Jim Borrows will not be a name many people will have heard of but back in July, after a lifetime of playing piano primarily for his own amusement, he fulfilled a long-held ambition of releasing his debut album. Of course, many musicians have trodden a similar path and while many aspects of the modern-day music industry may be broken, technology has made it easier than ever for emerging artists to record and release new music these days.
What immediately marks Borrows’ venture out from many others, however, is the friends he’s been able to call upon to bring his dream to fruition. Firstly, it’s produced by experienced multi-instrumentalist and highly talented producer, James Wood, who also contributes guitars, keyboards, percussion and backing vocals to the album.
James wood, Jim Borrows and Dave Pegg
Moreover, and of particular interest to any fans of folk rock legends Fairport Convention, it features the band’s veteran bass-player, Dave Pegg, who contributes bass, mandolin and electric guitar. And just to underline the Fairport connections even further, the album also features an additional guest appearance from the band’s fiddle supremo, Ric Sanders, who contributes electric violin on one track, a cover of Dylan’s ‘Seven Days’.
As Sanders recollects in this summer’s Cropredy festival programme, Borrows’ and Fairport’s paths first crossed when the band were doing some of their European riverboat cruises and they performed various themed karaoke nights together. “Jim was without doubt the star performer,” noted Sanders. “Not only a great singer but also a fine pianist.”
Anyone who has seen Fairport on stage with guest artists will know that Peggy and co. can turn their hand to a whole panoply of musical styles, far beyond the folk rock canon with which they are most closely associated. Carry Me Back To My Old Front Door is no exception.
Featuring seven of Borrows’ own compositions and alongside six Bob Dylan covers and a couple of further covers of Neil Young and Sandy Denny songs, it’s an entertaining album. Borrows own compositions are highly personal chronicles of a range of his experiences and thoughts on themes including time, life and love; and they reflect his multiple influences, including The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Sleeve notes and lyrics for the self-penned compositions are contained in the detailed twelve-page CD liner notes.
With Borrows’ piano and vocals front and centre, ably assisted by the hugely talented Pegg and Wood, Carry Me Back To My Old Front Door creates a jazzy, bluesy singer-song-writer vibe with some compelling rock elements. It’s well worth checking out.
As Fairport Convention’s own Chris Leslie sums it up: “A lovely album with some fab song writing from Jim.”
Released: 18 July 2025 – Available to stream and download from all major platforms. For CDs, contact jimborrows@yahoo.co.uk
Following a triumphant sold-out Cropredy festival this summer (see my review here), folk rock legends Fairport Convention embark on an Autumn 2025 UK tour.
Playing as a stripped back four-piece, Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Ric Sanders and Chris Leslie will take to the road in October with 23 dates across England, Scotland and Wales, rounding things off in Liverpool on November 2nd.
Interviewing Dave Pegg earlier in the year, he emphasised how important playing live still was to the band:
“We still enjoy touring enormously and treading the boards has always been what Fairport is good at. We’ve had more success playing live than we’ve had making albums.”
You can read my full interview with Dave Pegg here.
Dave Pegg at Cropredy- Photo: Simon Putman
2025 marks 40 years since the Gladys’ Leap album – the first of the reunited Fairport Convention, featuring Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg and the first contributions from Ric Sanders.
Interviewing Ric Sanders ahead of this summer’s Cropredy, we discussed the Gladys’ Leap album, and how Sanders thought he was merely being asked to contribute to a Dave Pegg side project when he first got the call:
“Peggy had this offshoot group – a fun outfit it was – and they were called Dave Pegg’s Cocktail Cowboys, of which Chris was a member as well. At this time, around about ‘85, I was just doing jazz gigs around the Midlands. Just going out, playing with different rhythm sections, like jazz musicians used to. And it wasn’t hugely lucrative, but I got by. Peggy sent me this tape and I thought he was asking me to play on a Cocktail Cowboys record because I had no idea that Swarb had decided that he didn’t want to carry on with Fairport. And so when the tape arrived and I listened to it, I thought, hello? Well, that’s Peggy playing the bass, obviously. That’s Dave Mattacks on drums. And that guitar I could tell straight away. And yeah, it turned out to be Gladys’ Leap. And I went along and my first day was just recording those three tracks that I did on the album. The standout track for me, and the one that stayed in the repertoire, is ‘The Hiring Fair’.”
You can read my full interview with Ric Sanders here.
Ric Sanders – Photo Kevin Smith
Fairport Convention’s Autumn Tour runs from 8th October to 2nd November, with some shows already sold out. Tickets are available to purchase now on the links below.
Fairport Convention – Autumn 2025 UK Tour
Wed, 8th Oct 2025 The Green Hotel, Kinross – TICKETS
Thu, 9th Oct 2025 The Green Hotel, Kinross – TICKETS
Fri, 10th Oct 2025 Byre Theatre, St Andrews – SOLD OUT
When tickets for Cropredy 2025 went on sale, it was announced that there would be some changes to the festival this year, with far fewer tickets available. Interviewing Fairport’s Dave Pegg back in January, he explained the thinking behind the new approach as follows:
“Gareth Williams our CEO came up with several formulas for trying to make it pay. It’s always been such a gamble, the last couple of years especially. Because when you don’t know how many tickets you are going to sell, you can’t budget. You’re guessing about the number of people who are going to turn up. Gareth’s idea – we’re only going to sell 6,500 tickets and we’re only selling three-day tickets. Because we know we’ve got that lump of income and we can budget accordingly without the risk of going bankrupt.“
As well as fewer tickets, the festival line-up was to look somewhat different, too. The era of big-name headline acts like Chic and Madness and Alice Cooper, who had previously graced the Cropredy stage in a bid to widen the festival’s appeal and get more bums on (folding) seats, was over. Instead, there would be far more focus on acts that the festival organisers knew and had worked alongside.
