CHUD Album of the Month: Fairport Convention & The Blind Boys of Alabama

Where the arts are concerned, I'm not much of a purist: I'm generally less interested in whether something adheres to the conventions of a particular genre, than I am in those artists and artifacts that can effectively mix different genres. Doesn't always work, of course-- in fact, it can sometimes be embarrassingly awkward (see: William Russo's "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Orchestra")-- but when it does work, it produces some of my favorite music. My choices for this month reflect that kind of synthesis: in this case, old (sometimes centuries-old) traditional music, interpreted via the modern mainstays of rock and roll and the blues.

As before, I've managed to make this introduction so long-winded that it'll take me a few postings to get through it all. Hopefully, you'll find it worth your time. And, again, apologies to non-US listeners about the lala.com links. Hopefully, you'll be able to track them down elsewhere.

Fairport Convention: Liege & Lief (1969)



In 1969, Fairport Convention was a marginally successful, critically-acclaimed band of somewhat shambolic British hippies, regarded as a sort of transatlantic cousin to Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Though they wrote some original songs and dabbled in a bit of folk music, Fairport was mostly enamored of the writing of their North American contemporaries, recording songs by Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and (lots of) Bob Dylan, among others.

From their 1968 debut, much attention focused on the electrifying guitar playing of Richard Thompson: just 18 at the time of its recording, but able to evoke Charlie Christian, Cliff Gallup, Celtic pipe bands, and Link Wray with equal ease. By the second album, singer Judy Dyble had left (to join an early version of King Crimson!), and been replaced by the powerfully-voiced Sandy Denny (best known for her vocals on Zep's "Battle of Evermore"), who joined Thompson in contributing strong original songs to the band's repertoire.

In May 1969, just as their third album was to be released, Fairport's band van was in a terrible crash, killing drummer Martin Lamble, and Thompson's girlfriend. The surviving members went into seclusion, trying to decide how, or if, to continue. During this time, they found themselves listening over and over to The Band's debut album Music From Big Pink, obsessed with its vivid sense of place, of being rooted in American soil and musical tradition (ironic, given that most of The Band were Canadian); the fact that such traditional music often dealt with the reality of death at first hand would naturally engage the interest of the young band members who had just similarly stared into its face. At the urging of fiddler Dave Swarbrick, Fairport decided to record an entire album with similar roots in Britain's musical and historical past, one that would, like Big Pink, be as much "rock" as "folk."

The result, released that December, was Liege & Lief, an album regularly cited among the most influential British albums ever. Thompson is less out front this time, instead playing equal partner with Swarbrick (though it's astonishing to hear the fluid ease with which the young Thompson doubles Swarbrick's rippling fiddle lines). The album is dominated by Denny's singing (she takes all the lead vocals), and it's a tour de force for her.

Liege & Lief opens with the rollicking "Come All Ye," gleefully announcing Fairport's new direction. The stately, ominous "Reynardine" is an ancient ballad of a young woman's encounter with a "trickster" character; the deliberate omission of the concluding verse leaves her fate ambiguous.

What comes next is pretty much where the album wins over the listener, or doesn't. "Matty Groves" is a tale of lust, class conflict, and death, and Denny tears into it, subtly shading her voice for different characters, alternately seductive, brash, outraged, fearful, resigned. The rhythm section of Dave Mattacks and Ashley Hutchings churns, while Thompson and Swarbrick swirl doom around every line. After the "story" concludes, there's an abrupt shift into a higher gear, and fiddle and guitar are suddenly spinning the band into a mad, dervish-like dance.

Side One of the original album ends with Thompson's "Farewell, Farewell," a bleak song of partings and endings set to a traditional tune, and the pause that used to be required to flip the LP over is appropriate to let Denny's haunting voice ring in the listener's ears: "Farewell, farewell to you who would hear / You lonely travelers all / The cold north wind will blow again / The winding road does call."

Side Two opens with the traditional "The Deserter," no casual choice at the height of the Vietnam war. It's followed by Swarbrick and Thompson leading the band in a spirited set of jigs and reels, and then by "Tam Lin," another extended epic with Denny drawing us into a tale of a young girl, a fairy curse, an enchanted knight, mysterious pregnancy, shape-shifting… let's just say that Colin Meloy is more than slightly familiar with this song.

Liege & Lief concludes with Thompson's "Crazy Man Michael," an adaptation of a folk tale, on the emerging Thompson theme of the random cruelty of the human heart; the judgmental coldness in Denny's vocal is heartbreaking.

