If Fairport Convention the bunch of agreeably scruffy Londoners who cut " Liege and Lief," were influenced by the Byrds then Terry Woods, (just twenty, from Dublin) was deeply fascinated by ethnic Americana, Doc Watson, Clarence Ashley. In fact his stated ambition was to sound as if he'd been raised in a North Carolina mountain cabin. By 1967 this young firebrand instrumentalist joined the folk group of the moment Sweeney's Men. Originally they'd formed in Galway but times of change had reached the Emerald Isle and now even folk bands released singles, Sweeney's scoring a number one with their rendition of " Old Maid In The Garret." When they came to cut a debut album for Transatlantic they were three, Terry, Johnny Moynihan (vocals and whistles,) and Andy Irvine (guitar.) The album has a thin production that suits the folk material, in particular " Willy O' Winsbury," a cut from which Richard Thompson nicked the tune for his own " Farewell, Farewell." Once it was released Andy Irvine got a case of the wanders and quit, leaving Woods and Moynihan casting round for a new colleague. The next Sweeney was Henry McCullough who'd been a chum of Jimmy Hendrix and played guitar in one of the first Irish pop bands Eire Apparent. His ideals about hippie rock and blues seemed at odds with the folk outlook of Woods and Moynihan, however he proved very sympathetic and sat on stage finger picking his electric guitar in approved manner. In 1968 Sweeney's Men were asked to play the prestigious Cambridge Folk Festival and caused more than a few raised eyebrows as they played electric sounding folk tunes and their own increasingly confident compositions with acid inspired names like " Brain Jam," and " Hall of Mirrors." Significantly in the audience was one Ashley Hutchings, at the time leading a pop folk band, Fairport Convention. That set at Cambridge and the resulting album recorded after McCullough had left to join Joe Cocker's band had a lasting impression on Hutchings, always one to spot the potential in a situation. "Tracks Of Sweeney" released by the duo of Woods and Moynihan in 1969 was as different from its folksy predecessor as could be. It positively reeks of change and is split between traditional and self-penned material. Woods in particular revelled in the newness of it all and began churning out songs that owed as much to Bob Dylan or the blues as any long held tradition. Had McCullough been on it the record would have been dynamite and a different starting point for British derived rock music. As it was the British folk scene was a cauldron bubbling and sooner or later somebody would have put rock rhythms to folk material, Pentangle had stuck jazz with folk song and the Incredible String Band played an exotic world music stew on which rock was just one influence. Singer songwriters like John Martyn, Roy Harper and Al Stewart were months away from electric albums. Rock papers like Melody Maker all signalled folk as an interesting new avenue. Fairport had handily acquired an experienced folk vocalist when Sandy Denny joined replacing Judy Dyble. She'd brought with her a stock of traditional songs and Convention had duly recorded a couple of them on their second album " What We Did On Our Holidays." Truly though they weren't proper British folk tunes, one was American, another a poem set to an ethnic melody. It took the ballad " A Sailor's Life," an 18th century broadside, to awaken the potential of folk rock within them. Having worked up the song from a backstage jam at a university gig, they decided to go the whole hog and get a folk fiddler to play along on the track when it came to recording their third record " Unhalfbricking." The chosen violinist was Dave Swarbrick, who, full of roots experience and vim propels the brooding climax to the tale of lost love into another place altogether, duelling with Richard Thompson's lead electric guitar built over a churning sea of drums and bass. " When we'd finished we knew what we had done, we went into the box to hear it and we knew we had something different," Hutchings recalls. With a definite idea Fairport began to plot a whole album of this material, but before anything could be firmed up disaster struck when returning from a gig in Birmingham their band van careered off the motorway killing drummer Martin Lamble, and Richard Thompson's girlfriend. Understandably the survivors were in shock and deep depression. Lucky to be alive the remaining Fairporters needed time out and a chance to recuperate. Their manager Joe Boyd hired a rambling old mansion outside Winchester named Farley Chamberlayne and duly moved them in. They'd two new members, Swarbrick who'd been taken on full time and drummer Dave Mattacks who'd spent time in swing bands. With Swarb on board they returned to the idea of expanding on the direction begun with " A Sailor's Life." Influenced by what Sweeney's Men had done, by what the Band had written on Music From Big Pink, Fairport assembled a clutch of folk material and with a dream team of personnel shaped a landmark album. " Liege And Lief," still has all its power and vitality intact, it was voted top folk album by the listeners to the BBC's roots radio show this summer some thirty-two years after release. During their time at Farley Chamberlayne besides putting traditional song into a rock format Fairport also found that Swarbrick and Thompson could write numbers that sounded exactly as if they were ages old folk material. So it was within a couple of months of being buried in the country they were ready to record. Not only had they invented a whole new way of approaching folk music but Dave Mattacks had also had to figure out new rhythms to go with ethnic melodies, in more ways than one it was destined to be a blueprint. Recorded over the late summer of 1969 at Olympic studio in London and mixed up at Morgan, the sessions were guided by Joe Boyd and long time engineer John Wood. Note the word, guided, Fairport were so sure of what they were doing that they really didn't need producing and legend has it that Joe Boyd spent as much time reading the New York Herald as actually marshalling the music. Simon Nicol (rhythm guitar) recalls " John Wood was very good, he made things so easy, it was all very egalitarian and pleasant."