The big question, therefore, is did this new formula work? Clearly, there was no problem shifting tickets, with the vast majority being snapped up by February and with the festival selling out well in advance. Arriving at the campsite on the Thursday afternoon, it didn’t feel much different, although a couple of fields previously used for camping had apparently been taken out of use.
The Cropredy crowd (Photo: Simon Putman)
I was also wondering whether the slimmed-down attendance would leave us all rattling around in the main arena field but it didn’t feel like that at all. Walkways had been rejigged, the big screens at either side of the stage had been replaced by a single screen at the back of the stage but overall it very much felt like the same old Cropredy I’d been going to for the past fifteen years.
Richard Digance up on the big screen (Photo: Simon Putman)
So, enough of the festival arrangements, what of the music? I must admit that one of the real attractions for me when I first started going to Cropredy in 2010 was the mix of folk, acoustic and classic rock acts. I loved having Status Quo and Rick Wakeman and Little Feat alongside Thea Gilmore and Breabach and Bellowhead. Unlike some of the diehard Cropredy goers, I was perhaps more worried about the potential for the new ‘Friends of Fairport’ formula to squeeze out some of the rockier elements. That didn’t happen at all though. I got my fix of both folk and classic rock, in some respects more than I could possibly have hoped for.
Joe Broughton’s Conservatoire Folk Ensemble join Fairport Acoustic on stage (Photo: Simon Putman)
On the folky side, obvious highlights for me included Joe Broughton’s Conservatoire Folk Ensemble, whose massed ranks begun their set by joining Fairport Acoustic on stage, for an epic rendition of ‘The Lark In The Morning’ instrumental medley from the Liege & Lief album. Scottish folk band Skipinnish were another highlight for me, with a thrillingly energetic set, my second time seeing them this summer as they also performed at the New Forest Folk Festival. A special mention, too, should go to the kids of Cropredy Primary School Folk Class who kicked things off at the festival. We only made it in time to hear their last couple of songs but what a wonderful idea to link the village and the festival this way and how lovely it was seeing the huge cheer for them as they made their way from the backstage area afterwards to a waiting gaggle of proud parents.
The traditional hanky waving during Richard Digance’s set (Photo: Simon Putman)
On the rock side, the festival organisers demonstrated that you didn’t need to be in the megabucks league to attract some decent classic rock acts. My many years of going to music weekends at Butlins showed me that it’s perfectly possible to line up some talented rock names without bankrupting yourself.
Trevor Horn (Photo: Simon Putman)
The Trevor Horn Band, making their third appearance at Cropredy, were hugely entertaining as ever, blasting out a deluge of hits that Horn had had a hand in, from Frankie Goes To Hollywood, to Buggles to Yes – with the added bonus of Lol Creme of 10CC on guitar and some Godley & Crème/10CC hits thrown in, too! They were originally booked under the old formula for the previous year, however, and had to reschedule because of illness so the situation was slightly different.
Martin Barre (Photo: Simon Pitman)
The same cannot be said for Martin Barre (ex-Jethro Tull) and Deborah Bonham (sister of Led Zep drummer, John) whose sets were clear highlights of the weekend, none more so than the latter whose special guest almost certainly provided the highlight of the weekend for many, with none other than Robert Plant stepping on to the stage to perform sizzling versions of ‘Ramble On’ and ‘Thank You’ from Led Zeppelin’s second album. It doesn’t get much better than that at Cropredy.
Robert Plant joins the Deborah Bonham Band on stage (Photo: Darren Johnson)
I didn’t get to see everyone who performed and there were acts (like Bob Fox & Billy Mitchell) I would have liked to have seen but didn’t. However, I’ve never spent the entire day in the field from mid-day to midnight. For me, time spent at the campsite, catching up with friends early in the evening and relaxing ahead of a late night finish, is as much part of the Cropredy experience for me as the music. Plus, in the last few years, our camping group has also chosen to spend a little bit of time at the Cream of the Crop festival in the adjoining field and this time we got there just in time for an explosive set by the excellent Burnt Out Wreck, the band fronted by former Heavy Pettin’ drummer, Gary Moat. No-one can say I didn’t get my fill of hard rock at Cropredy this year!
Burnt Out Wreck at Cream of the Crop next door (Photo: Simon Putman)
Fairport Convention, of course, rounded things off on the Saturday night with their usual mammoth set featuring a mix of familiar old favourites, revisited deep cuts, covers with guest artists (this time Ralph McTell and Danny Bradley) and more recent material penned by the band’s own Chris Leslie. While a couple of our camping group head back to the campsite before the end, missing ‘Matty Groves’ and ‘Meet On The Ledge’ is not something I could ever contemplate so we make our way to the front in time for a rousing ‘Matty’ (with accompanying animated video hilariously interpreting the storyline through the medium of Lego) and an always emotional ‘Meet on the Ledge’.
Ralph McTell is a guest during Fairport’s set (Photo: Simon Putman)
While it was the end of Cropredy for another year, it wasn’t quite the end of our camping trip as we had booked for several days at a lovely campsite ten miles away, just outside Barford St. Michael. The spirit of Cropredy was never far away though. The village of Barford St Michael, itself, was once home to Dave Pegg and the studio he established, Woodworm Studios, where Fairport recorded numerous albums. The studio is still in operation, although no longer owned by Peggy these days.
