his newly opened Woodworm Studios, | 0:52:34 | 0:52:39 | |
Gladys' Leap featured Simon Nicol, Dave Mattacks and Pegg himself. | 0:52:39 | 0:52:43 | |
But no Swarb, who had finally left the band | 0:52:43 | 0:52:46 | |
after 15 years and 11 albums. | 0:52:46 | 0:52:48 | |
We invited Swarb, but he declined | 0:52:50 | 0:52:52 | |
because he had his group Whippersnapper. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:54 | |
So then we asked Ric Sanders to join | 0:52:54 | 0:52:57 | |
and subsequently Martin Allcock. | 0:52:57 | 0:53:00 | |
From that moment on, Fairport really kind of got together again. | 0:53:00 | 0:53:05 | |
I wasn't replacing Swarb, because I couldn't have done. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:09 | |
You know, I don't sing and I can't play the fiddle like Swarb. I can't. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:13 | |
So I have to do my own thing, which is a bit more jazzy. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:16 | |
Sometimes I might have gone a bit over the top | 0:53:16 | 0:53:19 | |
in the freaking out department, you know. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:22 | |
One of Fairport's strengths | 0:53:25 | 0:53:27 | |
though its line-up changes throughout its history | 0:53:27 | 0:53:31 | |
is it has never tried to hang onto a sound | 0:53:31 | 0:53:34 | |
for hanging onto a sound's sake. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:36 | |
When people join, they bring their strengths. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:39 | |
Fairport has never tried to replace like with like. | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
# Tomorrow, it's off up to Banbury A lodging time for me... # | 0:53:42 | 0:53:46 | |
Simon is a big continuity. I know he has been | 0:53:46 | 0:53:48 | |
out of the band for a few years, | 0:53:48 | 0:53:50 | |
for good behaviour you would say. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
But that thing, his sound | 0:53:52 | 0:53:54 | |
has been there a long time. | 0:53:54 | 0:53:57 | |
However you play, it does filter out to the people around you. | 0:53:57 | 0:54:02 | |
After the rollercoaster of the Fairport confusion years, | 0:54:02 | 0:54:05 | |
things had finally started to settle. | 0:54:05 | 0:54:08 | |
Since I joined in 1985, it has been pretty stable. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:13 | |
We had the line up with Martin Allcock and of course Dave Mattacks. | 0:54:13 | 0:54:16 | |
That lasted for 11 years. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:18 | |
Then Chris Leslie joined and Gerry Conway | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
and we have been together longer than that now. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
Drummer Gerry Conway was a natural choice to replace Dave Mattacks, | 0:54:23 | 0:54:28 | |
who finally parted ways with Fairport in 1998 | 0:54:28 | 0:54:31 | |
and moved to the USA. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:33 | |
Gerry was well-known to the other band members, | 0:54:33 | 0:54:36 | |
having played with Sandy Denny's Fotheringay, as well as Jethro Tull | 0:54:36 | 0:54:39 | |
and Steeleye Span. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
I started my first professional band when I was about 17 | 0:54:41 | 0:54:45 | |
and people would say, | 0:54:45 | 0:54:47 | |
"It's not a long-lasting job, you know." | 0:54:47 | 0:54:50 | |
"You'll be finished by the time you're 25." | 0:54:50 | 0:54:55 | |
So I'm amazed to be here doing it. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:58 | |
15 years on, Gerry is part of Fairport longest continuous line-up | 0:54:59 | 0:55:04 | |
as they celebrate the band's 45th anniversary | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
at the Union Chapel in north London, | 0:55:06 | 0:55:08 | |
just a few miles from Simon's childhood home, | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
Fairport House, where it all began way back in 1967. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:15 | |
We'd like to show you how much our finger's on the pulse | 0:55:17 | 0:55:20 | |
of the nation's thoughts. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
The talk of every Islington dinner table at the moment | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
is surely Scottish independence. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:29 | |
So here's a song about it. | 0:55:29 | 0:55:30 | |
It's a multiple marriage really, when you're in harness | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
