What We Did Instead Of Holidays: A History Of Fairport Convention And Its Extended Folk-Rock Family

by Clinton Heylin

In June 1968, a group of Muswell Hillbillies made their official album debut as Fairport Convention. In the next fifteen years, three of those founding Fairportees Richard Thompson, Ashley 'Tyger' Hutchings and Simon Nicol along with the next generation of Fairport recruits - Iain Matthews, Sandy Denny, and the three Swarbrick, Pegg and Mattacks - would form a veritable dynasty of English folk-rock, each pursuing their own path, but always returning to work with each other, to collectively produce albums with a near-eternal appeal. Which is why every year since 1979 in a field somewhere near Banbury, 20,000-plus fans have congregated to celebrate this music's enduring appeal at the Cropredy Festival. So, fifty years on, now seems like the right time to tell the full to collect all the family lore that surrounds Fairport and its surrogates, and to disentangle the many highs and lows from those first fifteen years of Fotheringport Confusion. Drawing on interviews with all the musicians and key figures in English folk-rock - including producers extraordinaire Joe Boyd and Sandy Roberton - Clinton Heylin has produced the definitive history of a folk-rock family in its golden era.

Genres: Music

392 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 5, 2018

Reviews

[jboyg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exhausting And Wonderful Bio Of Fairport Kith And Kin

Back in those fabulous sixties when I was still a first generation rock critic I was given a promo copy of the first Fairport Convention album released in America, featuring Sandy, Richard, Simon, Tyger, et al. Well, that was all she wrote. I now have close to 80 albums featuring the band and all its offshoots. And I still love them and shall carry them to my grave. a+++++ as we used to say in our consumer guide days. Great book!!!

[Allan Heron · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent telling of the tale of Fairport and all who played with them. The tale covers in detail from the formation of the band up to 1982. It's complex, messy and tragic.

Since then things have settled down; Fairport have their annual conventions on Cropredy where all who sailed in her reunite, even if just for the weekend, and Richard Thompson became, well, Richard Thompson. And more than honourable mentions to Iain Matthews and Ashley Hutchings (surely one of the great innovators), and with a sad acknowledgement of the mercurial Sandy Denny.

Influential beyond their wildest dreams.

[Mick Bordet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to have a deeper-than-usual dive into Fotheringay, Southern Comfort and Ashley Hutching's multiple projects and I came away with a list of albums to seek out, but I found some of the comments rather mean-spirited, particularly towards Swarb and later Fairport incarnations. Despite the focus on the core founder members plus Sandy Denny, there is almost no mention of their achievements after the mid-eighties, which leaves the story feeling incomplete.
So, a worthwhile read, but best in conjunction with a selection of other books for the whole picture.