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120-666: Fairport Convention are an English folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol , bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig). They started out influenced by American folk rock , with a set list dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane ". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before

240-531: A basis for their music, in contrast to the early modern and 19th century ballada that dominated the output of Fairport Convention. This followed the trend explored by Steeleye Span, and exemplified by their 1972 album Below the Salt . Acts in this area included Gryphon , Gentle Giant and Third Ear Band . In Germany Ougenweide , originally formed in 1970 as an acoustic folk group, opted to draw exclusively on High German medieval music when they electrified, setting

360-467: A better job than Frater and replaced him. They soon added a female singer, Judy Dyble , which gave them a distinctive sound among the many London bands of the period. Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club . After only a few months, they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd who secured them

480-540: A clear interest in more traditional sounds on Minstrel in the Gallery (1975), but it was in 1977 with the release of Songs from the Wood (1977) that Anderson took the band into electric folk territory. All the songs on the album focused on rural life and, in addition to the normal electronic instruments and flute of the band, used mandolin, lute and a pipe organ. Two tracks, 'Hunting Girl' and particularly 'Velvet Green' followed

600-502: A concert favourite. Despite the loss of Denny the band still possessed four vocalists, including the emerging voices of Nicol and Swarbrick, whose tones would dominate the sound of this period. It was favourably reviewed in Britain and America, drawing comparisons with the Band from Rolling Stone magazine who declared that "Fairport Convention is better than ever". The album reached number 13 in

720-465: A consequence of this lack of interest the three Home Service albums released between 1984 and 1986 came out on three different independent labels (Jigsaw, Coda and Making Waves), which further dented their commercial prospects. In the later 1980s, things began to look much more positive for the genre. Despite formally disbanding in 1979, Fairport Convention staged what were initially called "reunion" concerts annually from 1980, which eventually evolved into

840-521: A contract with Polydor Records . Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (then known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band, and their first album, Fairport Convention , was recorded in late 1967 and released in June 1968. At this early stage Fairport looked to North American folk and folk rock acts such as Joni Mitchell , Bob Dylan , and The Byrds for material and inspiration. The name "Fairport Convention" and

960-514: A decisive move away from traditional songs. It was a commercial failure and their last album for six years as they became a part-time touring band. However, in 1986 they produced Back in Line and since then, despite several line-up changes, they have continued to perform and have recorded eight more albums. Some bands like Stone Angel and Jack the Lad , who had disbanded in the 1970s, had reformed and resumed

1080-521: A distinction in some British folk rock, where the musicians are playing traditional folk music with electric instruments rather than merging rock and folk music, and they distinguish this form of playing by calling it "electric folk". Though the merging of folk and rock music came from several sources, it is widely regarded that the success of " The House of the Rising Sun " by British band the Animals in 1964

1200-501: A distinctly English branch of the genre, which would develop alongside, and interact with, American inspired music, but which can also be seen as a distinctively national reaction in opposition to it. Liege & Lief was launched with a sell-out concert in London's Royal Festival Hall late in 1969. It reached number 17 in the UK album chart, where it spent fifteen weeks. Disagreements arose about

1320-425: A mysterious consultation and voting process conducted by the band with its fans). As of 2020 the band continues to write and record music, regularly producing new studio albums, the most recent releases being 2015's Myths and Heroes , 2017's 50:50@50 and 2020's Shuffle and Go . The Covid-19 Pandemic impacted significantly on their ability to tour, and their 2022 tour was initially cut short after several of

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1440-467: A projected second album. The album remained unfinished after Denny announced that she was leaving the group and producer Joe Boyd left to take up a job at Warner Brothers in California. Denny would later blame Boyd's hostility towards the group for its demise. Some of the songs originally earmarked for the second Fotheringay album surfaced on Denny's 1971 debut solo album, The North Star Grassman and

1560-599: A recording of " A Sailor's Life ", a traditional song brought to the band by Denny from her folk club days. The recording of this track marked an important turning point for the band, sparking an interest in traditional music in Ashley Hutchings that led him to detailed research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society Library at Cecil Sharp House ; this theme would become the basis for their next, much more ambitious, recording project. These two albums began to gain

1680-457: A recording or touring career. Hard rock and progressive rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull incorporated elements of folk music in their music, though they are not considered part of the folk rock movement. Led Zeppelin had shared a stage with Fairport Convention at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music in 1970. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page 's interest in the genre

1800-554: A rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on the integration of British folk music into rock and roll, which would result in the fourth album Liege & Lief . Usually considered the highpoint of the band's long career, Liege & Lief was a huge leap forward in concept and musicality. The album consisted of six traditional tracks and three original compositions in

1920-571: A similar movement in America, to which it was connected by individuals like Alan Lomax , who had fled to England in the era of McCarthyism . Like the American revival, it was often overtly left wing in its politics, but, led by such figures as Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd from the early 1950s, it also attempted to produce a distinctively English music that was an alternative to the American dominance of popular culture , which was, as they saw it, displacing

2040-428: A similar style. The traditional tracks included two sustained epics: " Tam Lin ", which was over seven minutes in length, and " Matty Groves ", at over eight. There was a medley of four traditional tunes, arranged, and, like many of the tracks, enlivened, by Swarbrick's energetic fiddle playing. The first side was bracketed by original compositions "Come all ye" and "Farewell, Farewell", which, in addition to information on

