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

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Liege and Lief is amazing - esp., "Matty Groves".

― o. nate, Monday, 23 April 2007 14:57 (seventeen years ago) link

i liked this a lot when i first bought it, but listening to it again recently the only stuff i can really get into is "come all ye" and "farewell farewell" - unhalfbricking is about sixty times better

― pretzel walrus, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:11 (seventeen years ago) link

"Unhalfbricking" is pretty great, but I prefer "Liege".

― o. nate, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah i guess the trad songs just don't do a whole lot for me - thompson's guitar is a lot cooler on unhalfbricking and i think the folk fusion stuff on liege is way too respectful (read: boring/academic) for my taste

― pretzel walrus, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link

all these Brit bands were trying to emulate US influences, and he said that then this album came out by the Band called Big Pink or whatever it was (I wrote it down) and it was just so American sounding, he said, and so good, that the Brit bands backed down and went to back to the musical roots of their own land.

Which is funny, since most of The Band were from Canada. But so is the archetypal American rocker Neil Young.

-- Hurting 2, Sunday, 22 April 2007 21:36 (Yesterday)

To borrow Greil Marcus's argument in Mystery Train, it the fact that they saw America with a certain degree of distance, that allowed them to synthesis its musical styles so successfully. And Levon Helm gave them their direct connection to southern roots.

Of course there's an element of romanticism to this idea - The Band grew up on American music and toured there with Ronnie Hawkins.

But certainly in connecting with roots music on Big Pink, the Band inspired roots rockers around the world.

Back to Liege and Lief. Incredible album. I always play Matty Groves when I DJ. The Hutching Mattacks rhythm section are actually kinda [i]funky[/]. Also see Shirley Collins & The Albion Band.

― Stew, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't know how anyone can resist Matty Grove and Tam Lin. In general, I have a hard time with the rocked-up-versions-of-Childe-ballads concept, but the stuff on Liege and Leaf is so well done, and so exhuberant and fun, that it gets a giant pass.

I was listening to this last week as it happens.

I guess I have to trust Boyd for the notion that this was a response to The Band, but I see Fairport (and its semi-twin, Pentangle) as engaged in a fundamentally different project from The Band. The Band was making up a kind of timeless archetypal American music -- I always associate them somewhat with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his invention of Macondo. FC was taking actual songs from a distant era (and writing other songs that sounded just like them) and doing contemporary arrangements that preserved some of the old elements.

― Vornado, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:36 (seventeen years ago) link

That's a very good point Vornado. I suppose you could argue that the Band, with Dylan, arranged and rewrote old folk songs on the Basement Tapes (see Marcus's Invisible Republic for an exploration of source material), but their approach was much less deliberate than Fairport's.

― Stew, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I guess I see what Fairport was doing on "Liege" as having probably more in common with what the Byrds were doing with acoustic Dylan and the Book of Ecclesiastes in the early 60s than with what the Band & Dylan were doing with Americana in the mid to late 60s - ie., more of a deliberate "modernization" - pushing the envelope musically in terms of arrangements while simultaneously looking back in time for inspiration lyrically and melodically.

― o. nate, Monday, 23 April 2007 16:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Jon Savage said "they could brood like no other band" at this period.
They do that great on here. I hear the link between folkrock and Beefheart in the long coda to Matty Groves. They cook up a wicked brew in Tam Lin. I agree there are moments of reserve, of greeness, but that's much better than the professional pubfolkers they soon became
(i like Full House though.)

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 23 April 2007 16:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, obviously The Basement Tapes was a lot closer to Fairport Convention than Music From Big Pink. But Dylan didn't choose to release that stuff until much later, and The Band never did anything like it as an official group product. And even then, the stuff on The Basement Tapes was basically one generation old, although it felt like a looooong generation at the time, and Dylan had gotten his start in the world among people who believed they would spend their whole careers reinterpreting that music. (Now that I think of it, Joan Baez was doing Childe Ballads and faux- early in her career, too.)

Tam Lin is about fairies and knights. I don't know exactly when it came into the world (and I doubt it's as old as it pretends to be), but it was at least a couple hundred years old when Fairport Convention recorded it.

Anyway, I see FC as a logical progression from The Weavers or The Kingston Trio (both of whom I love plenty) -- faithful reinterpretation and homage, with contemporary arrangements and instrumentation. The Band (and Dylan, in John Wesley Harding and elsewhere) were on another plane altogether: making up something that had never exactly existed, because it should have.

― Vornado, Monday, 23 April 2007 16:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, obviously The Basement Tapes was a lot closer to Fairport Convention than Music From Big Pink. But Dylan didn't choose to release that stuff until much later, and The Band never did anything like it as an official group product.

