Folk rockers are still going strong after fifty years
Overlooked album is seen as‘poor relation’
Airdrie music fan Jim Milton presents his latest‘hidden Treasure’feature by taking a look at Fairport Convention’s 1969 hit ‘Unhalfbricking’.
Every month Jim puts the spotlight on a little-known album deserving greater recognition and this time it’s the turn of the electric folk rock troupe.
Who?
Quintessentially English electric folk rock band celebrating 50 years at the very top of their field.
Formed by Ashley Hutchings and Simon Nicol in 1967, Fairport led the way in aligning traditional English folk music with a mainstream rock ‘n’ roll consciousness.
Regarded now as an institution in such circles, they also afforded the likes of Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson and Iain Matthews a launch pad to the worldwide popularity we associate with them today.
What?
The album’s title a result of some boredom-fending van-to-gig tomfoolery, ‘Unhalfbricking’ is the mid-point of 1969’s threealbum run that plotted a course from higher dependence on US (predominately Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan) covers to self-penned and traditional material.
Always considered its followup’s, the seminal ‘Liege & Lief ’, poor relation, ‘Unhalfbricking’ balances both sources nicely with Dylan claiming three writing credits and Thompson and Denny two apiece.
Bobby tends to dominate the CD releases two-track bonus though, with Dear Landlord and the Byrds’ ‘The Ballad of Easy Rider’ (a co-write with Roger Mcguinn) rounding the whole thing off strongly.
The album’s single ‘Si tu dois partir’, a French-language version of Dylan’s ‘If You Gotta Go, Go Now’, reached number 21 in the UK charts placing the group in the unlikely setting of Top of the Pops.
When?
Recorded between January and April 1969.
Where?
London’s Sound Techniques and Olympic Studios.
With?
Produced with the help of Pink Floyd associate Joe Boyd, the studio line-up reads Denny, Thompson, Nicol, Hutchings and Martin Lamble, with help from Trevor Lucas, Dave Mattacks (soon to be Lamble’s replacement) and Dave Swarbrick, who himself would come to define the band’s future direction as much as anyone.
Stand-out?
Difficult choice. A mounting cacophony of fiddle (Swarbrick) and guitar (Thompson) makes the traditional ‘A Sailor’s Life’ compelling listening, as does Marc Ellington’s vocal duet with Denny on Dylan’s ‘Million Dollar Bash’, surely the track that most typifies the group’s ‘British Jefferson Airplane’ comparison.
Then there’s Sandy’s ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’, recorded by just about everyone and rated a folk classic, and the album’s outstanding opener, Thompson’s ‘Genesis Hall’.
However, limited to one selection, it has to be Denny’s splendid rendition of her own ‘Autopsy’.
What happened next?
Longevity. The tragic death of Martin Lamble along with Richard Thompson’s girlfriend Jeannie Franklin in a road accident in May 1969 could have signalled the end of the road for Fairport, as might the departures of Denny, Thompson and Hutchings not long after.
That trio stayed around long enough to account for ‘Liege & Lief ’, of course, and although the band has never scaled those awesome heights since, they can boast a staggeringly prolific output through a variety of line-up changes.
Legacy
Standard bearers for an entire movement whose twin-headed zenith of ‘Unhalfbricking’ and ‘Liege & Lief ’, along with staples like ‘Meet on the Ledge’ and ‘Walk Awhile’ is celebrated annually at the band’s own Cropredy Festival.
Title is a result of some boredom-fending van-to-gig tomfoolery