with people musically and you spend so much time together socially. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:38 | |
This feels very musically comfortable. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:41 | |
I never feel as if I have to compromise a new idea that comes in. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:46 | |
If I do, if any of us push the music in a certain direction, | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
it seems to be a very flexible and elastic performing relationship. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:53 | |
# The King sits in Dunfermline town drinking of the blood red wine | 0:55:53 | 0:55:58 | |
# Where can I get a steely skipper | 0:55:58 | 0:56:01 | |
# To sail this mighty boat of mine... # | 0:56:01 | 0:56:05 | |
We have kind of developed musically | 0:56:05 | 0:56:09 | |
since the two violin line-up with Chris and Ric. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:12 | |
It became a different sound and it's one we're happy with. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:17 | |
Chris is actually a brilliant folk musician. He's the real deal. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:28 | |
I can play Morris dance tunes. He can play them better than me | 0:56:28 | 0:56:32 | |
and do the dances. | 0:56:32 | 0:56:33 | |
We have a great exchange, Chris and I. | 0:56:33 | 0:56:37 | |
I have brought a more acoustic element to the current line-up. | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
It's what my sensibilities are and it's what I love. | 0:56:40 | 0:56:44 | |
Fairport has always had that pushing and pulling | 0:56:44 | 0:56:49 | |
between acoustic music and the rock element. | 0:56:49 | 0:56:52 | |
But I think there's always that beautiful coming together | 0:56:52 | 0:56:56 | |
in the current line-up. | 0:56:56 | 0:56:57 | |
In addition to his knowledge of traditional music, | 0:56:58 | 0:57:01 | |
Chris Leslie has provided Fairport with a source of original songs, | 0:57:01 | 0:57:05 | |
which has given the band a new lease of life. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:08 | |
He's developed a new and rich vein of songwriting. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:13 | |
His biographical adventures. | 0:57:13 | 0:57:17 | |
I think that's a brilliant thing, that he's able to tap into now. | 0:57:17 | 0:57:21 | |
# We set a course for old Cape Horn and out across the ocean | 0:57:21 | 0:57:26 | |
# Go down... # | 0:57:26 | 0:57:28 | |
Simon sent me this e-mail and said, | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
"Have you seen they've found this ship in the Mercy Bay?" | 0:57:31 | 0:57:35 | |
It was one of the ships that went out to look for Lord Franklin | 0:57:35 | 0:57:38 | |
and his expedition to try and find the north-west passage, | 0:57:38 | 0:57:41 | |
when they fell off the face of the earth. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:43 | |
That feeling came. I thought, "Oh, there's a song there, definitely." | 0:57:43 | 0:57:46 | |
And Mercy Bay, what a great gift to a songwriter. | 0:57:46 | 0:57:49 | |
# In April 1853, the Resolute sailed | 0:57:49 | 0:57:55 | |
# Go down, go down | 0:57:55 | 0:58:00 | |
# At Melvin Isle they found a note | 0:58:00 | 0:58:02 | |
# That told of our pleas and our plight | 0:58:02 | 0:58:06 | |
# We left that ship in the frozen cold | 0:58:06 | 0:58:10 | |
# We buried the poor men who died... # | 0:58:10 | 0:58:16 | |
Still writing new material and still exploring the folk tradition, | 0:58:16 | 0:58:20 | |
after 45 years on the road, Fairport Convention aren't quite ready | 0:58:20 | 0:58:23 | |
to take their final bows just yet. | 0:58:23 | 0:58:27 | |
I think we're all continuing to improve as musicians. | 0:58:27 | 0:58:29 | |
I don't feel my powers are dropping off yet. | 0:58:29 | 0:58:32 | |
And as long as that continues, | 0:58:32 | 0:58:34 | |
I'm happy to continue moving forward with the band. | 0:58:34 | 0:58:38 | |
Somehow they've managed to retain the spirit of Fairport. | 0:58:40 | 0:58:44 | |
It's a certain camaraderie and certain way of working. | 0:58:44 | 0:58:49 | |
And still, you know, creating, not just doing all the old songs. | 0:58:49 | 0:58:54 | |
I suppose part of me is surprised they're still doing it. | 0:58:54 | 0:58:57 | |
On the other hand, there is a Fairport vibe that perpetuates. | 0:58:57 | 0:59:01 | |
Why not keep the band going? They're great musicians. | 0:59:01 | 0:59:04 | |
# Go down. # | 0:59:09 | 0:59:14 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:59:21 | 0:59:24 |