Fairport Convention

A Tree With Roots: The Songs Of Bob Dylan ISLAND

Minnesota to Muswell Hill.

Although

Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes got its official release only in 1975, white-label bootlegs began circulating in British folk circles 50 years ago this summer – and the album’s impact on Fairport and their contemporaries was almost immediate.

The anniversary is justification enough for Island to assemble this compilation (bolstered by two solo cuts from Sandy Denny and one by Fairport splinter group Fotheringay), kicking off with the band’s sole hit single that landed them a Top Of The Pops slot, Si Tu

Dois Partir, a French-language reworking of If You Gotta Go, Go Now, suggested by Denny, was Fairport’s second consecutive Dylan-penned single. It may have been dismissed as a novelty at the time, but it was one of three Bob tunes on the group’s pivotal third album Unhalfbricking, the majority of which, conversely, saw them moving away from American motifs and more fully embracing traditional English folk music.

Yet, despite leaning towards more homespun influences they would continue to acknowledge Dylan as their career progressed. His ode to Black Panthers leader George Jackson cropped up on the band’s 1973 release Nine, while Down In The Flood was one of the highlights of the following year’s live album. Dylan was also a regular touchstone for Fairport’s numerous BBC radio sessions, stretching as far back as 1967 when their debut on Top Gear included Lay Down Your Weary Tune.

Whereas contemporaries such as Manfred Mann grafted pop elements on to Dylan songs, Fairport relished taking the material in the opposite direction, locating the folk-hued grass roots of the songs, like sonic archaeologists unearthing the songs’ bare bones.