Actually the Basement Tapes were being passed around from band to band years before the official release. That's how Fairport was able to do a cover of "Million Dollar Bash" on Unhalfbricking. It's also the reason why songs from the Basement Tapes appear on dozens and dozens of records between '68 and '71.

Also, in terms of Big Pink influencing Liege-era Fairport, I think Fairport heard a record that sounded like it really caputured a lost America, one that was rooted in American soil, so to speak. Whether that was really the case wasn't too terribly important. A lot of people at the time, thought Big Pink could have been made in pre-depression America. Of course, it doesn't really sound that way now, but back then, it was something many reviews pointed out. And so, the record inspired Fairport to create a sound that was equally rooted -- but rooted in British soil. The result is something different than Big Pink, but I definitely see how Big Pink could've played this role. Also, like Big Pink, there is something very mythological about Liege, which other folk groups never captured. It's more than just reworking old folk tunes, it's about creating a vibe or fable through sight and sound. One that can feel old and new all at the same time.

In his new book, Boyd also points out how, Fairport wanted to stop sounding American after hearing Big Pink because they knew they were never going to sound as American as the Band. Plus, he says Mattacks was obsessed with Levon's drum sound on Big Pink. This is something I totally hear: Liege has a very woody, almost muffled sound, something that made Big Pink really stand out in the age of psychedelia.

― QuantumNoise, Monday, 23 April 2007 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I prefer unhalfbricking.

Talking of which, does any London ilm-er know whereabouts in Wimbledon the striking cover was photographed (Sandy Denny's parents house)? I'd love to see the location 40 years on.

― Bob Six, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:18 (sixteen years ago) link

I think that Fairport's tackling of olde English stuff might also have actually been a reaction against the over-Americanization of rock, too -- like at the time, so many British dudes wanted to play the blooze and sound like Muddy Waters. Liege & Lief struck me as their attempt to put traditional English music back at the forefront. Though Thompson could certainly play the blues (see the Guitar/Vocal version of Mr. Lacey for proof) Maybe that's all obvious though. Hell of an album, anyway. Love it from start to finish.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:30 (sixteen years ago) link

I bought Unhalfbricking, yes I did.

And it's making me turn into a gypsy dwarf.

― Bimble, Saturday, 28 April 2007 02:21 (sixteen years ago) link

I think Unhalfbricking might be my favorite, sometimes. By coincidence, yesterday I bought Richard & Linda Thompson's Pour Down Like Silver which is just killer.

― ian, Saturday, 28 April 2007 03:32 (sixteen years ago) link

the whole sufi spiritual vibe on Pour Down Like Silver is so beautiful.
there's a track on the live album, HOUSE FULL, where they play an old reel or whatever at such an insane speed that Mattacks' hands must have been a bloody stump at the end of it. i usually don't really go for the "hey, look how fast we can play" approach, but the level of musicianship from that lineup is astounding

― gershy, Saturday, 28 April 2007 04:59 (sixteen years ago) link

I almost got the freakin' BBC SESSIONS! WHY DIDN'T I DO IT???

― Bimble, Saturday, 28 April 2007 05:03 (sixteen years ago) link

Wow, these really kill me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTHgr19CaRk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXGRgA-9Zw

― Bimble, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:40 (sixteen years ago) link

Hey, you missed this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rd_gMrmf6g&mode=related&search=

― Keith, Saturday, 28 April 2007 20:38 (sixteen years ago) link

Actually I didn't miss that one at all...I just found it after the other two and started crying (I'm Mumble67 on You Tube) then I decided I better get out of the house for awhile. :)

I started thinking about Kate Bush more, too...you know there is a Kate Bush song where she mentions Denny in the lyrics? It's really hard for me to say Denny is better than Kate but then Kate doesn't have this tendency to make me cry the minute I hear her voice.

― Bimble, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:03 (sixteen years ago) link

Also I love that comment someone made on that YouTube Denny link - "Annie Lennox can go wash dishes" HAHAHAHA!

― Bimble, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:07 (sixteen years ago) link

eight months pass...

Talking of which, does any London ilm-er know whereabouts in Wimbledon the striking cover was photographed (Sandy Denny's parents house)? I'd love to see the location 40 years on.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/unhalfbricking.jpg

Arthur Road, Wimbledon - apparently. But I couldn't find any recent photos - fans are so lazy these days.

― Bob Six, Sunday, 13 January 2008 12:06 (sixteen years ago) link

nine months pass...

Let us praise it, indeed. I just soak up this kind of old-style British stuff like a sponge.

― It's hrd bein a man, livn' in a garbage pai (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 06:55 (fifteen years ago) link

Come on, who is awake who knows this album? Speak now.

― It's hrd bein a man, livn' in a garbage pai (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 07:07 (fifteen years ago) link

get the "new " fotheringay joint that just came out
great sandy stuff on it!