2160-471: A smaller acoustic outfit that could play the still extensive network of folk clubs and other smaller venues. This move was also significant in indicating the way in which electric folk personnel had become assimilated into the folk revival. Almost all the members of Fairport Convention have toured the folk club circuit solo or in smaller units and the line up at Cropredy includes as many acoustic acts as electric. In 1980, Steeleye Span's Sails of Silver took

2280-679: A solo career increased. She had been voted Britain's number 1 singer for two consecutive years in Melody Maker' s readers poll. The album peaked at No. 18 in the UK Albums Chart . A special live performance by Fotheringay was recorded at Gruga-Halle in Essen, Germany, on 23 October 1970. The concert tapes were re-mastered by Fotheringay guitarist Jerry Donahue and the album released in 2011. Fotheringay disbanded in January 1971 during sessions for

2400-471: A songwriter in the band, they turned to some of the most talented available in the contemporary folk scene. The results were Red & Gold (1989) The Five Seasons (1990) and Jewel in the Crown (1995), the last of which was judged "their bestselling and undoubtedly finest album in years." At this point, with Mattacks busy with other projects, the band shifted to an acoustic format for touring and released

2520-402: A sustained or much emulated effort in this direction. Also products of the folk club circuit were Sandy Denny who joined Fairport Convention as a singer in 1968 and Dave Swarbrick , a fiddle player and session musician who reacted positively to the electric music he encountered while working with Fairport in 1969. The result was an extended interpretation of the song " A Sailor's Life ", which

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2640-488: Is Ritchie Blackmore with Blackmore's Night . Initially Celtic rock replicated electric folk, but naturally replaced the element of English traditional music with its own folk music. It was rapidly evident in all areas of the Celtic nations and regions surrounding England, as Ireland , Scotland , Isle of Man , Wales , Cornwall , and Brittany all saw the adoption and adaptation of the electric folk model. Through at least

2760-475: Is claimed by members of the band that this was the only recording money they had seen up to that point. By 1979 the mainstream market for folk rock had largely disappeared, the band had no record deal, and Dave Swarbrick had been diagnosed with tinnitus , which made loud electric gigs increasingly difficult. Fairport decided to disband. They played a farewell tour and a final outdoor concert on 4 August in Cropredy ,

2880-432: Is not to say that all the proponents of electric folk totally abandoned American material, or that it would not be represented in their own compositions, but their work would be characterised by the use of traditional English songs and tunes and the creation of new songs in that style, using the format and instruments of a rock band with the occasional addition of more traditional instruments. The result of this hybridisation

3000-478: The Cropredy Festival ("Fairport's Cropredy Convention") which remains (in 2022) a mainstay of the U.K. summer festival calendar and regularly attracts up to 20,000 attendees, by no means all of whom are Fairport Convention fans. When the band reformed in 1985 they were able to embark on increasingly lengthy and successful tours and produce a series of highly regarded albums. The reason for this recording revival

3120-726: The Half Moon at Putney and the Gloucester Leisure Centre. In 1983 the magazine Fairport Fanatics (later Dirty Linen ), was created: a testament to the continued existence of a dedicated fan base. The Angel Delight lineup of Simon Nicol, Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg, and Dave Mattacks played a number of gigs in the UK in the early 80s, then toured extensively in the UK and the US in 1984 and 1985. Band alumni like Richard Thompson and Bruce Rowland would occasionally join in. The remaining members pursued their own lives and careers outside of

3240-453: The Isle of Man , to produce Celtic rock and its derivatives, and has been influential in countries with close cultural connections to Britain. It gave rise to the genre of folk punk . By the 1980s the genre was in steep decline in popularity, but survived and revived in significance, partly merging with the rock music and folk music cultures from which it originated. Some commentators have found

3360-450: The M1 motorway . Martin Lamble , aged only nineteen, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson's girlfriend, were killed. The rest of the band suffered injuries of varying severity. They nearly decided to disband. However, they reconvened with Dave Mattacks taking over drumming duties and Dave Swarbrick, having made contribution to Unhalfbricking , now joined as a full member. Boyd set the band up in

3480-559: The Newport Folk Festival in the summer of 1965. Folk rock became an important genre among emerging English bands, particularly those in the London club scene towards the end of the 1960s. The skiffle movement, to which many English musicians, including the Beatles, owed their origins as performers, meant that they were already familiar with American folk music As they emulated the guitar and drum based format that had crystallised as

3600-485: The unplugged Old New Borrowed Blue as "Fairport Acoustic Convention" in 1996. For a while the four-piece acoustic line-up ran in parallel with the electric format. When Allcock left the band, he was replaced by Chris Leslie on vocals, mandolin and fiddle, who formerly worked with Swarbrick in Whippersnapper, and had a one-off stint with the band replacing Ric Sanders for 1992 Cropredy Festival. This meant that for

3720-468: The 'English' genre of folk tunes prevalent in the other popular bands, Five Hand Reel performed Scots and Irish songs and won Melody Maker ' s "Folk Album of the Year" in 1975. Second were groupings created directly by the members or former members of Fairport Convention, which can be seen as the nexus from which a family of organisations or performers emerged. Sandy Denny's short-lived group Fotheringay