The Hook Norton Brewery (Photo: Simon Putman)
While camping, we also took a trip to the village of Hook Norton for a tour of the Hook Norton Brewery, who in recent years became the official suppliers for the Cropredy festival bar, taking over from Wadworth. It’s an absolutely fascinating tour of this historic nineteenth century site and our engaging tour-guide was himself a Cropredy regular who had spent many years working at the festival. If you are extending your stay in the Oxfordshire countryside and want to find out how the beer at the Cropredy bar is brewed and learn more about the history of the brewery, it’s well worth a visit!
Ahead of this year’s Cropredy festival, I catch up with Fairport Convention’s Ric Sanders. We talk about first learning to play the violin at primary school, about getting his big break with Soft Machine and the invitation to play on Fairport’s Gladys’ Leap album forty years ago this year – and, of course, this year’s Cropredy line-up.
If we can talk about your very early days first, when did you first pick up a violin?
Well, I took it up when we were in junior school. The whole class had six weeks of being taught to play the violin. I mean, it’s nowhere near enough time. It was just six weeks and we had this teacher called Mr. Tunnicliffe. He’ll be long gone now but we used to call him Ten-ton Tunnicliffe because he was quite portly. But he played the violin and he taught us. He got the whole class playing a pattern on the open strings. And then with great bravura, Ten-ton Tunnicliffe would play this jig over the top of it. Very simple thing and most of the class didn’t get on too well with it. But after that third week, I could play the tune that Ten-ton Tunnicliffe was playing. I could just do it. I don’t know why. But I wasn’t interested because I wanted to be an astronaut or a scientist. So, when the six weeks ended – and I’ve never told this to an interviewer before – I forgot all about it. They weren’t our violins – they were provided by whoever – and then I forgot about it. In actual fact, seriously, I took up playing the violin again when I was 17. Because I was 17 in, I guess, the summer of love and I’d always liked the Beatles and the Stones and stuff.
Before that, my dad was an RAF radio operator. And he was stationed in Limavady in Northern Ireland during the war with the Americans, liaising with their radio people. That was his war gig. And he came back from the war festooned with nylons and chocolates and a whole stack of 78 records. Lots of the great jazz players, like Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa and all sorts, basically. And I started to hear this jazz and I kind of really liked that.
I have an elder brother, Mike, who would buy all the records. So, when there was the Trad Jazz boom, Mike bought all the Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball… Chris Barber Band, which was my favourite, because they really rocked. And then he bought all the Beatles and the Stones’ stuff. So, the first thing I ever had to buy using my own pocket money was in fact Magical Mystery Tour. But it was Sergeant Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour that made me think this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be a musician.
But I hadn’t got a guitar or a bass. I wouldn’t have taken up the drums because there’s too much to carry around. Or a keyboard. I hadn’t got any of those things but there was an old violin that my grandma had in the loft. So, I got it out of the loft, scraped all the varnish off it, polyurethaned it, filled it with cotton wool to stop feedback, and got a contact microphone that I bought from an advert in the back of the Melody Maker magazine. It cost me 19 and 6, and I strapped it to the fiddle with a few rubber bands. And I learned the riff from ‘Willie the Pimp’ by Frank Zappa on his Hot Rats album. And that was the start of it.
My mum and dad, they were hoping I was going to have some sort of academic career or be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher or something. Quite understandable. But my mum was a good singer and my dad played. They come from a Salvation Army background so he played in the Salvation Army brass band and stuff. So, both my folks were musical and once I convinced them that I was really earnest about doing this, they were with me all the way.
And at that time, around about ‘68, ‘69, it was when you began to hear great fiddle players in the world of rock. And then, of course, I got into jazz as well and listened to Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. Stephane was a phenomenal violin player, one of the greatest ever. But I was also listening to David LaFlamme from It’s a Beautiful Day. And I was listening to Jerry Goodman from The Flock and then the Mahavishnu Orchestra. And Sugarcane Harris, who was amazing. He played on the Hot Rats album and played the violin like a blues harmonica, it sounded like. He was the bluesiest ever and was probably my main influence. Jean-Luc Ponty, of course, who may be the most high-profile modern jazz violinist, I guess.
And, also, I was listening to some great fiddle players in the UK. Of course, there was Dave Swarbrick. I play nothing like Dave Swarbrick. I can’t. Chris Leslie can. Chris Leslie can do an impression. He can even do the voice!
The first big band that I played in was with Stomu Yamashta, a Japanese avant-garde percussionist. Stomu Yamashta Red Buddha Theatre. I did a six-week European tour with him as a dep because his wife played the electric violin but she had to go back to Japan to visit her elderly parent.
So that was your first professional gig then?
Yeah, that was my first, Stomu Yamashta. I knew it was only a short-term thing and I went and auditioned for it in a room above a London pub. And there was a queue of violinists all around the block and somehow, I got the gig. And then the real big break in my life came joining Soft Machine. Because John Marshall, the drummer, got to hear me playing with Michael Garrick, the great jazz pianist who I’d written to. I’d sent him a cassette of me playing some Chick Corea tunes and said, “Can I come and see you for jazz harmony lessons?” And he said, “Better than that. Come and do a few gigs with us.”
So, I did. And John Marshall was the drummer on one of those gigs. And Soft Machine – their soprano saxophone player, Alan Wakeman, who’s Rick’s cousin, he’d left because he got a gig being musical director for David Essex. And they couldn’t find a replacement but the violin kind of occupies that same sonic range, not totally, but pretty much. And so, I got the gig in Soft Machine.