― velko, Monday, 27 October 2008 07:14 (fifteen years ago) link

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

― thereminimum chips (electricsound), Monday, 27 October 2008 07:23 (fifteen years ago) link

Playing the rec right now thanks to your revival, Bimble!

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Monday, 27 October 2008 07:34 (fifteen years ago) link

Can't spell "Mattacks" without "attacks"!

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Monday, 27 October 2008 07:36 (fifteen years ago) link

What is "the rec" Myonga? The record?

― It's hrd bein a man, livn' in a garbage pai (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 07:37 (fifteen years ago) link

And what is this bloody fotheringay stuff. Might as well give a drunk Bimble a link and not make him figure it out on his own, aye?

― It's hrd bein a man, livn' in a garbage pai (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 07:39 (fifteen years ago) link

Why can't I die in England? If only to die on English soil! I don't know why...I just can't explain the subsconscious feelings I get when I hear stuff like this. I really can't explain it at all. I know it makes me look daft, but I can't figure out how to explain it. Deep in my ancestry, some kind of really deep memory thing. I can't put it into words at all.

― Living In A Garbage Pail (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 07:47 (fifteen years ago) link

info on the lost second fotheringay lp, now available..

http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7139&Itemid=1

― thereminimum chips (electricsound), Monday, 27 October 2008 08:13 (fifteen years ago) link

Thanks, Jim.

― Living In A Garbage Pail (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 08:26 (fifteen years ago) link

I thought the "Unhalfbricking" pic was photographed somewhere near the entrance to Hyde Park, but if it is from Wimbledon I guess it just looks typically English then.

― Geir Hongro, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:19 (fifteen years ago) link

I raved about Unhalf a while ago, got it in Fopp Cambridge for £3.

Went for this to follow on, and um, ... sigh... it's .. not... there for me.

Maybe I have to go backwards, i.e. "What we did hols" more.

― Mark G, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:25 (fifteen years ago) link

it was sandy denny's parents house, with her parents posing in front. apparently her mother was a bit of a monster and was responsible for a lot of sandy's chronic self-esteem issues

― velko, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:26 (fifteen years ago) link

In the back of the latest John Peel "sessions" book, the log entry for the Fairports has a demo tape of one Alexsandra Denny with a note from her mother saying that they should audition her as "she is very good".

Just sayin' like.

― Mark G, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:30 (fifteen years ago) link

.. from around 1965 or so, I should have added.

― Mark G, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:30 (fifteen years ago) link

yeah, i'm sure there's 2 sides to the story, i read some article about a bio of sandy that came out a few years ago. the portrait of the mom was pretty unflattering. but sandy's husband trevor lucas is also seen as a bad influenece on her. ultimately as an adult she was responsible for getting her shit straight but never could. i do think a lack of confidence was crippling for her, and that usually starts in childhood, but don't mean to slander her mom as i'm sure it's a very complicated story

― velko, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:35 (fifteen years ago) link

I always loved that photo though, the genteel Daily Mail (1960's) old couple, and those frightful hippie friends of their daughter camped out on their lawn..

It does suggest the 'cold' relationship, in the same way as those pics of the incredible string band always suggested how the relationship between the 'couples' actually were irl.

― Mark G, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:41 (fifteen years ago) link

Rec = record, yes

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Monday, 27 October 2008 09:53 (fifteen years ago) link

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

― Living In A Garbage Pail (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 19:06 (fifteen years ago) link

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

― Mark G, Monday, 27 October 2008 19:08 (fifteen years ago) link

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

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

― sleeve, Monday, 27 October 2008 19:12 (fifteen years ago) link

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

― The Ungrateful Dead (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Monday, 27 October 2008 19:16 (fifteen years ago) link

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.

― 69, Monday, 27 October 2008 19:25 (fifteen years ago) link

^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.

― tipsy mothra, Monday, 27 October 2008 19:46 (fifteen years ago) link

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.

― Bob Six, Monday, 27 October 2008 20:00 (fifteen years ago) link

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.

― ian, Monday, 27 October 2008 22:34 (fifteen years ago) link

"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.

― Alex in SF, Monday, 27 October 2008 22:37 (fifteen years ago) link

Skipping 102 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Compton Pauncefoot still the top of the charts though.

― Tim, Friday, 29 October 2021 16:31 (two years ago) link

(Ah no it turns out that’s in Somerset. So is Queen Camel.)

― Tim, Friday, 29 October 2021 16:34 (two years ago) link

Hehehe. When I write my noir novel, my nom de plume will be Farley Chamberlayne. Or Compton Pauncefoot. Or Purbeck Incline.

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Friday, 29 October 2021 18:13 (two years ago) link

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