FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Fairport Convention - Liege & Lief
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I have not included…
many Folk albums in Vinyl Corner. Today, I am inducting one of the most influential Folk albums ever. Fairport Convention’s Liege & Lief is the fourth album by the British Folk Rock band. It is the third album the group released in the U.K. during 1969. Each album prominently features Sandy Denny as lead female vocalist (she did not appear on the group's 1968 debut album). If you have not got a copy of this classic on vinyl, then go and get one. If some critics in 1969 felt there were few arresting and memorable songs, retrospective reviews have been kinder. Liege & Lief is now viewed as one of the most important British Folk albums. A massively influential album that is hugely strong and rich. I will put in a couple of reviews for the wonderful Liege & Lief. Before then, udiscovermusic. wrote about Fairport Convention’s fourth studio album earlier in the year:
“One of the great bastions of British folk music were in the midst of their pop chart phase in the first month of the 1970s. Fairport Convention had performed — miming, inevitably — on the British TV institution Top Of The Pops in August 1969, and come within one place of the Top 20, with “Si Tu Dois Partir,” their French version of Bob Dylan’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now.”
That helped the Fairport album it came from, Unhalfbricking, climb to No.12 in the UK. Then, on January 17, 1970, they entered the bestsellers with a follow-up that, like its predecessor, has become a folk music cornerstone, Liege & Lief.
Fairport were in exalted company as they scored the highest new entry of that chart week at No.18. The Beatles were still at No.1 with Abbey Road, as the Motown Chartbusters Vol. 3 compilation climbed 3-2. The Rolling Stones were on the climb, both with Let It Bleed up 4-3 and the Through The Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) collection moving 18-7. The Moody Blues’ To Our Children’s Children’s Children and Led Zeppelin’s second album were both on the way up the top ten, and King Crimson re-entered at No.10 with In The Court Of The Crimson King”.
I am relatively new to the wonders of Fairport Convention. I have been listening to Liege & Lief, and I am working my way through their catalogue. The band are still going to today – albeit with a different line-up to that of 1969. Their twenty-ninth album, Shuffle and Go, was released last year. Many consider Liege & Lief to be the group’s finest hour. In their review, the BBC observed the following:
“After forty years of Fairport Convention, undoubtedly one of the most influential folk collectives to have ever existed, here we have the release of a deluxe version of perhaps their best but certainly their most emotive album to mark the occasion. Liege & Lief is the Fairport album steeped in tragedy – the first trip back to the studio following the deaths of drummer Martin Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn (the girlfriend of Richard Thompson) in a tragic car accident in May 1969, the album has the almost eerie quality of a band struggling to find a means of coping with their obvious anguish; at the same time they are a band desperate to break all social constraints and indulge in the most manic of folk rock which they do so unapologetically in “Matty Groves”.
Pioneers of the 1960s folk rock revolution (the band was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2002), Fairport’s seminal album was voted the 'Most Influential Folk Album Of All Time' in 2006. And quite rightly so – it is the album that saw the band edge closer to its English folk roots, bravely combining folk traditions with electric instruments. The Oxfordshire group, who had always been mistakenly thought of as members of the American west coast folk scene, embraced music in all its raw Englishness becoming exponents of a genre that would not only define a moment in musical history, but which would change the face of folk forever.
It goes without saying that the Liege & Lief reissue is a must for all Fairport fans – the double disc has a collection of John Peel’s Top Gear recordings, the highlight of disc 2 being the unmatchable "Tam Lin" from the September 1967 show.
But while Fairport’s glory days are predominantly behind them, (a studio album Sense Of Occasion was however released in February this year), movements by former members including Richard Thompson whose album Sweet Warrior was released a few months ago, ensure the Fairport ghosts are never allowed to fade away. This important re-release will remind folk followers and music lovers alike why Fairport was one of the most important and pioneering folk collectives of all time”.
I forgot to mention that the BBC were reviewing a reissue. Although many of the eight cuts on Liege & Lief are traditional tracks rearranged by the band, they are wonderfully done. The album spent fifteen weeks in the U.K. album chart, reaching number seventeen.
I am going to round off with a review from AllMusic. In their review, they note how Fairport Convention took a new direction with Liege & Lief. The band took a fascinating look back at England’s musical past:
“In the decades since its original release, more than one writer has declared Fairport Convention's Liege & Lief the definitive British folk-rock album, a distinction it holds at least in part because it grants equal importance to all three parts of that formula. While Fairport had begun dipping their toes into British traditional folk with their stellar version of "A Sailor's Life" on Unhalfbricking, Liege & Lief found them diving head first into the possibilities of England's musical past, with Ashley Hutchings digging through the archives at the Cecil Sharp House in search of musical treasure, and the musicians (in particular vocalist Sandy Denny) eagerly embracing the dark mysteries of this music. (Only two of the album's eight songs were group originals, though "Crazy Man Michael" and "Come All Ye" hardly stand out from their antique counterparts.) Liege & Lief was also recorded after a tour bus crash claimed the lives of original Fairport drummer Martin Lamble and Richard Thompson's girlfriend, Jeannie Franklyn. As the members of the group worked to shake off the tragedy (and break in new drummer Dave Mattacks and full-time fiddler Dave Swarbrick), they became a stronger and more adventurous unit, less interested in the neo-Jefferson Airplane direction of their earlier work and firmly committed to fusing time-worn folk with electric instruments while honoring both. And while Liege & Lief was the most purely folk-oriented Fairport Convention album to date, it also rocked hard in a thoroughly original and uncompromising way; the "Lark in the Morning" medley swings unrelentingly, the group's crashing dynamics wring every last ounce of drama from "Tam Lin" and "Matty Groves," and Thompson and Swarbrick's soloing is dazzling throughout. Liege & Lief introduced a large new audience to the beauty of British folk, but Fairport Convention's interpretations spoke of the present as much as the past, and the result was timeless music in the best sense of the term”.
Many might not have heard of Fairport Convention. If you are a bit new to them, I would recommend you starting with Liege & Lief. It is a beautiful album that will linger long in the mind! Although the band are amazing, I think it is Sandy Denny’s vocals that are the real star. Such an amazing and evocative vocalist! The stunning Liege & Lief is, undoubtedly, one of the most important…
FOLK albums ever.