And then I’d also sent a tape to Ashley Hutchings. And having done Stomu’s thing, which was only short term, at the end of the 70s I found myself in the exciting position of being in both Soft Machine and the Albion Band, which, of course, included Ashley Hutchings, Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks and Michael Gregory and Graham Taylor.
So that was your foot in the door into the world of folk rock then?
Yeah, and through that I met Andy Cronshaw and June Tabor and Martin Simpson and we used to play a lot together. I don’t consider myself a gifted folk player in the way that Dave Swarbrick was or the way Chris Leslie was. I’m basically a jazz rocker really and I play everything like it’s the blues. That’s my cunning secret. I play everything like it’s the blues.
But that was always part of Fairport’s DNA anyway it was never just a pure folk band.
That’s true. And, you know, Richard Thompson could play anything. And Simon Nicol he’s underrated as a guitarist. He is an incredibly good guitarist. People say that there’s been so many musicians in Fairport Convention. There’s been 29 musicians but that was all in the early days. I joined in 1985, my first album being ‘Gladys’ Leap’, which is what we’ll be celebrating because it’s the 40th anniversary. It’s my 40th anniversary as well. So, Richard guested on that album. I appeared as a guest. I recorded it in April ’85, I think and here I am 40 years later.
So how did it come about then, being invited to play on Gladys’ Leap?I think you did three tracks on that?
I did three tracks, yeah. And what had happened was that Fairport had been pretty inactive, really, except for the festival. There hadn’t been a Fairport band from, you know, 1980 to 85. And the three main members were Simon and Peggy and Dave Mattacks, or DM, as we call him. And they’d got a bunch of new material. And Peggy, was in Jethro Tull at the time which gave him the financial security to be able to build Woodworm Studios at his home in Barford St Michael. It’s no longer Peggy’s but Woodworm Studios is a great place and still is and that was where the album was recorded. And Peggy gave me a call because we go back a quite a long way because our dads knew each other.
So, it all kind of slotted into place and I never expected to be in Fairport because they’d got one of the most phenomenal fiddle players of all time, Dave Swarbrick. But Swarb didn’t want to do the Gladys’ Leap album because he wasn’t into the material. And he’d just formed Whippersnapper with Chris Leslie. I think Chris was in the frame for joining Fairport, but he declined because he’d just formed this band with Swarb and Chris is very loyal. And Fairport had been inactive for years and Whippersnapper had a full diary.
So, I got the next call. And when Peggy called, he said, “I want you to play on some recordings I’m doing. I’ll send you a cassette.” Peggy had this offshoot group – a fun outfit it was – and they were called Dave Pegg’s Cocktail Cowboys, of which Chris was a member as well. At this time, around about ‘85, I was just doing jazz gigs around the Midlands. Just going out, playing with different rhythm sections, like jazz musicians used to. And it wasn’t hugely lucrative, but I got by. Peggy sent me this tape and I thought he was asking me to play on a Cocktail Cowboys record because I had no idea that Swarb had decided that he didn’t want to carry on with Fairport. And so when the tape arrived and I listened to it, I thought, hello? Well, that’s Peggy playing the bass, obviously. That’s Dave Mattacks on drums. And that guitar I could tell straight away. And yeah, it turned out to be Gladys’ Leap. And I went along and my first day was just recording those three tracks that I did on the album. The standout track for me, and the one that stayed in the repertoire, is ‘The Hiring Fair’.
Yeah, and a real fan favourite alongside the older material.
It really is. Well, Ralph (McTell) has contributed hugely to our repertoire. Also, Dave Mattacks, apart from being one of the world’s greatest drummers, is a very accomplished keyboard player with an incredible ear for harmonies and the instrumental section is actually written and arranged by Dave Mattacks. Well, it was right up my street because it’s not overtly folky. And I just played like I would do if it was a jazz rock thing that I was doing. So, I think probably that track more than any other helped me get the gig.
And then Maartin Allcock was recruited and as I say there’s been many people in Fairport but since I joined, which is now 40 years ago, there have only been two changes of line-up really. Which is when Maartin Allcock decided to move on and is sadly no longer with us. And when DM moved to America because he was getting so many sessions, and Gerry Conway joined the band. And of course, Gerry passed away, which is very sad. He was with us for 25 years. But now we’ve got DM. We were kind of stuck, you know. What were we going to do on the winter tour and Cropredy? And so now DM comes over from America for the winter tour and for Cropredy, which is great.
Photo credit: Kevin Smith
So just going back to 1985, you didn’t play Cropredy that year because obviously Dave Swarbrick was still booked to perform at the festival.
Yeah, I went on the Friday night. It was a two-day festival at the time. I couldn’t stay for the Saturday because I had to get up at the crack of dawn and go to Edinburgh because I was playing at the Edinburgh Festival with a dear friend of mine who I’ve just been recording with recently again, a guy called Phil Nicol. We did two weeks at the Edinburgh fringe and what our gig was, was playing half a dozen numbers at the end of a comedy cabaret. Some of Phil’s songs, and we also did ‘May You Never’ by John Martyn and we did ‘Every Breath You Take’ which had been big at that time. By the way, I should tell you that the main star of the comedy cabaret that we did in Edinburgh was Julian Clary, who was incredibly funny. And at that time, called himself the Joan Collins Fan Club featuring Fanny the Wonderdog.