The album opens with a typical call to muster " Come All Ye," a chorus-laden statement of intentions as the roll call of musicians powers on by. Following swiftly the first actual folk song is " Reynardine," a tale of sinister love and obsession, the anti-hero disappearing into the night and over the mountains with his lady. It's a lightly buoyed track but stacked with dark intention and gloom. Track three became a folk rock standard over night and one of Fairport's calling cards. " Matty Groves," is all about reckless love, ending in blood and retribution, a classic Swarbrick/Thompson fiddle and guitar sparring match bringing the whole thing to a suitably thunderous conclusion. " Farewell, Farewell," (mentioned before) has the tune from " Willy O'Winsbury," and a haunting lyric, a road song for vagrants and beggars ' the cold north wind will blow again and the winding road does call…' Next up " The Deserter," got to grips with Army practices of the 1800s - not particularly appealing, especially when you're about to be shot and only saved by the timely arrival of Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert. A medley of jigs and reels then rumbled along, mixing Celtic tunes and giving the instrumentalists chance to show off. From that moment on virtually all 70s folk rock bands had to have a fiddle led jig selection, one idea that over time wore thin, though here in its primitive form is mesmerising. " Tam Lin," is based on a big Scots ballad and is stacked full of arcane, magical imagery, here the fairies are vicious and certainly don't flutter on gossamer wings, rather they ride horses and do in those they don't like in the most grotesque fashion. Sandy Denny's silken vocal a stark contrast to the X certificate subject matter. Closing with the first fruits of the later glorious Thompson/Swarbrick writing team, " Crazy Man Michael," is about a lunatic lost in a world all his own where he speaks to the birds and swears vengeance on the wind, his imaginary love killed by his own hand. A song of soft tones and full of powerful, elemental images, it made a suitably mystical ending to a magical record.
The material from " Liege And Lief," was given its live premiere at Van Dikes club in Plymouth, some three months before the album launch. A triumph as it turned out with progressive folkies hailing a new direction and rockers equally enchanted by a new hybrid. There followed a Royal Festival Hall gig in the capital with no less than Joni Mitchell as support at which renowned traditional doyen Bert Lloyd exclaimed that this new music was the most exciting thing he'd heard in years. Underneath all the glory and bonhomie things were going wrong in Fairport's corner. While the rest of the band were quite happy to follow this new direction, Sandy Denny preferred the freewheeling mix that Fairport had played previously and she believed folk rock should be a one off experiment not a policy shift. Besides she'd begun playing folk material and didn't see its adoption as a way forward. By December 1969 she'd quit and begun to lay plans for her own group Fotheringay. Conversely Ashley Hutchings saw electrified folk song as the direction he wanted to pursue wholeheartedly, yet despite the membership of Swarbrick and new found writing talents of Thompson it was clear to Ashley that the others didn't quite share his depth of zeal, so he too left. That meant Fairport had realised a new musical form, recorded an acknowledged benchmark album and now lacked the personnel to go out and play it live. What a year 1969 had been! Of course in 1970 they recruited Dave Pegg
as bassist and carried on where they left off. Meanwhile Ashley
Hutchings sought out the remnants of Sweeney's Men. SIMON JONES. Folk Roots. |