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3840-578: The 1980s Home Service , whose third album Alright Jack (1985) is often seen as representing another artistic highpoint for the genre. A much smaller group of English bands were formed in emulation of existing folk rock bands. Most often the model seems to have been Steeleye Span, as it was for the Cambridge group Spriguns of Tolgus , the Northumbrian band Hedgehog Pie and the Oyster Band , who started as

3960-483: The 2024 winter tour. The mainstream media has increasingly recognized Fairport Convention's historical importance. They received a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards . In the same year Free Reed Records, an independent label, released Fairport Unconventional , a four-CD boxed set of rare and unreleased recordings from the band's 35-year career. At the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards they received an award when their seminal album Liege & Lief

4080-416: The American model of folk rock electrification from about 1965 now adopted it, most obviously Pentangle, Strawbs and acoustic duo Tyrannosaurus Rex which became the electric combo T-Rex. It also pushed progressive folk towards more traditional material. Acoustic performers Dando Shaft and Amazing Blondel , both beginning about this time, are examples of this trend. Examples of bands that remained firmly on

4200-523: The Baltic folk music of Skyforger and the Scandinavian folk music of Korpiklaani . In Germany this trend is more closely associated with the neo-medieval music known as medieval metal . Fairport's Cropredy Convention (previously Cropredy Festival ) has been held every year since 1980 near Cropredy , a village five miles north of Banbury , Oxfordshire and attracts up to 20,000 fans. It remains one of

4320-596: The British folk rock mould. Similarly, Swarbrick's former playing partner, Martin Carthy , joined Steeleye Span in 1971 to the astonishment of many in the folk music world. Five Hand Reel , a band formed out of the remnants of Spencer's Feat, proved to be one of the more successful and influential folk rock bands. Releasing four albums with Topic/RCA records, they were popular in Europe, where they gave most of their performances. Unlike

4440-834: The German " Beat-Club " TV series in 1970, which considerably augment the otherwise sparse known TV footage of Sandy Denny in particular. In June 2015, the three surviving members of the original band - Jerry Donahue, Gerry Conway and Pat Donaldson - reunited and played 12 tour dates in England over the next 12 months, followed by gigs in Germany and the Netherlands in September, 2016. They were joined by Kathryn Roberts (Equation, KR & Sean Lakeman), Sally Barker (The Poozies, ‘The Voice’) and PJ Wright (The Dylan Project and Little Johnny England) to provide

4560-477: The Incredible String Band , Pentangle , Strawbs , Nick Drake , Roy Harper , John Martyn and the original Tyrannosaurus Rex . Some of this, particularly the Incredible String Band, has been seen as developing into the further subgenre of psych or psychedelic folk . The advent of electric folk had profound effects on this developing strand of the folk genre. First, many existing acts, having avoided

4680-504: The Kinks grew up. The house lent its name to the group they formed together as Fairport Convention in 1967 with Richard Thompson on guitar and Shaun Frater on drums. After their initial performance at St Michael's Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967, they had their first of many line-up changes as one member of the audience, drummer Martin Lamble , convinced the band that he could do

4800-458: The Oxfordshire village where Dave and Christine Pegg lived. The finality of this occasion was mitigated by the announcement that the band would meet for a reunion. In August 1979, the band played at Knebworth Festival in England. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin . No record company wanted to release

4920-535: The Oyster Band (latterly Oysterband), an increasingly heavy and politically aware folk rock unit who produced some of the best work in the genre in the 1980s and 1990s, merging into the developing folk punk and independent scenes. For a time electric folk threatened to break through to the mainstream, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s when Steeleye Span had a Christmas Top 20 hit single ("Gaudete") in 1973 and another Top 5 hit in 1975 (" All Around My Hat "). The album of

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5040-467: The Ravens . Meanwhile, Lucas, Conway and Donahue joined Fairport Convention in 1972 to record that band's Rosie album, on which some Fotheringay material was also used. However, Conway played on three tracks only and began session work afterwards. Both Conway and Donaldson have worked with Fairport's Richard Thompson , amongst many others. Lucas and Donahue stayed with Fairport for another couple of years,

5160-657: The Time Goes? " – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – became a signature song for herself and the band. Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill – the same street on which Ray and Dave Davies of

5280-480: The UK Chart and stayed in the chart for eleven weeks. The same year the band released a single, " Now Be Thankful ", and made its American debut, touring with Traffic and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young . In the recurring pattern, soon after the album's release Thompson left the band to pursue other projects and eventually his solo career. This left Simon Nicol as the only original member, and Dave Swarbrick emerged as

5400-421: The UK, and as 'Fairport featuring Dave Swarbrick' in the US, and with various session players and production by Simon Nicol, who subsequently rejoined the band. They then signed with Vertigo, but record sales continued to decline; after producing the first two of four albums for which they were contracted, The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1977) and Tipplers Tales (1978), Vertigo bought them out of their contract. It

5520-636: The US and Canada, and staged a major fund raiser for Dave Swarbrick at the Birmingham Symphony Hall . In 1998, members of the band began their association with the Breton musician Alan Simon . Working in collaboration with numerous others, members of Fairport (predominantly Nicol and Leslie) have performed in and participated in the recordings of all Simon's rock operas, including the Excalibur trilogy (1998, 2007, 2010) and Anne de Bretagne (2008). 2007