The Joan Collins Fanclub (and Fanny): 1980s publicity shot
I remember because he was on Channel 4 a lot in those early days.
Yeah. He was great. I mean, you know, never heckle Julian. Never. And he would improvise. We would do two shows a day and the shows were different every time. And he’d do this thing where he’d go and find a lady’s handbag and go through it and improvise a routine from the contents. He was absolutely wonderful. Also, there was Jeremy Hardy, the late Jeremy Hardy. He was a great comedian. He was on that. So that was a great show. Yeah, that’s why I couldn’t go to the Saturday Fairport!
But soon after you did become a full-time member. What did it feel like taking over the fiddle player’s role in Fairport Convention from Dave Swarbrick?
Do you know, I wasn’t really that nervous about it. A little bit, I mean, I was nervous a little bit just because Swarb was not just such a great musician but such a such a great personality. His personality was stamped on Fairport. But actually, I get more nervous now than I did was when I was a kid because when you’re that young – I was only in my very early 30s when I joined Fairport – and I’d already played with some incredible musicians. Carl Jenkins, John Ethridge, Alan Holdsworth. I played with these guys. John McLaughlin, you know, I jammed with John McLaughlin. Toured with his group, Shakti. Not as part of his group but with Soft Machine and John McLaughlin doing a doubleheader tour of Europe. So, you know, I had the sort of cockiness of youth. I was young and I wasn’t too scared. I get more nervous now, actually. I’m 72 now. I thought when I got to this sort of an age, I’d be bulletproof but it’s been the reverse.
I remember the first concert that we did was at the Sir George Robey pub in London and from the word go, the Fairport audience were really good to me. And I’ve heard it said since – well Chris Leslie has said, “I wouldn’t have been the right person for the job because I would have sounded like Swarb at the time.” I mean, Chris has got his own style totally now. I was completely different because I couldn’t play like Swarb. I had to come at it from a completely different angle. So, I couldn’t be a replacement for Dave Swarbrick. It was something different.
Photo credit: Kevin Smith
Looking back over the last 40 years, what have been some of your favourite recordings in Fairport? You mentioned ‘Hiring Fair’ obviously.
I guess one of the things that I really love doing because I’m not a songwriter – Chris is a brilliant songwriter and has gone from strength to strength – but I write instrumentals. That’s what I do because that’s what I always did. And I’ve loved writing things like ‘Portmeirion’, which is my most well-known tune, I think, that people kind of like.
And another absolute standard that stands up so well alongside the older material.
Yeah, which is very gratifying. And ‘The Rose Hip’ and tunes like that. I’ve loved writing ‘Summer in December’ and stuff. They’re ballads that have got a folkish-type melody, but kind of jazzy in harmony ways. So that’s been really great to do. And, also, when I first started to write fast instrumentals for Fairport, I would just write imitation medleys. Because that was the pattern that was brilliantly done on Liege & Lief with ‘The Lark in the Morning’. When you take a jig and a reel and a hornpipe or whatever and you put three or four trad tunes as a kind of medley. So, you know, I wrote a number of those, a sort of imitation using the template of those tunes.
But then, around about Festival Bell time, I started to write instrumentals. The old way of writing, I’d write the tunes on the fiddle and then harmonise them. But then when you got to tunes like ‘Danny Jack’s Reward’ and ‘The Gallivant and ‘Steampunkery’, which is the one that’s in the repertoire at the moment, I would write those from the rhythm section up. I’d write the band part first, then find a melody to put over it. And I wasn’t sure if the band would go for that style of stuff, but that proved to be OK. One of my favourite things, which you can see on YouTube, is doing my tune ‘The Gallivant’ with the brilliant Joe Broughton and his Conservatoire Folk Ensemble, who are on the Thursday at Cropredy. Joe arranged the brass section for it. He’s a brilliant musician and I love working with him.
Is there anything else you want to tell us about Cropredy this year before we wrap up?
Well, we’ve got a great line-up. Thursday, Albert Lee, one of the world’s greatest guitarists. I’m sure he finishes his show with ‘Country Boy’. I don’t think they’d let him out of the venue alive if he didn’t finish with ‘Country Boy’. On Thursday, Peatbog Faeries, Joe Broughton with his Conservatoire Folk Ensemble, as I just mentioned. And of course, we kick it off on the Thursday with Fairport Acoustic, just a welcoming set. And then I think we’re going to get Broughton and co. to come on and do a number with us, to cross over. Also, the lovely Rosalie Cunningham is on Thursday. And I might be playing with her as well because I played on her last two albums. It’s kind of prog rock, you know, so it’s great. So that will be an exciting Thursday.
Photo credit: Sam Reynolds
And then we’ve got the Trevor Horn band on Friday. Last year, Trevor had to cancel because of illness so he’s headlining on Friday. And you never know who Trevor Horn’s going to turn up with, what style that he’s produced is going to show up.
Yeah, that’s always a hugely entertaining part.
I’m hoping he brings Holly Johnson some time. I’d love to see ‘Relax’ at Cropredy. It would be great. So, we’ve got Trevor Horn, Joe Broughton, again, in the Urban Folk Quartet. And some bands that I don’t actually know who they are. El Pony Pisador. Well, I don’t know that group. And City Funk Orchestra. And Skipinnish.
And then, of course, there’s King Pleasure and the Biscuit Boys. We’ve got the Church Fitters, Plumhall, who opened up for us, not this year, but the year before, which is great. And the day starts with the Cropredy Primary School folk class so that will be lovely. And then on the Saturday, we’ve got Richard Digance, of course. And the Deborah Bonham band, brilliant. Martin Barre from Jethro Tull. Bob Fox and Billy Mitchell, they’ll be brilliant. Who’s headlining? Oh, we are! Yeah. So, we have no doubt guests who I don’t know who….
