Richard Thompson
Fairport Convention: The tragedies behind the pioneers of folk rock
By any measure, it was a period of prodigious creativity. Between June 1968 and December 1969, Fairport Convention released their first four albums — and changed the course of music both in Britain and further afield.
By John Meagher
By any measure, it was a period of prodigious creativity. Between June 1968 and December 1969, Fairport Convention released their first four albums — and changed the course of music both in Britain and further afield.
The third, Unhalfbricking, was their first to chart, and helped make them one of the UK’s most critically acclaimed bands. The next, Liege & Lief, which came out in the last month of the 1960s, is widely regarded as one of the most influential folk-rock albums ever, a record that fuelled the creative juices of a young Christy Moore and continues to resonate with such contemporary luminaries as Lankum.
Fairport Convention have had more members than Everton and Watford’s recent managerial roll-call combined and they play a Dublin show this evening in the auspicious surrounds of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Co-founder Simon Nicol and longest-serving member Dave Pegg will be among the quintet to play in Jonathan Swift’s old stomping ground.
But, impressive as the band’s longevity has been, it’s the line-up centred on the rare talents of Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny more than half-a-century ago that ensures Fairport’s lofty place in the popular culture canon.
The story of early Fairport Convention is one of youthful ambition, magnificent musical virtuosity and seemingly boundless creativity. It’s also one underscored by a tragedy that threatened to destroy the band. Remarkably, they came back even stronger, even if Thompson and Denny were soon to take other creative paths.
The band’s origins date to 1966. Thompson was just 17 when he and Nicol, along with Ashley Hutchings, formed a band and started to knock out Bob Dylan and Byrds covers. They got their name from ‘Fairport’, the large mock Tudor house in London that was owned by Nicol’s family: the early incarnation was peopled by middle-class grammar-school educated kids.
The group hit the ground running. Soon they were supporting Pink Floyd, who were also going places fast thanks to their mercurial leader Syd Barrett. At one of those Floyd gigs, in July 1967, Fairport Convention opened, while the headliners had to contend with the fact that Barrett had just overdosed on LSD. David Gilmour had to deputise.
It was at that show that Fairport met the American producer Joe Boyd, who would produce their self-titled debut and the four albums that followed it, including the illustrious pair mentioned above. Boyd’s part in the great British folk revival should never be underestimated.
While they showed considerable promise on their debut album, there were few signs about what was to come. Having taken their sonic cues from the other side of the Atlantic, they were dubbed “the British Jefferson Airplane”.
Things started to pick up when Sandy Denny joined the band in 1968, replacing Judy Dyble, who later claimed she had been “unceremoniously dumped”. A couple of years older than Thompson, Denny had already cut her teeth as vocalist with English folkies the Strawbs. Continue reading
Morris On “Cuckoo’s Nest”
TRADITIONAL LYRICS
From the recording Morris On, by Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, John Kirkpatrick, Barry Dransfield and Dave Mattacks.
- As I was a-walking one morning in May,
I met a pretty fair maid, anon to her did say,
“For love I am inclined, and I’ll tell you me mind,
That me inclination lies in your cuckoo’s nest.” - “Me darling,” says she, “I am innocent and young,
And I scarcely can believe your false deluding tongue;
Yet to see it in your eyes and it fills me with surprise,
That your inclination lies in me cuckoo’s nest.”
Chorus:
Some like a girl who is pretty in the face,
And some like a girl who is slender in the waist;
But give me a girl that will wriggle and will twist.
At the bottom of the belly lies the cuckoo’s nest. - “Then me darling,” says he, “if you see it in me eyes,
Then think of it as fondness and do not be surprised,
For I love you, me dear, and I’ll marry you I swear
If you let me clap me hand on your cuckoo’s nest.” - “Me darling,” says she, “I can do no such thing,
For me mother often told me it was committing sin,
Me maidenhead to lose and me sex to be abused,
So have no more to do with me cuckoo’s nest.”