5640-408: The abandoned projected second Fotheringay album, which he accomplished using previously unheard takes from the original archived tapes. Completed by the summer of the following year, Fotheringay 2 was released by Fledg'ling Records on 29 September 2008. A four-disc collection, Nothing More: The Collected Fotheringay , was released on 30 March 2015. This is the most comprehensive compilation of

5760-479: The agenda for future German electric folk. In Brittany, as part of the Celtic rock movement, medieval music was focused on by bands like Ripaille from 1977 and Saga de Ragnar Lodbrock from 1979. However, by the end of the 1970s almost all of these performers had either disbanded or moved, like Gentle Giant and Gryphon, into the developing area of progressive rock . One remaining but notable exponent of medieval folk rock

5880-601: The album Nine being released in 1973, while Denny rejoined in 1974. This line-up recorded two additional albums: Fairport Live Convention (re-titled A Movable Feast in the US ) and Rising for the Moon . Denny, along with Donahue and Lucas, left Fairport in December 1975. Conway eventually joined a reformed Fairport in 1997. In 2007, the BBC announced that Donahue would be attempting to complete

6000-431: The album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both". A few British bands had earlier experimented with playing traditional English songs on electric instruments, (including Strawbs and Pentangle ), but Fairport Convention was the first English band to do this in a concerted and focused way. Fairport Convention's achievement was not to invent folk rock, but to create

6120-564: The band produced two studio albums: Rosie , notable for the Swarbrick-penned title track (1973) and Nine (1974), the ninth studio album by the band. The last of these contained writing contributions by Lucas to five of the nine tracks, which together with Donahue's country influences and outstanding guitar pyrotechnics gave the album a very distinctive feel. Denny rejoined the band in 1974, and there were considerable expectations, both artistic and commercial, placed on this line-up. Denny

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6240-459: The band released a new studio album Festival Bell , the first new album in four years. This was followed in 2012 by Babbacombe Lee Live Again recorded live during the 2011 tour revisiting the Babbacombe Lee album first issued in 1971. In 2012, the band also released By Popular Request , a reworking in the studio of a number of the most popular songs in the band's repertoire (as determined by

6360-416: The band wider recognition. Radio DJ John Peel championed their music, playing their albums on his influential BBC shows. Peel also recorded a number of sessions which were later released as the album Heyday (1987). They enjoyed some mainstream success when they entered the singles charts with " Si Tu Dois Partir ", a French-language version of Bob Dylan's " If You Gotta Go, Go Now ". The record just missed

6480-498: The band. Dave Mattacks moved to the US in 1998, and Gerry Conway took over on drums and percussion. Fairport produced two more studio albums for Woodworm Records: The Wood and the Wire (2000) and XXXV (2002). Then, for Over the Next Hill (2004) they established a new label: Matty Grooves Records . In this period the band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, Australasia, Europe,

6600-499: The band. Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks had recorded and toured with Richard and Linda Thompson at times in the 1970s, and did so again during this period, culminating in their appearance on the Shoot Out the Lights album and tour in 1982. Bruce Rowlands gave up the music business and moved to Denmark and as a result Dave Mattacks returned as drummer for Fairport's occasional gigs. Dave Pegg was

6720-562: The band. The first of these featured the Thompson-penned " Meet on the Ledge ", which became their second single and eventually the band's unofficial anthem. During the recording of Unhalfbricking , Matthews left after having sung on only one song, eventually to form Matthews Southern Comfort . He was not replaced; the other male members covered his vocal parts. The album featured a guest appearance by Birmingham folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick on

6840-515: The border between progressive folk and progressive rock are the short lived Comus and, more successfully, Renaissance , who combined folk and rock with elements of classical music . While progressive folk as a genre continued into the late 1960s, it was overshadowed by electric folk and progressive rock, arguably, later to emerge in a new form. From about 1970 a number of performers inspired by electric folk, particularly in England, Germany and Brittany, adopted medieval and renaissance music as

6960-432: The catalogue that had been suspended in 1978. As Swarbrick was unavailable, the selection of traditional tunes was more difficult than for past albums and there was a need for a replacement fiddle player and some vocals. Pegg and Nicol took over arranging duties on an instrumental medley and the band turned to sometime Albion Band members: jazz and folk violinist Ric Sanders and singer-songwriter Cathy Lesurf . They also had

7080-404: The core of Swarbrick and Pegg – Nicol being absent for the middle of the decade – and declining fortunes as folk music fell out of mainstream favour. Denny, whose partner Trevor Lucas had been a guitarist in the group since 1972, returned for the pop-oriented Rising for the Moon album in 1975 in a final bid to crack America; this effort failed, and after three more albums minus Denny and Lucas,

7200-635: The direction of the band in the wake of this success. Ashley Hutchings wanted to explore more traditional material and left to form two groups that would rival Fairport for significance in English folk rock: Steeleye Span and the Albion Band . Sandy Denny also left to found her own group Fotheringay . Dave Pegg took over on bass guitar and has been the group's one constant ever since, in an unbroken membership of over four decades. The band made no serious attempt to replace Denny, and, although she would briefly return,

7320-541: The distinction of being the only person ever to be invited to do guest vocals on a Led Zeppelin album. These influences would also appear on later albums, but reduced as the band returned to a hard rock sound from Presence (1976) onwards. As Led Zeppelin moved away from electric folk, another long term survivor of the British blues movement, Jethro Tull, began to move towards it. Ian Anderson had produced Steeleye Span's album Now We Are Six in 1974 and first demonstrated