So, there will be some surprises for us on the Saturday and some surprises for you by the sound of things!
Yeah, yeah. Chris Leslie and I don’t take much of a role in the organisation part, or DM. The triumvirate that runs the festival is Dave Pegg – of course, there wouldn’t be a festival, there wouldn’t be a Fairport without Peggy – and Simon Nicol and Gareth Williams, the festival director. So, they’re the guys in the driving seat. And I just, you know, turn up and play. Maybe tell a few jokes. But it’s great. I never in my life, for a minute, thought I would be in Fairport. I was always a fan, a massive fan of the group. And I knew pretty much all of the guys before I joined. But you know, Fairport is more than a band to me. It’s like my family as well. And we really have that feeling. We see so many bands fall apart and have arguments and whatever but it’s not like that with Fairport.
And occasionally I’ve been told by Simon and Peggy sometimes in the past I’ve played a little too jazzy and put in some scales that they don’t think were appropriate. They say, “Don’t do that!” And when they say that I think about it, and I think, “You know what they’re right, you know. No, you don’t need seven flat nines in ‘Walk Awhile.’ Just forget it!” So, yeah, it’s just a very happy band, really. And I don’t know how many years it will carry on. Until we drop, really, I think.
Reviewing Odette Michell’s debut album for the much-missed fRoots magazine back in 2019, I wrote that The Wildest Rose was “one of the stand-out debuts of 2019”. Lots of commentators expressed similar levels of enthusiasm and she soon found herself on many people’s ‘one to watch’ lists that year.
Since then, Michell has performed alongside the likes of Show of Hands, as well as opening for folk luminaries like Martin Carthy, Phil Beer, Reg Meuross and Ninebarrow amongst others. She’s also recently begun performing with Karen Pfeiffer and Daria Kulesh in a new trio formation: Michell, Pfeiffer & Kulesh. However, it’s been quite some wait for a follow-up solo album – but finally it’s here.
Comprising ten original songs, The Queen of the Lowlands features an impressive line-up of guest musicians, including Chris Leslie, Phil Beer, Lukas Drinkwater, Vicki Swann and Stu Hanna (who also produced); alongside additional vocal contributions from Daria Kulesh, Calum Gilligan and the duo, Ninebarrow.
Reviewing Michell’s debut album I noted she had a “knack for writing songs that could easily have been collected over a hundred years ago”. A similar approach is clearly evident on this latest album, as Michell herself acknowledges.
“My approach to songwriting is to try to be as authentic as possible while keeping a foothold in the folk tradition – it’s a balancing act but every song is personal to me at some level.”
Highlights include the gentle nature-themed opening track ‘The Woodlark and the Fieldfare’ with vocal contributions from the equally nature-loving Ninebarrow; the more contemporary-sounding but no less gorgeous ‘Hourglass’, dedicated to Michell’s father and sung as a duet with Callum Gilligan; and the jaunty fiddle-driven closing track ‘All The Bonny Ships’, written about Michell’s Polish grandparents who got separated during WW2 but were miraculously reunited in Britain at the end of the war.
Title track ‘The Queen of the Lowlands’, meanwhile, (which features some characteristically spell-binding fiddle from Fairport’s Chris Leslie) is not about Queen Wilhelmina, the former Dutch monarch, but rather the ship named after her that played a heroic role in the First World War, transporting US troops safely back home. It’s one of several nautical-themed songs on the album, hence the striking cover art.
Following her hugely-impressive debut album, here Odette Michell has gone on to deliver an absolutely stunning follow-up. Infused with her deep appreciation and obvious knowledge of traditional song, The Queen of the Lowlands is a beautiful album with gripping storytelling, crystal-clear vocals and first-class musicianship.
Both at their summer Cropredy Festival and on many of their winter tours, Fairport Convention have long striven to provide a platform for newly-emerging artists. This current tour is no exception. Support, this time, is the Liverpool-based singer-songwriter and finger-style acoustic guitarist, Danny Bradley, whose debut album Small Talk Songs has just been released. With a fine voice, some mesmerising finger-work, a great set of songs and some wryly, self-effacing stage patter (“This is the first time I’ve been on the bill with anyone that my dad’s heard of”) and he opens proceedings very nicely indeed. As is traditional on their winter tours, the Fairport guys join Bradley on stage to act as his backing band for the final song of his set, before launching into their own.
Fairport themselves then kick things off with a rousing rendition of ‘Come All Ye’ from their genre-defining 1969 folk-rock masterpiece Liege & Lief. “An opening song that’s had a few decades off” is how Simon Nicol put it. They then stick with the Sandy Denny era for a version of Denny’s ‘Fothingay’, with beautiful twin fiddles courtesy of Ric Sanders and Chris Leslie. In fact, with the band revisiting a couple of band-composed tracks from the post-85 Fairport, we are almost coming to the end of the first set before we hear anything that can be properly considered a folk song but an equally rousing ‘Claudy Banks’ finally inserts a bit of trad. arr. into the setlist.
That’s followed by Chris Leslie’s own ‘Banbury Fair’ before the band delve back into the early days once more and round off the first half with a magnificently sprawling, brooding version of ‘Sloth’ from the much-celebrated Full House album. As I was soaking up Dave Mattacks’ wonderfully-atmospheric drumming, such an integral part of that song’s epic status on the original album, I’m reminded that with the return of Mattacks (following the retirement and subsequent untimely death of long-time drummer Gerry Conway), we now have three of the five players from that classic 1970 album performing as part of the band’s regular touring line-up. There aren’t many bands who made an album fifty-five years ago who can still claim that sort of on-stage quota!
