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Thread: FEATURED CD: Fairport Convention - Liege and Lief

  1. #26
    Member Oreb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mogrooves View Post
    I prefer Unhalfbricking, but this one is close.
    Me too, but I also love Full House and What We Did on Our Holidays. Wouldn't want to be without "Sloth" and "The Lord is in This Place".

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  2. #27
    Member Paulrus's Avatar
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    One of my desert island disks. This is where it all clicks for me.
    I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.

  3. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Poisoned Youth View Post
    What's your take on this?
    To put it simly; the best folk rock album of all times. Top 10 of all genres on my list.
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    What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking are also great but as I said, the more 'novelty' songs don't stand up to repeated listens for me. Nevertheless, you can find truly essential originals like 'Fotheringay', 'Meet On The Ledge' and 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes' on these- arguably their most famous songs. IMHO those three 1968-9 albums are the really essential ones.

    With Unhalfbricking, I like the Dylan covers used as extra tracks on the reissue more than 'Si Tu Dois Partir' (another Dylan cover but in French, for some reason) and 'Cajun Woman'. Those two should have been a non-album single or something IMHO.

    RE; Pentangle. They actually aren't that similar, although there's a crossover of audience- they are much more jazz-influenced. Unlike any of Fairport Convention, Bert Jansch (and to a lesser extent, John Renbourn- the two had done an album together pre-dating Pentangle) was already an established name in the folk world, with a string of albums behind him already.

  5. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by spacefreak View Post
    To put it simly; the best folk rock album of all times. Top 10 of all genres on my list.
    I recall a 2001/2-ish poll on BBC Radio 2's folk show- I used to listen to that every week back then- where the audience voted this into the Number 1 slot, as the best UK folk album ever. The remaster mentioned this somewhere on the packaging, I think! (Number 2 was another one I really do like, Nic Jones' Penguin Eggs.)

  6. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by mogrooves View Post
    I prefer Unhalfbricking, but this one is close.
    +1

  7. #32
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    I'm a huge Richard Thompson fan, so anything he plays on is aces in my book. As has been mentioned upthread, RT's best work was yet to come, but this is a very lovely album. Sandy Denny was great.

    Does anyone have any experience with the new LP pressing? I think it was last year or 2014.

  8. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    Does anyone here like Pentagle? They seem to be similar.
    Although almost equally important, they weren't similar at all. The Pentangle stood out for being a merger of more or less professional musicians dwelling into something brand new, i.e. drummer Terry Cox, upright bassist Danny Thompson (both of whom came from an established jazz background), "ol' but young" folkies Bert Jansch and John Renbourn (guitars, primarily acoustic) and vocalist Jacqui McShee (who'd done both folk and jazz). If you'd asked Richard Thompson, Pentangle were the one single band each and every emerging folk-rock unit would agree on admiring; Jansch and Renbourn were both ardent followers of legendary folkie stringer Davey Graham and both developed virtuoso techniques and approaches themselves.

    The overall best Pentangle albums were Basket of Light and Cruel Sister, IMO.
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  9. #34
    Member Steve F.'s Avatar
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    I'd just like to state that I found everyone's opinions and thoughts on this one interesting and sometimes very enlightening.

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  10. #35
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    As previously said I think all the hype about this album is because it's considered the first fully realized merging of electric rock music with traditional British Isles Folk. Although I do believe that Pentangle and Steeleye Span were basically doing the same thing at the same time. One tune not mentioned is the ancient Scottish poem
    Tam Lin. The Rock arrangement by Dave Swarbrick and the haunting vocals of Sandy Denny make this a standout. This poem which heralds back to Pagan Celtic times and takes place on Halloween still gives me goosebumps and makes the hairs on my arm stand up. To this day I've never heard anybody else do a version of this song. A classic tune to an equally classic album.

