Let us now praise Fairport Convention's "Liege & Lief"

"A Sailor's Life"! Tom Verlaine plays with the Velvets! While an english Nico sings!

Autopsy!!! For those two alone it's essential.

also I cannot wait to hear that 2nd Fotheringay record.

Yeah, well I do recall one or two stand-out tracks, to be sure. Don't remember what they were, though. Oh well.

whoa i brought this record to work and listened to it hours before i saw this thread! weird. i think i prefer unhalfbricking these days, but i mean, its a pretty sweet choice to have to make.

^yeah totally looking forward to getting the fotheringay thing when my emusic downloads reset

i didn't know this was on emusic. i'll grab it tonight, thx.

from upthread:

The Hutching Mattacks rhythm section are actually kinda funky.

i'm not sure they're actually funky, but they definitely have some groove. i think that sort of loping feel they give the music is key to connecting the trad stuff with the rock stuff. it provides a setting for the melodies that updates them without feeling contrived or boxing them in.

Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Lady : A Tribute to Sandy Denny

Monday 1 December 2008, 7.30pm

In the 30 years since her death, Sandy Denny has emerged as one of the UK's greatest singer-songwriters. A very special line up of artists including former colleagues and young admirers re-interpret her songs in this very special tribute showcasing her work with Fairport Convention, Fotheringay and her solo career.

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/music/productions/the-lady-a-tribute-to-sandy-43399

If Joe Boyd is behind this (no idea if he is), this could be very good indeed.

I think if I were that guy I'd sneak a look at your shoes and your hairstyle before taking a musical tip, no matter how vehement.
― Momus, Friday, May 10, 2002 12:00 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark

Thank god this twit isn't around anymore.

"When I first got Unhalfbricking (after hearing this one) I really thought I was gonna like it, but soon concluded it was pretty inessential."

WTF?!?! That is crazy crazy stuff.

xpost isn't that just a floral way of saying "cheeck the guy's visible taste, if it's OK, maybe the tip is as well" ?

shit, a lot of people dress well, but i don't think that makes their taste in music any more or less valid.

I find the first Fotheringay record slightly too polished sounding. How is the production on the "new" one?

I have to say Ian is OTM here.

sure, I don't even mean "well", just 'similar to you'...

It doesn't mean it's more (or less) valid

No love for "What We Did On Our Holidays"? That's the one I play most!

Richard's web Q&A from this month has an awesome tidbit:
The Wikipedia entry for Judy Dyble contains the following gem:

Q: Famously, she sat on the front of the stage at the Speakeasy club knitting, while Hendrix and Richard Thompson jammed. Is this true? Did you really jam with Hendrix? If so, what was she knitting, a drum kit or a bass guitar?

A: Jimi jumped up on several occasions at the Speakeasy. I think he just liked to play. We didn’t feel especially privileged, because he’d get up with everybody. Jude’s knitting, of course, was a creative reflection of the music, and would change shape and stitch with the musical mood.

although Dyble is certainly overshadowed by Sandy in terms of Fairport female vocalists, her coolness factor just went way up.

I only know "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" and I love that. How does this compare?

"Liege and Lief", you mean? More traditional folky.

yeah, but still electrically electrifying! one tune on this record that gets overlooked sometimes i "Reynardine" -- seriously, how do they do it? The music just hangs there, floating in space. I play in bands, and I cannot figure out how to pull this off.

this album rulz

Okay, it probably deserves its own thread, but this Fotheringay 2 thing is really something to be reckoned with.

Their debut is often overlooked, but is actually a great UK psych pop album. A little less "folk" influenced than their later stuff but it has some elements already in there (after all, Joe Boyd was around already), only more English psych in addition.

MATTY GROVES

he's little

i still don't have this fucking album, every time i go to buy it my wife tells me not to because she already has it. WELL WHERE IS IT, THEN?

(we are the lockhorns irl)

Oooh this album.

"Farewell, Farewell" = tears

"tam lin" sounds proto-black-sabbath to me. so heavy.

