Fairport Convention album by album thread

I threatened to do this if Tfarney would do the Richard Thompson solo/spousal albums.

Fairport Convention
1968 Polydor (1st US release, 1970, Cotillion)

Personnel: Ian MacDonald, vocals, jews harp
Judy Dyble: vocals, autoharp, recorder, piano
Richard Thompson: vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin
Simon Nicol: vocals, electric & acoustic guitars, banjo, violin
Anthony "Tyger" Hutchings: bass, jug
Martin Lamble: percussion, violin

Track Listing:

1. Time Will Show the Wiser
2. I Don't Know Where I Stand
3. If (Stomp)
4. Decameron
5. Jack O'Diamonds
6. Portfolio
7. Chelsea Morning
8. Sun Shade
9. The Lobster
10. It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft
11. One Sure Thing
12. M.1 Breakdown

producer Joe Boyd

This is quite the odd bird in the Fairport catalog. It is quite American influenced, and the group had obviously been listening to a lot of the California bands. In fact, in a bit of extreme irony, American Joe Boyd indicated that it was their American sound that first attracted them to him leading to their signing.

Ian MacDonald was, if memory serves, added to the lineup after their signing, to beef up their vocals. This would be the only album of their on which he appeared. It was also the only album done with Judy Dyble, the Signe Anderson of the group. Her showcase is the beautiful cover of Joni Mitchell's "I Don't Know Where I Stand."

The album is about an even mix of covers and originals. Other standouts are the cover of The Merry-go-round's "Time Will Show The Wiser," "Decameron" written by Richard Thompson, Paul Ghosh and Andrew Horvitch (anyone know who these two are?), the psychedelic "It's Alright Ma, It's Only Wichcraft" and "One Sure Thing" by Harvey Brooks and Jim Glover (again, any enlightenment as to who these writers are would be appreciated).

Despite the massive changes between this and the second album, this is a strong debut. ????

BTW, I'm currently playing the Cotillion release, and it features a different mix on some of the tracks from the Polydor cd. The difference on Time was startling.

 

Well, I'll only weigh in by way of encouragement to support a full-on album-by-album thread. I don't have much to say about the first album other than making the observation that everyone starts out by stealing from their influences, and their Byrds/Airplane influence is much in evidence here. It would take phase 2 with Sandy Denny pushing them in the folk direction and their trenchant covers of Dylan/Mitchell/Cohen, etc. to move them past this first record's stratum, which is, frankly, demo-level.

By the way, I like Judy Dyble and enjoy her Giles, Giles, and Fripp work quite a bit, so she's not the source of all of the immaturity on this record. "What We Did On Our Holidays" is just so far beyond this one that it's essentially a different band. Hey, they were all 20 year olds or so when they did this, and for such youngsters it's not bad at all.

 

Actually, Ian MacDonald was Ian Matthews real name, he changed it around this time.

 

Harvey Brooks was the bassist in the Electric Flag; rockists might also know him from the "Super Session" album with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, and jazzbos would recognize him as one of the musicians on Miles Davis' legendary "Bitches Brew".

 

I'm quite looking forward to what's written in this thread, as I only have a compilation CD of this band (Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years, A&M) - which I like a lot. And, I have a personal connection: the "Ian MacDonald" of Fairport Convention was my bandmate for a few years - Iain Matthews (name changed to avoid confusion with the then-famous woodwind player in King Crimson).

 

Correct; he changed it to avoid confusion with the Ian MacDonald in King Crimson (who had worked with Fairport's Judy Dyble, tres confusing!).

 

Which causes a wee bit o' confusion, since Judy went on to work with Robert Fripp, where she was working with Ian McDonald of a different spelling on the Giles Giles and Fripp stuff. She can also be heard on The Young Person's Guide to King Crimson.

 

I love the 1st album. The original cd....mastered by Dennis Drake was a real disappointment....the remaster is the way to go
Kind of amazing that the lp is so good especially without Sandy Denny.
Decameron is my favorite song.
I think I'll listen to it now.

 

I don't have this album, but I've heard some songs from it and find Judy Dyble to be a charming singer. Doesn't have the authority of Sandy Denny though.

 

Underated album.I've always liked the first side best."Decameron" is my fave also.A superior version of TWSTW,great energy.

 

I love this album - regardless of what Fairport became (starting with their next album) it is a stone-cold folk rock classic. IMO there's not a bad cut on it - and at its best, rivals anything similar of the period.

The first song, Time Will Show The Wiser was written by non other than Emitt Rhodes, and would not sound out of place in the punk era - 1979-82 or so. It has a ripping upbeat tempo with Richard Thompson and Ian (Matthews) thrumming along at a breakneck pace. I had a couple of guys in a local band listen to it and their feedback was wow - it does sound ahead of its time.

Jack of Diamonds is another of my favorite rocking numbers.

Heres a nice UK listeners review (partial) of the album from the Amazon site:

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 love this album! I started with Fairport chronologically a few years back and hearing this made me want to rush out and get their subsequent stuff. I agree that Dyble is no Denny (who is?) but she is certainly not unpleasant to listen to. Typical of the time, the album is fairly eclectic in terms of the styles and influences present, but Thompson shows his obvious early prowess and the complexity of the band's vocal interplay is also evident. And for a 1-2 punch for a debut album side 1, it's pretty hard to argue with "Time Will Show The Wiser" and "I Don't Know Where I Stand". Great stuff.