  11. #36
    Jazzbo manqué Mister Triscuits's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AncientChord View Post
    Although I do believe that Pentangle and Steeleye Span were basically doing the same thing at the same time.
    Steeleye Span did not exist at the time, in fact they were basically a spinoff of this album. Ashley Hutchings wanted to get even deeper into the traditional folk bag, so he quit Fairport and recruited two previously existing folk duos to form Steeleye Span. As for Pentangle, it has already been pointed out that they were not really doing the same thing, although their one all-trad album, Cruel Sister, was roughly contemporaneous with Liege and Lief, and it is undeniable that they were hugely influential.

    Tam Lin. The Rock arrangement by Dave Swarbrick and the haunting vocals of Sandy Denny make this a standout. This poem which heralds back to Pagan Celtic times and takes place on Halloween still gives me goosebumps and makes the hairs on my arm stand up. To this day I've never heard anybody else do a version of this song.
    Check out a movie called either Tam Lin or The Devil's Widow. It's the Tam Lin story transported to the swinging sixties, with a Pentangle version of the song interspersed throughout. It's not exactly a classic of filmmaking, but it's very interesting.
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  12. #37
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    It is funny to me how a folk album launched Richard Thompson's influential electric guitar playing. His playing almost duets with Sandy Denny's glorious singing.

    I remember Magna Carta also being a pretty good folk rock group around the same time. Most of these bands were signed to Island records.
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  13. #38
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    Check out a movie called either Tam Lin or The Devil's Widow. It's the Tam Lin story transported to the swinging sixties, with a Pentangle version of the song interspersed throughout. It's not exactly a classic of filmmaking, but it's very interesting.

    Wow I never knew that Pentangle did a version of Tam Lin. This must have been after the Fairport version? Ever since the Celtic music revival that started in the 1970's, I've kind of been surprised that no one else has tackled Tam Lin. I've always figured that no one could beat the Fairport version, especially Sandy Denny's vocals. There's only one other Celtic singer that could take the challenge IMO and that's Loreena McKennitt.
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  14. #39
    Jazzbo manqué Mister Triscuits's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AncientChord View Post
    Wow I never knew that Pentangle did a version of Tam Lin. This must have been after the Fairport version? Ever since the Celtic music revival that started in the 1970's, I've kind of been surprised that no one else has tackled Tam Lin. I've always figured that no one could beat the Fairport version, especially Sandy Denny's vocals.
    There are a few versions out there--I have recordings by Frankie Armstrong and Mike Waterson, and I know Steeleye Span did it relatively recently--but they don't sound remotely like Fairport's. Fairport's version is really pretty much an original composition based very loosely on the traditional material. I asked Terry Cox back in 1980-something about the Pentangle recording in the Tam Lin movie, and as he remembered it they had never even recorded the song as a whole--just the separate verses that appear on the soundtrack. In fact a full version did turn up many years later on a Pentangle box set.
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  15. #40
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    Always a special spin for me. Its hard to put my finger on exactly 'why', but the inherent Englishness certainly adds to the vibe. Pure, organic, yet with a biting edge. I came here with the Tull ties years ago. Never heard the vinyl, only the old CD version.

  16. #41
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    Listened to this on my way into work yesterday. It as about as close to flawless as an album can be. A true gem.

    That being said, it did also put me in mind of my recent favorites. And while the lyrics are overwrought in comparison to those on Liege and Lief, the folk melodies played out on rock guitar owes it all to Fairport.

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  17. #42
    Member Magic Mountain's Avatar
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    Have to agree with the folks calling this a classic. Desert island disc for me. I enjoy folk, I enjoy rock, this album, to these ears, is the perfect blend of both.

  18. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by notallwhowander View Post

    That being said, it did also put me in mind of my recent favorites. And while the lyrics are overwrought in comparison to those on Liege and Lief, the folk melodies played out on rock guitar owes it all to Fairport.
    I probably owe my purchase of this album to Wolf People. They put out an "essential album" guide a few years back (or maybe a "what we're listening to now" thing? whatever, you get the point). This and Trees and Dark and Richard Thompson and probably conflated a few other releases I bought about the same time were listed.