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7440-461: The encounter between American inspired folk rock and the products of the English folk revival . The first English folk music revival had seen a huge effort to record and archive traditional English music by figures such as Cecil Sharp and Vaughan Williams in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The second revival in the period after the Second World War , built on this work and followed

7560-402: The energy and power of the new Fairport on stage, despite the fact that it was recorded in the studio with audience reactions dubbed on. In this period the band were playing to larger and larger audiences, both on tour and at Cropredy, and it was very productive in terms of recording. Fairport had the considerable composing and arranging skills of Allcock and, to fill the gap created by a lack of

7680-448: The first half of the 1970s, as Celtic rock held close to folk roots, with its repertoire drawing heavily on traditional Celtic fiddle and harp tunes and even traditional vocal styles, but making use of rock band levels of amplification and percussion it can be considered part of the electric folk movement. However, as it developed into new derivatives and hybrids, including Celtic punk , Celtic metal , and other sorts of Celtic fusion ,

7800-575: The first of several Fairporters to join Jethro Tull which gave him well-paying steady employment. Simon Nicol had teamed up with Dave Swarbrick in a highly regarded acoustic duo, but this partnership was made difficult by Swarbrick's sudden decision to move to Scotland, where, from 1984, he began to focus on his new project Whippersnapper . In 1985, Pegg, Nicol and Mattacks found that they all had some free time and an available studio belonging to Pegg. They decided that they needed some new material to add to

7920-399: The first time since reforming, the band had a recognized songwriter who contributed significantly to the band's output on the next album Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1997), particularly the rousing "John Gaudie". By the time of the 30th anniversary Festival at Cropredy in 1997, the new Fairport had been in existence for over a decade and contributed a significant chapter to the history of

8040-488: The folk revival experimented with electrification in the mid-1960s. These included the unrecorded efforts of Sweeney's Men from Ireland, the jazz folk group Pentangle , who moved from purely acoustic instrumentation to introducing electric guitar on their later albums, Eclection , who released one album in 1968, and the Strawbs who developed from a bluegrass band into a "progressive Byrds" band by 1967. However, none provided

8160-540: The form of erotic folk ballads , much suited to Anderson's song writing interests. Two more albums followed in a similar vein: Heavy Horses (1978) and Stormwatch (1979) to form a loose folk rock trilogy, before Anderson moved into more electronic territory at the beginning of the 1980s. Ironically it was at this point that Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention would be the first of several members of that band to join Jethro Tull. Progressive folk developed in Britain in

8280-606: The group disbanded in 1979. They played a farewell concert in the village of Cropredy , Oxfordshire, where they had held small concerts since 1976, and this marked the beginning of the Cropredy Festival (since 2005 known as Fairport's Cropredy Convention) which has become the largest folk festival in Britain, with annual attendances of 20,000. The band was reformed by Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks in 1985, joined by Maartin Allcock (guitar, mandolin, keys, vocals) and Ric Sanders (fiddle, keyboards), and they have remained active since. Allcock

8400-445: The group’s recordings, and contains, in addition to all the tracks on Fotheringay and Fotheringay 2 as both final studio versions and demos/alternate takes, the complete live concert set from Rotterdam in 1970 (including several previously unreleased tracks), seven Fotheringay tracks recorded in session for BBC radio (which had previously circulated only as bootlegs), plus a DVD disc containing 4 performances by Fotheringay recorded for

8520-490: The help of ex-member Richard Thompson. Thompson and Lesurf contributed songs and took part in the recordings. Also important to the album was Ralph McTell who contributed one song and co-wrote one track each with Nicol and Mattacks; the latter of these, "The Hiring Fair", would become a stage fixture of Fairport. The resulting album Gladys' Leap (1985) was generally well received in the music and national press, but caused some tension with Swarbrick who refused to play any of

8640-486: The initial electric folk pattern began to dissipate. In the mid-1980s a new rebirth of English folk began, this time fusing folk forms with energy and political aggression derived from punk rock. Leaders included The Men They Couldn't Hang , Oysterband , Billy Bragg and The Pogues . Folk dance music also became popular in the 1980s, with the English Country Blues Band and Tiger Moth. The decade later saw

8760-410: The inside of the gatefold cover on Hutchings' research, explaining English folk traditions, helped give the record the feel of a concept album . "Farewell, Farewell" and the final track "Crazy Man Michael", also saw the full emergence of the distinctive song writing talent of Thompson that was to characterize his contributions to the band and later solo career. The distinctive sound of the album came from

8880-407: The key events in the UK folk festival calendar. After holding a successful open-air concert at Kentwell Hall , Suffolk in 2005, Steeleye Span decided to hold their own annual festival, known as Spanfest. Other, more traditional, folk festivals (Shrewsbury, Towersey, Cambridge and Sidmouth, to name but four) now routinely host performances by exponents of the folk-rock genre. When English bands of

9000-498: The late 1960s and early 1970s defined themselves as 'electric folk' they were making a distinction with the already existing 'folk rock'. Folk rock was (to them) what they had already been producing: American or American style singer-songwriter material played on rock instruments, as undertaken by Bob Dylan and the Byrds from 1965. They drew the distinction because they were focusing on indigenous (in this case English) songs and tunes. This

