Fairport Convention

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Fairport Convention

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Long out of print, as I discovered after trading in the Polydor vinyl album some years ago, this re-mastered reissue includes bonus tracks including their first single, a cover of Maxine Sullivan's 1940 recording of If I Had A Ribbon Bow. The best track is probably the Dylan-influenced and rather psychedelic It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft.

Among the other original material, some of it dating from Richard Thompson's previous band, is a fair smattering of well-chosen songs from contemporary performers. Joni Mitchell was virtually unknown and unreleased on record in 1967 when this album was recorded and her own versions of the two songs here did not appear until her second album, Clouds, in 1969. The Fairports knew her as she had been in the UK at the invitation of their producer, Joe Boyd, and she had played some British dates supporting the Incredible String Band. Emitt Rhodes was still performing in the obscure group the Merry-Go-Round when they recorded Time Will Show The Wiser to open the album.

 

Dylan's Jack O'Diamonds was actually a poem which turned up on the liner-notes of Another Side Of Bob Dylan. He had given it to an actor friend called Ben Carruthers at the Savoy, who had used it in a TV play called A Man With No Papers, and subsequently recorded it with his group Ben Carruthers And The Deep, aided by Jimmy Page and Nicky Hopkins, on a flop single. One Sure Thing was a cover of a little-known duo called Jim and Jean (Jim Glover and Jean Ray).

There is no clue from this eclectic mix of songs featuring Ian Matthew and the very underrated Judy Dyble that they were to virtually reinvent folk-rock with Sandy Denny just a couple of years later. I saw the band a couple of times around the time of this album and, much as I enjoyed their later albums, rather miss these styles of playing in their music.

Their version of Suzanne used to feature alternate verses sung by Ian Matthew and Sandy Denny but the May 1968 version here sadly falls between Judy Dyble leaving and Sandy Denny joining, but you can hear the dual-vocal version from their August 1968 Top Gear session on Heyday

This album is the 'pre Sandy Denny' one and finds the early Fairport rooted firmly in the American influenced sixties 'soft rock' sound, to which the wistfully yearning (but occasionally out of tune) voices of Judy Dyble and Ian MacDonald (Matthews) were well suited. Although the original release contained several covers of songs by, among others, the then little-known Joni Mitchell, more than half were originals written by the band and their friends.

It is an interesting collection. The country rock of "If (Stomp)" was written by Richard Thompson and Ian MacDonald but gives no hint of the direction that the band - and Thompson - were heading. It sounds as though it could have come off a Lovin' Spoonful album - and that's an observation, not a criticism. Three of the strongest tracks are "Time Will Show the Wiser", "Jack o' Diamonds" and "One Sure Thing" - which interestingly were all performed superbly by the surviving members of this band at the Cropredy Festival in 2002. Joni Mitchell's "I Don't Know Where I Stand" still sounds good, as does the gentle "Decameron", but the rest of the original album seems rather dated. It is nevertheless very listenable and this was clearly a band that could play - led by Thompson's mature guitar work and Martin Lamble's excellent drumming.

Of the bonus tracks, the version of "Suzanne" was recorded after Dyble left the band and it needed the female voice as a counterpart to Ian Matthews since it sounds rather ordinary. It is not as good as the version on the "Fairport unConventional" boxed set. Both "If I Had a Ribbon Bow" and "Reno Nevada" were on "unConventional", so if you have that then you'll know that this "Reno" is good - but why not have something different here? The single version of "If (Stomp)" is one possibility that springs to mind. The remaining bonus track is a rather mediocre cover of Tim Buckley's "Morning Glory".

This is an enjoyable album, but it does not stand up as well today as the three albums that followed in 1969.