Aaron

 

love this album. prefer it to the second album by a mile.
Love Judy Dyble's vocals as well. hate it when people say she's no Sandy Denny. of course she's not, but then Denny is no Dyble. Two totally different singing styles and i dont think if Denny was on this i'd like it half as much. Dyble's vocals are perfect for this album.
Judy Dyble also recorded one album as Trader Horne with Jackie Macauley (sp?) which is very very fine indeed and is a great toy-town psych-folk album.
Also, if you ever go on Dyble's website or read any interviews with her she's got a cracking self-depreciating sense of humour too.

 

Indeed, little known but a gem!

 

Thanks for starting this one...as they say, what a fine mess you've gotten us into... I owned a few Fairport albums on vinyl, with a small collection of English folk rock including some Steeleye Span and Strawbs, but haven't picked them up on cd yet. This thread will cost me, as it's a fine catalog and I'm sure my spending will be encouraged. This one? I'm not sure I've even heard it.

By the way, as I said in the other thread, I won't be able to do the early RT material. I have Shoot Out The Lights and Small Town Romance, but my RT collection really begins with the Mitchell Froom produced set that began with Daring Adventures (for me, it began with Rumor and Sigh), became an obsession, and continued almost uninterrupted to the present.

Would anyone out there like to cover the early RT stuff? If not, look for a thread, perhaps next weekend, beginning in the mid 80s. Maybe someone will jump in to fill in the gap.

Tim

 

heh, just imagine if this thread was a fairports family tree thread - it would be endless! a good thread, but endless! Its as intertwined as the Byrds family tree.
i think most people when they get into Fairports either follow the Richard Thompson or Sandy Denny route but i've gone down the Ashley Hutchings' road.
All the Morris On stuff and the Compleat Dancing Master albums are great.
so much more music to get though.....

 

I love this album too. Almost unique in the UK psych canon. There's a real West Coast thing going on here, not bad for a group of nice middle-class kids from Muswell Hill. And they were so young! How old was Thompson? 17? And he could already play like that.

I was lucky enough to see a version of the original line-up reunited at Cropredy about 5 years ago (RT, Ian Matthews, Judy Dyble, Ashley Hutchings, Simon, with Gerry Conway on drums). They opened with Time Will Show The Wiser - utterly wonderful.

BTW no discussion of early Fairport is complete without the Heyday album or the recent BBC box. That group could play anything, they were like a jukebox of hip songwriters, pop hits and folk songs, most of which were never recorded on their Island albums.

 

Fairport's first...

I really like this album, and the conventional wisdom that it's
too derivative of U.S. folk rock is a pretty weak argument
when you take into account that their influences here were
the "cooler"/less mainstrem American groups like The Merry-Go-
Round and Moby Grape. Does anyone here have the MONO
U.S. promo version of this album (Cotillion 1970)? I assume
that it's a fold-down and not the true U.K. mono mix?

 

I was waiting to throw in about the Trader Horne album when I discussed the lineup changes before album 2, but with this much knowledge around I should have known it would come up. Yes, it's a good album.

 

Uh-oh, does there have to be yet another thread?

I assume this earlier band was his friends in the English equivalent of high-school?

I'm another big fan of this album, in a way it's a bit poppier than the rest. Some cool footage of Thompson's guitar on TWSTW here:

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

Dig the mod shades.

 

This is gonna be a good thread. Lot's of great stuff to come!

 

I have an early Polydor made in West Germany by PDO CD. There is no mentioning of Dennis Drake anywhere on the CD/sleeve. Does the US version have a Dennis Drake crediting?

Anyway I think this CD sound very good but this is the only version I have heard.

This is the EAC numbers; 85.8 %, 90.8 %, 55.5 %, 45.6 %, 78.8 %, 57.4 %, 65.9 %, 55.4 %, 66.8 %, 75.9 %, 90.5 and 100.0 %

And I like the record a lot.

 

Excellent debut! I have a NM Dutch vinyl pressing but I have no idea how old it is. I bought it used about 15 years ago.

I love Judy Dyble's quivering vocals on I Don't Know Where I Stand. And I echo the kudos for Time Will Show the Wiser.

It's amazing how much their influences and sound would change beginning with the very next album.

Putting together a Fairport Convention geneology would make for a full time job, that's for sure!!!

 

I guess I can give it a go. I've got everything from Henry the Human Fly up through Small Town Romance on vinyl. Never bothered getting the CDs though.

 

I started a similar thread years ago on Phonogram. I can comment on the lps - I've got pink label pressings of Unhalfbricking and Liege and Leif. Others are later generation Islands or A&Ms. I've got the complete "official" catalog up through In Reel Time on lp and most beyond that.

Given all of the albums, this could take a while.

Anyway... I agree with you on the first album. This was never released stateside, and in fact, in the US A&M used "Fairport Convention" as the title of the US release of "What We Did On Our Summer Holiday".