9120-582: The leading force in the band. In 1970 the members and their families had moved into The Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire , and this inspired the next album Angel Delight (1971) the band's first to chart in the US, peaking at number 200 on the Billboard 200 and their only top ten album in the UK. The next project was an ambitious folk-rock opera developed by Swarbrick, based on the life of John "Babbacombe" Lee , "the man they couldn't hang" and released with

9240-582: The line-up responsible for what was intended to be the quintet's first album. This folk-based set included several Denny original compositions, notably "Nothing More", "The Sea" and "The Pond and The Stream", as well as versions of Gordon Lightfoot's " The Way I Feel " and Bob Dylan 's " Too Much of Nothing ". Though during the year of its original release the album featured in two of the UK 's music papers' Top 20s ( Melody Maker and NME ), it did not meet commercial expectations, and pressures on Denny to undertake

9360-504: The live recordings of the tour and concert, so the Peggs founded Woodworm Records , which would be the major outlet for the band in the future. Members continued to take part in occasional gigs, particularly in festivals in continental Europe, and after a year they staged a reunion concert in Cropredy which became the annual Cropredy Festival . Over the next few years, it grew rapidly and emerged as

9480-453: The longest period of membership stability in the band's history so far. The new band began a hectic schedule of performing in Britain and the world and prepared material for a new album. The result was the all-instrumental Expletive Delighted! (1986). This showcased the virtuosity of Sanders and Allcock, but perhaps inevitably was not popular with all fans. This was followed by the recording In Real Time: Live '87 which managed to capture

9600-409: The major mechanism for sustaining the band. In August 1981, the band held their annual reunion concert at Broughton Castle , rather than the usual Cropredy location. The concert was recorded, and released on the 1982 album Moat on the Ledge . The Peggs continued to record and release the Cropredy concerts as 'official bootlegs'. These were supplemented by New Year's gigs in minor locations including

9720-434: The mid-1960s partly as an attempt to elevate the artistic quality of the folk genre, but also as a response to diverse influences, often combining acoustic folk instruments with jazz , blues and world music . As a result, it was already established in Britain, albeit a difficult to define and varied subgenre, before the advent of electric folk at the end of the 1960s. It can be seen as including performers such as Donovan ,

9840-457: The middle classes. By the mid-1960s there were probably over 300 folk clubs in Britain, providing an important circuit for acts that performed traditional songs and tunes acoustically, where they could sustain a living by playing to a small but committed audience. This meant that there were, by the later 1960s, a group of performers with musical skill and knowledge of a wide variety of traditional songs and tunes. A number of groups who were part of

9960-479: The nadir of electric folk, when, in contrast to the mid-1970s only the Albion Band (with the associated Home Service) and the Oysterband remained as major exponents of the genre and this was perhaps their least productive period , although in part, at least, this was due to lack of major record company interest in the genre. Folk-rock has never been a major revenue earner for record companies, even in its 1970s heyday. As

10080-408: The new material at the 1985 Cropredy Festival. Nevertheless, the decision to reform the band, without Swarbrick, was taken by the other three remaining members. Ric Sanders was invited to join, along with guitarist, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock . Nicol, with his developing baritone voice, took over the main share of the vocal duties. This line-up was to last eleven years,

10200-408: The norm for rock music, these groups often turned to American folk and folk rock as the focus of their sound and inspiration. Among these groups from 1967 were Fairport Convention , who had enjoyed some modest mainstream success with three albums of material that was largely American in origin or style, before a radical change of direction in 1969 with their album Liege & Lief , which came out of

10320-490: The old fashioned folk musicians of the preceding generation. All popular music trends have a generational problem as their audiences grow and might not be replaced, but for folk rock the discontinuity was very acute. One result was a further hybridisation with the development of folk punk among younger acts in the later 1970s, some of which, like the Pogues and The Levellers , achieved some mainstream success. The early 1980s were

10440-546: The place of Sandy Denny . Footage of the festival, although not the Liege and Lief performance, was released as part of a celebratory DVD. The band's first official YouTube video appeared in April 2008. Edited from footage shot for the DVD, the nine-minute mini-documentary includes interviews with Lulu , Jools Holland , Seth Lakeman , Mike Harding , Geoff Hughes and Frank Skinner . In 2011

10560-403: The recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny , and Matthews later left during the recording of their third album. Denny began steering the group towards traditional British music for their next two albums, What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking (both 1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick , most notably on

10680-449: The relative success of the line-up, Lucas and Donahue left the band, as did Denny in 1976. She died aged 31, in 1978, of a cerebral haemorrhage after falling down a flight of stairs. Rowland, Pegg, and Swarbrick fulfilled their remaining contractual obligations to Island Records by turning what had originally been a Swarbrick solo effort into the album Gottle O'Geer (1976) under the name 'Fairport' (as opposed to Fairport Convention) in

10800-494: The same name was their most commercially successful, reaching no. 5 in the UK album chart in the same year. By comparison Fairport Convention released few singles and made very little impact on the British charts, although their albums sold well in the early 1970s. Liege & Lief reached no. 17 in 1969 and a later album, Angel Delight made the Top 10 in 1971. Most of their career, from that point until they initially disbanded in 1979,