After a short interval, the second set kicks off with another trad. arr. offering in the form of ‘The Hexhamshire Lass’. When I interviewed Dave Pegg last month ahead of this tour, he told me that the band were prompted to include the song in the set-list for this tour as they would be playing Hexham on Valentine’s night – even though “it’s quite a complicated arrangement”! No matter, even without the legend that was Dave Swarbrick, they do have the incredible musical talents of Sanders and Leslie to draw on for a superb rendition.
Photo credit Kevin Smith
Indeed, as he shares with us when introducing the next tune, it’s now 40 years since Sanders played on his first Fairport album – Gladys’ Leap. Sanders tells the audience that he was phoned up by Pegg who had asked him if he was interested in contributing fiddle to three tracks but initially he had no idea he was being asked to contribute to a Fairport Convention album. Until he heard the tracks, and the distinctive drumming of Dave Mattacks, he assumed he was merely being asked to contribute to one of Pegg’s side projects. Sanders added his fiddle sounds, of course, and the rest is history. So to mark the anniversary of that significant moment in the Fairport chronicles, the band revisit the instrumental medley from Gladys’ Leap, along with a beautifully-evocative version of ‘Hiring Fair’ with some gorgeous keyboard flourishes from Mattacks. Written for them by Ralph McTell, it’s a song that has rightly become a fan favourite over the past four decades.
Back in 2011, the band revisited the whole of their 1971 concept album, Babbacombe Lee, the tale of the convicted murderer who was condemned to death but given a reprieve after the gallows failed three times in succession. Unlike other past albums it’s not usually one where odd tracks are performed live but here we get two, the contemplative ‘Cell Song’ and the exhilarating, death-defying ‘Wake Up John (Hanging Song)’. Just as he did back in 2011 when the band performed the full album live, Leslie does a fine job singing Swarbrick’s original lyrics.
The second set is beginning to draw to a close at this stage but there’s still time for a couple more numbers before the band finish proceedings with the inevitable show-closers. There’s a joyous rendition of ‘Rising For The Moon’, Sandy Denny’s celebration of the simple pleasures of touring and performing. And, after marking Sanders’ induction to the Fairport ranks earlier in the set, we are then reminded that it’s coming up to almost three decades since Chris Leslie joined. It was his second album with the band where he really started coming into his own as the band’s principal contemporary songwriter and they revisit the title track of that album, ‘The Wood and the Wire’, Leslie’s impassioned paean to coveting, cherishing and learning to play a stringed instrument.
As we come up to curfew time there’s normally three things that happen around this point. Firstly, a sales pitch from Simon Nicol about the band’s Cropredy festival in August, followed by two perennial crowd-pleasers ‘Matty Groves’ and ‘Meet On The Ledge’. This year, there’s less of a need for the sales pitch as the now reduced-capacity festival (a financial necessity in the current climate) is very close to selling out. So, after a brief exhortation to check the website in the coming days for the final few tickets, it’s banjo-at-the-ready and time for all nineteen verses of ‘Matty Groves’, some heartfelt applause from an appreciative audience and the inevitable ‘Meet On The Ledge’. Me and my group of camping friends got in nice and early with our Cropredy ticket purchases for this year so I’ll be looking forward to singing along to it once more, as midnight approaches on 9th August. It all comes round again.
Photo credit: Kevin Smith
Setlist:
First set:
Come All Ye Fotheringay I’m Already There The Rose Hip Claudy Banks Banbury Fair Sloth
Second set:
The Hexhamshire Lass Instrumental Medley ’85 The Hiring Fair Cell Song Wake Up John (Hanging Song) Rising for the Moon The Wood and the Wire Matty Groves Meet on the Ledge
Ahead of Fairport Convention’s Winter Tour, I catch up with Dave Pegg. We discuss the making of the Full House album, the crucial role that Jethro Tull played in Fairport’s resurrection, changes afoot at Cropredy this summer so that the festival survives the financial pressures facing the sector and the forthcoming tour, starting 31 January.
We’ll talk about the Winter Tour and about Cropredy later but first I want to start right at the very beginning – well the very beginning for you. I was re-reading the Fairport by Fairport book and it was Swarb who really pushed for you to be auditioned after Ashley left. It seems that the others were a bit sceptical at first?
Well, what happened Swarb used to be in the Ian Campbell Folk Group and he’d left a couple of years before I joined them to go off to play with Martin Carthy. He knew of me through the Campbells because he joined the Campbells for an album that they did. It was just a reunion kind of album and I played on it. He was aware that I wasn’t really a double bass player, which I played with the Campbells. I said, “This isn’t really my instrument, mate. I can get away with it but I’m a bass guitarist. I’m a rock musician really.” He remembered this and when I saw Fairport on my 22nd birthday at Mothers Club, it was the last time the Liege & Lief line-up played together and I was blown away. I thought it was fabulous. I thought I’d love to play with that band and literally the next day I got a call from Swarbrick saying Ashley was leaving and they were looking for a bass player. And that’s how I got the audition. The others were a bit scared because when he said I’d played with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, they thought I’d be like the Aran sweater and the beard, like a proper folkie, but I knew absolutely zilch about folk music at all – and still don’t!
And when you did join did it feel like you’d found your natural home or did it take a while to settle in?