    As usually happens, I got distracted and haven't gone much beyond dipping my toe in the English folk scene. I should probably fix that because I do enjoy this album so much (and Trees).

    One that I grabbed in my dipping-in-of-the-toe spree that didn't work for me was Amazing Blondel. I bought a double CD package, and I couldn't make it fit. Should I revisit? Did I miss something in my initial spins?
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  19. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by polmico View Post

    One that I grabbed in my dipping-in-of-the-toe spree that didn't work for me was Amazing Blondel. I bought a double CD package, and I couldn't make it fit. Should I revisit? Did I miss something in my initial spins?
    I like AB, but...While Amazing Blondel is acoustic, there's a stateliness and almost Chamber element that isn't really present in FolkRock. More redolent of the cloisters than the village green. Having said that, try and sample the Blondel album on the web. It's a bit different from most of their other stuff.

  20. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by moecurlythanu View Post
    I like AB, but...While Amazing Blondel is acoustic, there's a stateliness and almost Chamber element that isn't really present in FolkRock. More redolent of the cloisters than the village green. Having said that, try and sample the Blondel album on the web. It's a bit different from most of their other stuff.
    I haven't heard much, but that chamber aspect you mentioned always felt a bit sterile to me. Some Folk Rock stuff can come off as dry, especially the more traditional pieces that don't get much added to them, but there's usually some sense of free-wheeling playing, as if they all just sat down in the corner of the pub, tuned up and away they went. I think I had England at one point and moved it on, but I'll give Blondel a go.

  21. #46
    Jazzbo manqué Mister Triscuits's Avatar
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    Amazing Blondel is more "Elizabethan" than folk, more court music, madrigals and minstrelsy than border ballads and folklore. More John Dowland than Cecil Sharpe. They have some great records--I would recommend Fantasia Lindum--but I've always wanted to like them more than I actually do. They're awfully twee; nowhere near the earthiness of Fairport Convention. Closer to the poppier side of Gryphon, but much more lightweight.

    This thread has convinced me to finally turn off autocorrect on my computer. It seems to have become more aggressive since the last OS update, and insists on changing "Fairport" to "airport."
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  22. #47
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    I love this record, but Richard Thompson's guitar playing on "Full House" makes that one my favorite FC record. Really, if you're turned off by folk, you're missing something by not listening to early FC. They had a lot of rock to them and some great instrumental prowess. Dirty Linen could have been on "Songs from the Wood" from Tull.

  23. #48
    Member AncientChord's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Guitarplyrjvb View Post
    I love this record, but Richard Thompson's guitar playing on "Full House" makes that one my favorite FC record. Really, if you're turned off by folk, you're missing something by not listening to early FC. They had a lot of rock to them and some great instrumental prowess. Dirty Linen could have been on "Songs from the Wood" from Tull.
    Remember there is a link between Jethro Tull and Fairport. Ian Anderson asked Fairport bassist Dave Pegg to join JT around 1980, where he spent quite a few years before drifting back to the Fairport camp. It made sense since both JT and Fairport both played electric British/Celtic folk. Many of those songs and tunes could easily be played by either band.
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  24. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by AncientChord View Post
    Remember there is a link between Jethro Tull and Fairport. Ian Anderson asked Fairport bassist Dave Pegg to join JT around 1980, where he spent quite a few years before drifting back to the Fairport camp. It made sense since both JT and Fairport both played electric British/Celtic folk. Many of those songs and tunes could easily be played by either band.
    I remember seeing Fairport as opening act to Tull in the 80s. Splendid show. Pegg played bass for both bands' sets -- never left the stage.
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  25. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Dark Elf View Post
    I remember seeing Fairport as opening act to Tull in the 80s. Splendid show. Pegg played bass for both bands' sets -- never left the stage.
    '88 when they were touring the Box Set.

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