10920-402: The same year. This style has been the band's focus ever since. For this album Swarbrick joined full-time, alongside drummer Dave Mattacks . Both Denny and Hutchings left before the year's end; the latter replaced by Dave Pegg , who has remained the group's sole consistent member to this day; Thompson left after the recording of 1970's Full House . The 1970s saw numerous lineup changes around

11040-451: The song " A Sailor's Life ", which laid the groundwork for British folk rock by being the first time a traditional British song was combined with a rock beat. Shortly before the album's release, a crash on the M1 motorway killed Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, Thompson's girlfriend; this resulted in the group retiring most of their prior material and turning entirely towards British folk music for their seminal album Liege & Lief , released

11160-457: The sound of the band would now be characterized by male vocals. Despite these changes the band produced another album, Full House (1970), which was remarkably successful as a project. Like its predecessor, it combined traditional songs, including a powerful rendition of " Sir Patrick Spens ", with original compositions. The latter benefited from the writing partnership of Thompson and Swarbrick, most obviously on "Walk Awhile", which would become

11280-479: The start of 1971 as Denny embarked on a solo career. Forty-five years later, a new version of the band re-formed featuring the three original surviving members together with other musicians, and toured in 2015 and 2016. Two former members of Eclection , guitarist Trevor Lucas and drummer Gerry Conway , and two former members of Poet and the One Man Band, Jerry Donahue (guitar) and Pat Donaldson (bass), completed

11400-491: The template for British folk rock. The rapid expansion of British folk rock that followed in the wake of Liege & Lief in the 1970s came mainly from three sources. First were existing folk performers who now 'electrified', including Mr. Fox , formed around the acoustic duo Bob and Carole Pegg, and Pentangle, who having previously recorded largely without electrification, produced a fourth album of entirely traditional material, Cruel Sister , in 1970, performed very much in

11520-639: The title Babbacombe Lee (1971). The concept format, originally without clear tracks, excited considerable press interest, and it received good air play in the United States where it reached number 195. A version was produced by the BBC for TV in 1975 with narration by Melvyn Bragg . These two albums were also notable as the first time that Fairport had recorded consecutively with the same line-up, but inevitably stability did not last; Simon Nicol left early in late 1971 to join Ashley Hutchings' Albion Country Band , and he

11640-463: The top twenty, but secured the band a slot on Top of the Pops , Britain's most popular television pop music programme at the time. In 1969 four members of the band, one uncredited and three under pseudonyms, featured as backing musicians on the album Love Chronicles by Scottish folk artist Al Stewart . On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers , Fairport's van crashed on

11760-433: The touring team developed Covid. In 2022, Gerry Conway made the decision to leave the band after 24 years, and it was announced that the band would continue as a four piece. Conway did not make public that he left because he was suffering from motor neurone disease from which he was to die in April 2024. On the bands Winter 2023 UK Tour, they were joined by a returning Mattacks on drums and percussion who also returned for

11880-491: The traditional music of an increasingly urbanised and industrialised working class. Most important among their responses were the foundation of folk clubs in major towns, starting with London where MacColl began the Ballads and Blues Club in 1953. These clubs were usually urban in location, but the songs sung in them often hearkened back to a rural pre-industrial past. In many ways this was the adoption of abandoned popular music by

12000-472: The unpromising Fiddler's Dram in 1978. Fiddler's Dram were often dismissed as "one hit wonders" for their single "Day Trip to Bangor", which peaked at no 3 in the UK and for their clear status as "Steeleye Span soundalikes". What was remarkable is that they proved to have a singer-songwriter of genuine talent in Cathy Lesurf , and after she had left for the Albion Band in 1980 the remaining members regrouped as

12120-462: The use of reggae with English folk music by the band Edward II & the Red Hot Polkas , especially on their seminal Let's Polkasteady from 1987. In a process strikingly similar to the origins of electric folk in the 1960s, the English thrash metal band Skyclad added violins from a session musician on several tracks for their 1990 début album The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth . When this

12240-400: The use of electric instruments and Mattacks' disciplined drumming with Swarbrick's fiddle accompaniment in a surprising and powerful combination of rock with the traditional. The entire band had reached new levels of musicality, with the fluid guitar playing of Thompson and the "ethereal" vocal of Denny particularly characteristic of the sound of the album. As the reviewer from AllMusic put it,

12360-530: The use of two lead vocalists led many new listeners to believe that they were an American act, earning them the nickname 'the British Jefferson Airplane ' during this period. Fairport Convention played at the first Isle of Wight Festival , in August 1968, when Jefferson Airplane headlined. After disappointing album sales they signed a new contract with Island Records . Before their next recording Judy Dyble left – she described it as being "unceremoniously dumped" – and

12480-593: Was a catalyst, prompting Bob Dylan to go electric . In the same year, the Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, most noticeably on the song " I'm a Loser " from their Beatles for Sale album. The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced the Californian band the Byrds , who began playing folk-influenced material and Bob Dylan compositions with rock instrumentation. The Byrds' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man "

12600-511: Was a short-lived British folk rock group, formed in 1970 by singer-songwriter and musician Sandy Denny on her departure from Fairport Convention . The band drew its name from her 1968 composition " Fotheringay " about Fotheringhay Castle , in which Mary, Queen of Scots had been imprisoned. The song originally appeared on the 1969 Fairport Convention album, What We Did on Our Holidays , Denny's first album with that group. The original Fotheringay released one self-titled album but disbanded at

