The team worked closely with Fairport for over a year. ‘Our aim is to explain how important Fairport’s influence has been and continues to be’

Fairport Convention

There are so many ‘music docs’ that either do not feature the artists or the music. But this is an excellent exception, filled with the songs, music, band members and history of not only one of the best UK bands, but the best bands full stop.

PLEASE NOTE;:THREE AUDIO TRACKS HAVE BEEN “MUTED” DUE TO COPYRIGHT REASONS. THIS IS NOT AN ERROR. CONTINUE WATCHING AND THE SOUND WILL CONTINUE.

The reason for this is that if the doc had uploaded the complete original soundtrack, the copyright holders of the ‘offending’ songs would have put in a complaint and the entire doc would have been immediately removed from youtube. So the producers are not to blame, but if you want to complain, send a note to YouTube!

Fairport Convention are a British folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater (with Frater replaced by Martin Lamble after their first gig.)

They started out heavily influenced by American folk rock, with a setlist dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname “the British Jefferson Airplane”.

Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, with Matthews later leaving during the recording of their third album. Wikipedia

23 April 2022 | James Porteous | Clipper Media News

The film tells how five young musicians in North London formed Fairport Convention during 1967’s ‘summer of love’. The band went on to shake English folk music to its roots by fusing it with rock, an approach which outraged some purists but delighted a new and devoted audience.

In the subsequent five decades, Fairport Convention has attracted widespread critical acclaim, won a coveted BBC Lifetime Achievement Award, and Radio 2 listeners voted Fairport’s groundbreaking album Liege & Lief ‘The Most Influential Folk Album of All Time’.

The documentary has been made by London-based independent producer Special Treats Productions. The company’s previous television music documentaries include ‘XTC: This Is Pop’, ‘I’m Not In love: The Story of 10cc’ and the award-winning film ‘UB40: Promises and Lies’.

The film features rare archive interviews and footage as well as newly-filmed interviews with the current Fairport members and, among others, Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Iain Matthews, Judy Dyble, Joe Boyd, Ralph McTell, Maddy Prior, Bob Harris, Suggs, Rick Wakeman, Steve Winwood, and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

Through these interviews, the film examines Fairport’s first five years in detail, including the tragic motorway crash which killed drummer Martin Lamble.

It goes on to explain Fairport’s pivotal role in the evolution of British folkrock; how the band fostered major talents such as Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick and spawned other notable bands including Matthews Southern Comfort, Steeleye Span, and Fotheringay.

Singer/songwriter Sandy Denny

The story is brought up to date with contemporary material filmed at Fairport’s annual ‘own brand’ music festival held at Cropredy in Oxfordshire. The closing sequence features the band’s 2017 festival performance when virtually all the surviving former members joined the current line-up on stage.

The Producer/Director has been working closely with Fairport for over a year. He says: “Our aim is to explain how important Fairport’s influence has been and continues to be – in other words, why the band matters.

“We have not set out to make a comprehensive, year-by-year history of Fairport; that has been done before. The film concentrates on two periods – the first five years and the band today. The result is a celebration of a very British institution and an assertion of Fairport’s continuing relevance.”

Fairport Convention Folk Heroes Documentary (2017)

Fairport Convention – Folk Heroes documentary review

Rob Hughes published November 15, 2017 | Louder

Among the many talking heads in this absorbing account of Fairport’s life and times, it’s Rick Wakeman who provides the best quote.

The band’s decision to go electric in the late 60s, opines the keyboard maestro, “was like putting a condom machine in the Vatican”. Plugged-in folk music just wasn’t one for the fusty traditionalists. For the less blinkered, however, Fairport’s assimilation of indigenous folk and rock’n’roll offered routes between worlds that had hitherto been neglected.

Almost everyone in Folk Heroes seems to agree that the watershed moment came with 1969’s A Sailor’s Life, the centuries-old ballad that Fairport fashioned into what founder member Ashley Hutchings calls “the first British traditional folk rock track”.

Director Charlie Thomas (who also made the recent XTC doc, This Is Pop) does a fine job of explaining how they got there and where they took it, with help from key members past and present – Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson and Dave Pegg included – alongside admirers and associates such as Steve Winwood, Ian Anderson and producer Joe Boyd.

It’s a front-loaded drama that focuses on the path-beating years, from their beginnings as a covers band in Muswell Hill to the rediscovery of a wealth of traditional homegrown music that fed into Liege & Lief.

There’s tragedy along the way, such as the road crash that claimed the lives of drummer Martin Lamble and Thompson’s girlfriend, Jeannie Franklyn (which, Thompson admits, left the band in deep shock for years).

But there’s also insight into what made the early line-ups so unique, be it the extraordinary guitar flights of Thompson or the pure majesty of Sandy Denny, the singer-songwriter described by Ralph McTell as “complex, dangerous, wild, crazy…”

Tantalising footage of primetime Fairport is intercut with scenes from this summer’s 50th birthday bash at Cropredy, the old guard of Nicol and Pegg propping up the legend while also foraging into the future. The best vintage clip of all shows the late Dave Swarbrick on stage, in tan leather coat and fetching blue cap, ciggie fixed between his lips, sawing away on electric violin like a man in a hurry.

Post-Babbacombe Lee, the film sprints through the the 70s and comes to rest at present-day Cropredy, a celebration of the Fairport fellowship that’s the biggest folk festival in the UK. “Fairport has always been a band of friends,” muses Thompson, “people dear to my heart.” It’s an oft-told tale, but Fairport’s story is as much about deep bonds and lasting connections as it is groundbreaking music.