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 the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny. Matthews left later, 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 (1968) and Unhalfbricking (1969); the latter featured fiddler Dave "Swarb" Swarbrick, most notably on 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 the same year. This style has been the band's focus ever since. For that album Swarbrick joined full-time, alongside drummer Dave Mattacks. Both Denny and Hutchings left before the end of 1969; the latter was 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 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, 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 that time. Allcock was replaced by Chris Leslie (mandolin, violin, vocals) in 1996, and Gerry Conway replaced Mattacks in 1998. Conway departed in 2022, owing to Motor Neuron Disease (which went on to claim his life in 2024), and Mattacks returned on a part-time basis. The group currently alternate between tours in which Mattacks features, and acoustic tours with just Nicol, Pegg, Sanders and Leslie. 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 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.Fairport Convention, The Cropredy Box (Woodworm, WR3CD026, 1998) disk 2. 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 having solo careers – most notably those of Thompson and Denny. Sandy Denny, now regarded as being amongst Britain's finest female singer-songwriters, died in 1978; her song "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" – recorded by Fairport on Unhalfbricking – became a signature song for herself and the band.
History
Origins 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" in Muswell Hill – on the same street where Ray and Dave Davies of 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.Hinton, B.; Wall, G. (2002). Ashley Hutchings: The Guv'nor & the Rise of Folk Rock, London: Helter Skelter 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 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.Humphries, pp. 7–9.
1967–1969: The first three albums Fairport Convention were soon playing regularly at underground venues such as UFO and The Electric Garden, which later became the Middle Earth club.Simon Nicol, Fairport Convention Official Website retrieved 14 January 2009 After only a few months they caught the attention of manager Joe Boyd, who secured them a contract with Polydor Records. Boyd suggested they augment the line-up with another male vocalist. Singer Iain Matthews (at that time known as Ian MacDonald) joined the band; 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 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.Observer Music Monthly, retrieved on 14 January 2009. Fairport Convention played at the first Isle of Wight Festival, in August 1968, when Jefferson Airplane headlined.Foulk, Ray (2015). Stealing Dylan from Woodstock, Surbiton, UK: Medina Publishing
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 was replaced by the band with Sandy Denny, a folk singer who had previously recorded as a soloist and with Strawbs. Denny's arrival encouraged the band to consider integrating British folk music into what had previously been an American-influenced sound, and her distinctive voice (described by Clive James as "open space, low-volume, high-intensity") characterised the December 1968 album What We Did on Our Holidays, and 1969's Unhalfbricking.C. James, "In a lonely moment". Retrieved on 14 January 2009]. These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and songwriting ability among 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.Humphries, p. 27. 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 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; it sparked in Ashley Hutchings an interest in traditional music 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.Hinton and Wall
These two albums began to gain 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 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.Humphries, p. 37. 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.
Developing British folk rock
On 12 May 1969, on the way home from a gig at Birmingham venue Mothers, Fairport's van crashed on 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 differing 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 joining as a full member. Boyd set the band up in a rented house in Farley Chamberlayne near Winchester in Hampshire, where they recuperated and worked on this integration, which would result in a new sound and style – made manifest on their fourth album Liege & Lief.Hutchings, Ashley. Liege and Lief. 2002, Island Records reissue, IMCD 291 / 596 929-2, liner notes.
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 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 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 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, the album was characterised by the "fusing [of] time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both".[ Allmusic retrieved on 14 January 2009].