The final triumphant turnaround in "The Deserter" is so amazing to me. The "set him free!" part just kicks ass.

thompson took the tune from the child ballad "willy o'winsbury" and set his lyrics for "farewell, farewell" to it. he heard it from sweeney's men, the irish proto-folk rock group that ashley hutchings wanted to draft into fairport at the time of liege & lief. it didn't happen, supposedly that is one of the reasons hutchings left the band. he did succeed in getting terry woods from that group into the first steeleye span lineup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTZZgovSEYQ

The Pentangle version of "Willy O'Winsbury" is fantastic too.

ha, just noticed they talked about willy o'winsbury upthread.

but I guess with Sandy Denny, just start with the North Star Grassman and the Ravens and work your way forward...

love the proto-Television guitar workouts you get on tracks on that lp.
The 2005 remaster helped hearing that greatly. Did the Sandy Denny box set get a further remaster?

"tam lin" sounds proto-black-sabbath to me. so heavy.

think this really hit me a few weeks back when it appeared on my walkman. Not sure why on this occasion particularly, it must have appeared dozens of times without me thinking that, but I was just thinking 'what a riff'. Like has anybody actually reworked the riff fior anything?

Also wondering if anybody's taken direct influence from Steeleye Span's first 3 lps & used it for other purposes than trad folk. Those 3, the Hutchings era Lark In The Morning set sound like they'd make a great psych or goth influence if you backburnered the source material.
So original music, directly influenced by 1st 3 lp Steeleye Span any examples?

I know that Robyn Hitchcock has always been a big Martin Carthy booster, and I think you can hear the Steeleye influence in some of his more celtic-y sounding stuff ... not super overt, but it's there.

Sure they weren't influenced by them... but I got into Steeleye Span in the first case because they reminded me of Popol Vuh

... and the Velvets!

I know this will draw ire from many, but I think this is the album where Fairport started becoming much less interesting, and it's largely because it's here that they abandoned original songwriting (both their own and others, which included both the obvious contemporary folkmasters (Bob Dylan) and less-obvious (a not-yet-famous Joni Mitchell, Gene Clark, Mimi and Richard Farina, etc.) in favor of traditional British folk. And while I do love traditional British folk music, when a band has great songwriters like Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny in it, it's a shame not to take advantage of their talents (Denny's astonishing voice makes it easy to overlook how great a songwriter she was). For me, any of the first three albums or the equally impressive Heydey collection > anything Fairport has done since (at least the 8 or so albums I've heard). Plus they never again had a lineup as strong as the Holidays/Unhalfbricking one.

fair enough, there are times where i like the pre-liege & lief stuff better, too -- though the post-Denny lineup has some amazing moments. The Full House/House Full stuff is particularly great.

didn't know richie unterberger posted on ilm

Yes, I've read RU's reviews, comments, and book, but I've thought the same thing for the last 25 years, long before I'd ever heard of him.

(That said, few rock critic's taste are so closely aligned with mine. But I do disagree on about 10% of his opinions.)

weirdly, steeleye span came up at breakfast this morning at my house. wife said something about "that renn faire stuff you and your older brother like"... ;_;

What Lee626 said is what I think, too.

after the accident that killed martin lamble they decided they would only go on if they could more or less be a different band, hence the full leap into traditional or traditionally-inspired material. so as much as i love holiday and unhalfbricking they just felt that they were through with that stuff for very personal reasons and i'm glad they came up with another model for making great music. also, no way denny or thompson were going to stay long-term in any band where they weren't running the show.

Steeleye's "Hark! The Village Wait" has become something of a white whale to me...which is odd because you'd think it'd be just the kind of album that you would find evenly dispensed the used bins. I've seen about a million copies of "Please To See The King" (all with different covers too), but "Hark!" has proven elusive. Also lots and lots of what look like dodgy later efforts. So what's the third one that I should also be on the look for?

Ten Man Mop is the other one to look for, it's got one of the key Steeleye tracks on it - 'When I Was on Horseback'

Below The Salt has its moments too, but the first three albums are definitely the ones you need.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q4BrtuM5mU

Don't know if Tom was talking about that particular song when he mentioned VU btw, but there is a comparison to be made right there.

the first three albums are definitely the ones you need

otm

Don't know if Tom was talking about that particular song when he mentioned VU btw, but there is a comparison to be made right there.

That's exactly the song! That's the song that got me into them!

would love to hear lou sing the "wasn't i gay" part