12720-442: Was an exchange of specific features drawn from traditional music and rock music. These have been defined as including: Traditional music : Rock music : Not all of these features are found in every song. For example, electric folk groups, while predominantly using traditional material as their source for lyrics and tunes, occasionally write their own (much as traditional musicians do). Fotheringay Fotheringay

12840-499: Was featured on the album Rising for the Moon (1975), which became the band's highest US chart album when it reached number 143 on the Billboard 200 and the first album to reach the top hundred in the UK since Angel Delight , reaching No. 52. During the Rising sessions, Mattacks fell out with producer Glyn Johns and was replaced by former Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland . Poor UK sales for Rising did not aid morale and, despite

12960-625: Was first evident in the recording of " Gallows Pole " a traditional ballad on Led Zeppelin III (1970), which stands out among their usual output of blues orientated rock. At this time they also wrote the ballad " Poor Tom " which would surface on Coda (1982). It is more subtly manifested in their most famous album Led Zeppelin IV (1971), which contained elements of both American folk rock and English electric folk on ' Stairway to Heaven ' and most obviously on ' The Battle of Evermore ', on which Sandy Denny had

13080-643: Was named the "Most Influential Folk Album of All Time" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006, and Pegg's playing style, which incorporates jigs and reels into his basslines, has been imitated by many in the folk rock and folk punk genres. Additionally, many former members went on to form or join other notable groups in the genre, including Fotheringay , Steeleye Span , and the Albion Band ; along with solo careers, most notably Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny, now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters, died in 1978; her song " Who Knows Where

13200-429: Was one of declining profile and sales. The same was generally true of other electric folk outfits. The late 1970s and early 1980s were a time to either abandon the genre or fight a losing struggle for survival. The reason is often said to be the rise of punk rock , which reached a peak in 1977. It changed the ethos of popular music, overturning certainties about musicianship and songwriting and had no greater target than

13320-491: Was one of these and Steeleye Span was another, the latter formed as a traditionally focussed, but essentially electric outfit, by Ashley Hutchings after his departure from Fairport in late 1969. He left Steeleye Span after three albums and eventually formed the Albion Country Band , later the Albion Band, which broke up in 2002. The Albion Band in turn spawned one of the most musically talented British folk rock groups of

13440-400: Was partly because they abandoned the mainstream record business, instead focusing on growing their own audience and producing records independently on their own labels ( Woodworm and Matty Grooves ), ironically a development which the punk and post-punk era had helped to accelerate. The Albion Band survived initially by becoming involved in theatre productions and, from 1993, by downsizing to

13560-486: Was released in April 1965 and reached #1 on the U.S. and UK singles charts, setting off the mid-1960s folk rock movement. The Beatles' late 1965 album, Rubber Soul , contained a number of songs influenced by the American folk rock boom, such as " Nowhere Man " and " If I Needed Someone ". During this period, a number of electric bands began to play rock versions of folk songs and folk musicians used electric musical instruments to play their own songs, including Dylan at

13680-446: Was released on their album Unhalfbricking . This encounter sparked the interest of Ashley Hutchings who began research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society 's library; the result was the band's seminal Liege & Lief (1969) which combined traditional songs and tunes with some written by members of the band in a similar style, all played on a combination of electric instruments including Swarbrick's amplified fiddle, setting

13800-574: Was replaced by Chris Leslie (mandolin, violin, vocals) in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998. Their 29th studio album, Shuffle and Go was released in 2020, and they continue to headline Cropredy each year. Despite little mainstream success – their only top 40 single being " Si Tu Dois Partir ", a French-language cover of the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" from Unhalfbricking – Fairport Convention remain highly influential in British folk rock and British folk in general. Liege & Lief

13920-427: Was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny , a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs . Denny's distinctive voice, described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity", is one of the characteristics of two albums released in 1969: What We Did on Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking . These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among

14040-427: Was soon followed by Mattacks. Only Pegg and Swarbrick remained, and the following few years have been dubbed 'Fairport confusion' as a bewildering sequence of band members came and went, but by 1973 Mattacks had returned and two former members of Sandy Denny's Fotheringay had joined the band, Denny's Australian husband Trevor Lucas on vocals and guitar, and American Jerry Donahue on lead guitar. From these line-ups

14160-445: Was their fortieth anniversary year and they celebrated by releasing a new album, Sense of Occasion . They performed the whole of the Liege & Lief album live at Cropredy, since 2004 renamed Fairport's Cropredy Convention, featuring the 1969 line-up of Dave Swarbrick , Ashley Hutchings , Dave Mattacks , Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson , with singer-songwriter Chris While taking

14280-426: Was voted 'Most Influential Folk Album of All Time' by Radio 2 listeners. At the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Fairport Convention received an award recognising the late Sandy Denny and the band for "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" for " Who Knows Where the Time Goes? ". British folk rock British folk rock was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany , Ireland, Scotland, Wales and

14400-541: Was well received they adopted a full-time fiddle player and moved towards a signature folk and jig style leading them to be credited as the pioneers of folk metal. This directly inspired the Dublin-based band Cruachan to use traditional Irish music in creating the Celtic metal subgenre. Attempts have been made elsewhere to replicate this process with examples ranging from the Middle Eastern folk music of Orphaned Land ,

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