Chorus - “Me darling,” says he, “it is not committing sin,
but common sense should tell you it is a pleasing thing,
For you were brought into this world to increase and do your best,
And to help a man to heaven in your cuckoo’s nest.” - “Then me darling,” says she, “I cannot you deny,
For you’ve surely won me heart by the roving of your eye.
Yet to see it in your eyes that your courage is surprised,
So gently lift your hand in me cuckoo’s nest.”
Chorus - So this couple they got married and soon they went to bed,
And now this pretty fair maid has lost her maidenhead;
In a small country cottage they increase and do their best,
And he often claps his hand on her cuckoo’s nest.
Chorus
“Strange Affair” performed by June Tabor and Martin Simpson
Richard Thompson’s song “Strange Affair,” here performed by June Tabor and Martin Simpson
Richard Thompson on the flowering of Fairport Convention
“There was a musical explosion – you could play almost anything and be accepted”
The current issue of Uncut – in shops now or available to buy online by clicking here, with free P&P for the UK – features an exclusive extract from Richard Thompson’s forthcoming memoir Beeswing in which he recalls how, in 1967, the newly formed Fairport Convention took their first tentative steps into London’s burgeoning underground scene. In addition, Thompson talks candidly to Uncut about the process of writing the book and how he feels now looking back at those naive and exciting early days…
RICHARD THOMPSON: “The ’60 and ’70s continue to be musically of great interest to people. Although we thought it was very ordinary at the time, it does turn out to have been an exceptional period – a great musical crossroads. I thought I’d just chuck down some reminiscences before I popped my clogs, as they say. Not that I intend to any time soon!
“You think that you remember everything, but when you actually sit down and start to write, stuff comes out that you’d forgotten. I think it helped me, actually. There was a kind of catharsis in writing about that time, which was part joyous – as it is when you’re a teenager – and part painful. You forget about the painful stuff, but that mix is in there, and it was quite extraordinary to go back and really think about it.
“I suppose I was fortunate in the people I gravitated towards. Meeting Simon [Nicol] and Ashley [Hutchings], who became the core of Fairport, was a wonderful thing, and a crucial thing. Very early on, about 1967, I could tell we had some kind of musical future, even if it only lasted a year. That was good enough for me, and I could put off thinking about getting a real job until I was at least 22. Then when Sandy [Denny] joined, that made us a really good band – we felt this was actually something quite transcendental. All we wanted to do was play music to an audience, and it just happened to be that time when the floodgates were opened and so many bands could pass through. We felt that circumstances dragged us along. There was a musical explosion in London – so many different styles were emerging that you could play almost anything and be accepted. You could play folk-rock and be accepted by an audience that also listened to The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and Pink Floyd. It was all just part of the hippie culture, this underground musical revolution.
“The scene was a real community – people would help each other out, lend each other gear, tow each other back down the M1. Now people say, ‘My God, you played with Hendrix?’ But at the time it didn’t seem that exceptional because he would jam with a lot of people. Musicians weren’t really celebrities back in those days; that came later.
“I had to be cajoled into starting the book, but once I started I really enjoyed the writing process. You can write a song in 10 minutes – I’m not saying it’s always that quick, but it’s a much swifter and less detailed process. You can be a lot more abstract and poetic in songwriting, you don’t have to fill in the gaps. Writing prose, you have to be more linear. It takes structure, more discipline. I tried to write for at least a few hours a day. And as much as I enjoyed the writing process, I hated the editorial process – handing it over to other people. Having not been edited ever as a songwriter, that came as a bit of a shock. Suddenly you have to justify yourself to other people!
“There are a couple of songs I’ve written since finishing the book that seem to be reflective of that time period. I often refer back to earlier times because songwriting is almost a decoding of your own life. So I’ve done a couple of things that have been, I suppose, brought up by the process. I don’t know about laid to rest, that sounds a bit too final – or pretentious! But it’s helped me to put some events from the ’60s and ’70s into perspective.”
You can read the full extract from Richard Thompson’s Beeswing in the May 2021 issue of Uncut, out now with The Velvet Underground on the cover!
Source: Richard Thompson on the flowering of Fairport Convention | UNCUT