Funny how we all perceive things differently. To my mind the Nine line up is as rock orientated as it gets in Fairport. As I said earlier in the thread, Possibly Parsons Green could be an out and out rock song were it not for the fiddle. Jerry seems more of a rock guitarist than any of RT, Maart, Simon etc to my ears.
Gottle o' Geer Is this a real Fairport album? Only in the minds of mid Seventies Island Records executives, I reckon. Is it as bad as it's horrendous reputation? Not in the slightest. It's a mess but an endearing one. All over the place musically but most of the songs are decent and it's certainly well played and while I wouldn't claim it's anything like top division Fairport, it's an enjoyable occasional listen. If nothing else, it's important because it got Simon back involved with the band. Side one is actually very good indeed.The traditional When First Into This Country has a strong narrative and an interesting contemporary Seventies arrangement, Our Band is reminiscent of Swarb's writing on Rosie, Lay Me Down Easy is a lovely, laid back country waltz and the two contrasting instrumentals are excellent. Cropredy Capers, very modern, The Frog Up The Pump as trad folk rock as Dirty Linen but both really exciting! Side two doesn't hit the spot quite as much. Don't Be Late is a good enough song but spoiled, for me, by the intrusive brass and horrible sax . I wish Sandy's Song worked but, for whatever reason, it just comes across as soporific and dreary, Things pick up though with the infectious pop of Gallagher & Lyle's Friendship Song and things finish on a high with the irresistible (for me. Eminently resistible to other here, it seems ) Limey's Lament. I'm a sucker for a good list song and this is a fine example! Love the artwork, though Island's commitment to the project shines through by having a picture of a different albeit recent line-up the band rather than the trio that recorded it. However it does give me the chance to point out how much like Yoffi from Fingerbos, Dan Ar Bras looks.
Good grief, I'd forgotten about Fingerbobs. Children's TV has come a long old way since the '70s. Can you imagine the reaction it'd get from children now?!
I've long thought that 'When First Into This Country' would suit Chris' voice and vocal delivery style very well and that the current (almost called it 'new') lineup would really bring out the strengths of the track. Best Wishes, David
I think that would work really well. Be nice for the album to be acknowledged by the current line-up.
Yoffi! Love a good Fingerbobs reference... I can't be t' only one with that great Trunk Records release... Yeah, an interesting mess. I read something about Swarbrick was having a bad time personally as well as this album being somewhat under duress.
I never owned or heard Gottle O'Geer before, so nothing I can add here. I am also only familiar with a few tracks on the following 2 albums so I wont be able to add much there either. I'll keep reading and lurking though, plus chime in if appropriate. I'll get back in deep with Gladys' Leap.
Gottle o' Geer is much less bad than it's supposed to be but Bonny Bunch & Tipplers are giants of the folk rock genre played by a band rejuvenated. They both contain an epic centrepiece surrounded magnificent shorter songs & tunes. If you're ever up for giving them a listen, I'd hope you'd really enjoy them!
These 2 are not easy to find cheap, unfortunately. Edit: I found a used copy of Tippler's Tales for about $12.50 delivered, so I pulled the trigger.
Still trying to catch up with the thread Rising for the Moon: It felt like a bit of a letdown at the time, great in parts but pretty awful in others, but not quite the album the Fairport faithful were expecting. Bringing in Glyn Johns showed a determination to do things a bit differently this time and he certainly worked them hard in the studio and achieved some good individual performances, from Sandy in particular, but his insistance that there would be no covers, no trad material and no instrumentals - 'no airy-fairy folk ********' as he apparently told Bruce Rowland - took them too far from their own template, as Jerry Donahue would later admit. It's the sound of Fairport looking to refine their sound and widen their appeal, but considering it was meant to be a big push for a commercial breakthrough the quality control wasn't all it could have been and a few sub-par songs were allowed to get through. It does, however, contain some wonderful material - One More Chance is magnificent, right up there with Sandy's best and probably her last great vocal performance. For me it stands head and shoulders above everything else on the album, although pretty much everything else where she was involved in the writing is worthwhile, even if a lot of it does end up sounding more like a Fotheringay or Sandy solo album than a Fairport one. Sadly the rest, with the noteable exception of White Dress is sub-par, how did Iron Lion and the execrable Night Time Girl ever get the green light? Overall, a bit of a mixed bag really. Gottle O'Geer Oh dear, what can you say about this ragbag of an album? Started as a Swarb solo album that turned into an attempt to put together a final offering for Island under the Fairport name. Swarb has gone on record as saying he wished it hadn't gone out as Fairport and planted the blame firmly with Island boss Chris Blackwell. So we're back to Peggy and Swarb trying to keep the band afloat but lacking any sense of direction, it comes across as a bit of a desperate attempt to deliver some finished product, however lacklustre, to fulfill their contract. It starts well enough with When First Into This Country and The Frog Up the Pump is okay, if a bit Fairport-by-numbers, but that's it for me. As an album it would have made a decent single.
When we get to "Bonny Bunch" and "Tippler's" I'll be much happier! Two very strong LPs and the dawning of a new Fairport era. I hate to say anything bad about the Fairps as they have provided me with so much fun and good times over the years - but the "Rosie" to "Gottle O'Geer" run of LPs was poor! The up and coming 80s were a golden period though - this was when I first became a fan. I quickly bought all the classic early LPs, plus the ones that were current at the time; "Gladys"; "Expletive" etc. It was a great time to see the group in concert, and concurrently Richard Thompson was releasing superb records and touring with loud, electric bands. That was my Fairport & Thompson heyday. When I was collecting Fairport et al. in the 80s, the "Gottle", "Bonny Bunch" and "Tipplers" trio of LPs were hard to find; they were rare - very few people had bought them on initial release. I acquired "Tipplers" as a strange, Italian release. "Bonny Bunch" I got when it was reissued by Woodworm Records, and "Gottle" was the last one I got hold of, an original with a cut-out in the cover, but I had to wait until the Ebay years for that. I wonder if we will get many replies about those 3 albums? Multitudes own "Liege and Lief", but how many of them have, say, "Tippler's Tales"?
I would like every Fairport fan to hear Bonny Bunch & Tipplers. They are two of my favourite albums by anybody. You probably saw above that Prognasycator ordered himself a copy of the latter today. Given it was partly on my recommendation, I really hope he likes it!
Gottle was a cutout-bin regular for awhile, but there weren't that many copies to begin with. Bonny and Tippler's were the first studio albums not to have a US release, so that made them tougher to find.
Apart from the absence of a contractual obligation, a similar thing happened with Traffic's John Barleycorn Must Die. Look how that turned out.
I'm getting too far behind, so I'll start to catch up! Rising for the Moon is quite a patchy album to me. One More Chance is one of Sandy's epics, like John The Gun, I do like the title track and Whote Dress, but the rest of the album is so-so. I like the riff in Dawn, but the song is a nothing special and in general there's nothing awful on it other than maybe Night-Time girl. Glynn John's production gives a really clear, bright sound other than the drums which are at times rather carboardy. It always amazes me that he got such a great drum sound for Who's Next in 1971, but such an inferior sound on this three years later. In general it feels more like a Sandy Denny solo album with some guest appearances. It doesn't have the vibe of a Fairport Album to me. I'll get Gottle o' Geer on the turntable tomorrow, not heard it for quite some time. I do have everything up to and including Five Seasons. I can't remember where I got the next three pre-Gladys' Leap releases because even when I got into them in around '87, I seem to remember they were deleted and/or hard to find. I can only assume I got them second hand. There are two live albums before then I haven't got and don't think I've ever seen, but I do have Farewell, Farewell and Moat on the Ledge.