(As you might expect, there's a newer CD version with some nice outtakes tacked on, but they don't enhance the programming of the original album)

The effect of Liege & Lief was not what anyone would have predicted: though it slightly boosted the band's commercial profile, it split Fairport artistically: much of the band was now enthusiastic about digging deeper into the available folk material, while Denny and Thompson were more interested in recording their own songs, and both would leave the band shortly. Offshoots and successors (including Horslips, Clannad, Jethro Tull, and The Albion Band) would soon follow, and continue through musical generations: Steeleye Span, formed by Fairport bassist Ashley Hutchings, counted among its members Terry Woods, who would later go on to join The Pogues.

Sandy Denny died in 1978, while Fairport has, with a few breaks and many personnel shifts, continued to this day. Thompson remains friendly with them: various Fairporters have recorded and toured with him over the years, and he reunites onstage with Fairport each year at their Cropredy music festival; in 2007, the original band members, with The Albion Band's Chris While filling in for Denny on vocals, performed Liege & Lief in its entirety there.

For those interested in further Fairport, there are various anthologies, but the original band's output is manageably small: Fairport Convention is the 1968 debut (unreleased in the US till the 70's); the Denny/Thompson albums, all brilliant, are What We Did On Our Holidays (also called Fairport Convention in the US), Unhalfbricking, and Liege & Lief (ALL from 1969!). Thompson sticks around for 1970's excellent Full House before departing, and Denny returns for 1975's somewhat disappointing Rising For The Moon. Plus, of course, there's more great music in Denny's sadly truncated solo career, and Thompson's staggeringly prolific one. I won't even attempt to sort out the vast post-Thompson Fairport album catalog.

There are several good live recordings of Fairport/Thompson reunion shows: I'd recommend the single-disk Moat On The Ledge (from one of the earliest Cropredy shows in 1981): it misses Denny's voice, of course, but Thompson's guitar is absolutely on fire throughout (which is actually true of pretty much any Thompson live recording).

Blind Boys of Alabama: Spirit of the Century (2001)



I have a lot less to say about my second choice, because it's not a landmark, or particularly groundbreaking, it's just fun.

The Blind Boys of Alabama were formed in 1939, at a school for the blind (at present, I believe that two of the original members are alive and still active with the group), and began recording in the late 40's. Their classic gospel recordings caught the ear of many contemporary pop performers, and they eventually began contributing backing vocals to albums by artists like Ben Harper and Peter Gabriel.

Given that, it was just a short step to the Blind Boys eventually stepping out front and recording a contemporary album of their own, and the result was Spirit of the Century, layering their rich gospel harmonies onto a mixture of secular and devotional tunes, in bluesy arrangements featuring such players as David Lindley, Charlie Musselwhite, John Hammond, Danny Thompson, and Michael Jerome. The resultant album is absolutely not for gospel purists, nor for anyone who has trouble with singers professing their devotion to Jehovah or his son; but for anyone who enjoys some funky blues with heavenly vocals, it's pure sonic pleasure.

Its best-known track is the cover of Tom Waits' "Way Down In The Hole" that was used as the theme for Season 1 of The Wire (and makes Waits' own version sound unnecessarily overwrought). Other choice cuts include "Run On For A Long Time" (one of Elvis' best gospel numbers), the Stones' "Just Wanna See His Face," "Amazing Grace" (set to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun," an association that would have scandalized the Boys' churchgoing audiences), and the insanely catchy "Soldier," propelled by Lindley's frenetic fretting.

Spirit of the Century led to several enjoyable followup albums, including Higher Ground and Atom Bomb ("Everybody's worried / about that atom bomb / No one seems worried / About the day My Lord will come"), featuring great covers of songs like "Presence of the Lord," "Many Rivers to Cross," and "Spirit in the Sky" (yes, that one).

As I say, not particularly groundbreaking (The Chambers Brothers were doing something similar in the 60's), but beautifully executed. And, as with Liege & Lief, it's an album that taps into the fundamental impulses of human expression that make up the folk and spiritual traditions.

And there is actually another tangential connection between my two choices: bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Michael Jerome, who play on Spirit of the Century, are regular members of Richard Thompson's current band (and, no, the two Thompsons aren't related).

I suspect he got the melody from the recording of "Willy O'Winsbury" by Sweeney's Men-- whose members went on to play in bands ranging from Planxty to Joe Cocker's Grease Band to Wings... and whose Terry Woods would, as I cited, later form Steeleye Span with Fairport bassist Ashley Hutchings before eventually joining The Pogues.