No, I kind of settled in pretty quickly. I mean because the Fairports are great players and they were from the same background as myself. Richard was an astonishing guitarist, even at that age. And the rhythm section, Simon and DM, they were just fantastic to play with. And then there was the added bonus of Swarb who was re-inventing the way that he played the fiddle. Because now he was kind of getting into rock music and was using his Echoplex and he’d got a really crude pickup on his violin made from a telephone (laughs). But it was very early days in terms of electric violin. But the weirder thing about it, we were rehearsing stuff, we’d moved into this place, The Angel at Little Hadham and we were rehearsing songs but without a vocal, without anyone singing. Because, of course, Sandy had left the band as well and it meant the band didn’t have a vocalist so it was a case of drawing straws to see who got the short straw. It was Richard and Swarb who did most of the vocals. Simon, after a while – Simon’s a great singer – but in those days Richard and Swarb hadn’t really sung at all.
Yes, it great how everyone’s confidence as vocalists grew.
Yeah – we made the Full House album. We recorded most of it in London and we went to New York to overdub the vocals. It was made at Sound Techniques in London, engineered by John Wood who was a fantastic engineer and Joe Boyd [producer] allowed us to do whatever we wanted, musically. But Joe kind of trusted the band. What was great about his production for Fairport was the fact that he’d allow us to do whatever we wanted. And he also he knew lots of people in America and we went to New York and we overdubbed most of the vocals in New York, in a studio where Dylan had recently recorded.
Now when I interviewed Simon this time last year, he said this was like being asked to name your favourite child, but I’m going to ask it anyway. What’s your favourite Fairport album?
It’s a very hard one for me because I’ve been involved ever since Full House, which was the first one I played on in 1970. There’s been so many different Fairport line-ups and I find it hard to compare one album against another one. Well, for me, my favourite album before I joined was Unhalfbricking, which I think is a remarkable album. Things like ‘Percy’s Song’ – it’s just incredible that song. I know Dylan really rates that version. Unhalfbricking was my favourite pre-joining Fairport. And the albums that I’ve played on, where there’ve been different line-ups, things like Fairport Nine mean a lot to me because it was a re-establishment with some great players and some great tracks on it. Obviously, Rising for The Moon is another great one for me because it was Sandy coming back. And things like Gladys’s Leap which was again…
Another coming-back album!
Yeah, another coming-back album. And the last one, Shuffle and Go, that we did which I think stands up as good as anything Fairport’s ever recorded. I can’t pick one album. It’s impossible, Darren, for me in that sense!
The second half of the ‘70s looked like it was all going pear-shaped for the folk rock genre. Steeleye Span split up in ’78; Sandy was dead, tragically; Richard and Linda had gone off to a religious commune. Do you think the Cropredy Farewell concert in 1979 played a big part in turning things round again?
Well in terms of turning things around, it was a kind of the end of Fairport as it was because we had split up. Swarb was going to live up in Scotland. There was no longer a working band. I went off and joined Jethro Tull, which was a lucky break for me and I was with them for like fifteen years. And what happened was Cropredy Festival kind of evolved as a get-together, because we’re all mates in Fairport. When we split up there was never really any animosity when people came and then left the band. It was always because they had ideas about what they wanted to do personally. And people like Richard, his talent was too big for Fairport Convention if you like – his ideas about what he wanted to do musically. The group was a bit inhibitive for him. We couldn’t do all the things he wanted. Same with Sandy. We couldn’t do orchestral arrangements. And they were both great songwriters. Well, Richard still is, obviously. But when they left the band the rest of the guys didn’t feel bad about it. We would do everything we could to encourage it. Because we were all mates, it was nice for us to get together.
And, basically, because of Jethro Tull I was in a better situation, financially. My ex-wife, Christine, and myself – we thought it would be nice to keep the band going, even just for a reunion. So, we would plan these things at Cropredy. And we started a little label, Woodworm Records in order to put out our own product and to put out stuff by people who we thought were really good – like we put out an album with Steve Ashley called the Family Album, which is one of my favourite albums. And we made albums with Beryl Marriott and, later on, with Anna Ryder, and Bob Fox. And with Simon Nicol we did two of Simon’s. This was all due, thankfully, to Jethro Tull. Ian [Anderson] and Martin [Barre] kind of adopted me and invited me to join the band and looked after me, financially. So instead of buying a Rolls Royce, I converted a Methodist Chapel – an old chapel next to our cottage in Barford St Michael – into a studio in order that we could make our albums.
In the Fairport book I think you talk about it being a hobby that got out of hand.
Yeah, it did get a bit out of hand (laughs) but it paid off in terms of having a facility where we could all make albums and we could rehearse at. In fact, it’s still a great studio, Woodworm. We’re there in a couple of weeks rehearsing for our tour. And we do record there still. Stuart [Jones] who runs it, the investment that he’s put into it is something that I couldn’t have done. Everything got kind of out of hand in terms of the cost of doing stuff and a lot of studios closed down. Basically, because of the invention of the laptop! And things like Garageband [software app]. My laptop that I’m looking at now seeing your face on it, has more equipment on and is a better studio than my studio in Barford St Michael that was. If only I knew how to operate it!
Primitive though the technology was at that time, it clearly provided, along with the festival, the foundation for the rebirth of the band.
Exactly, yeah. It was brilliant and the album, Gladys’s Leap – we’re looking at a few tracks that we haven’t played for years on this upcoming tour. It’s great for us. And it’s great having Dave Mattacks back on the tour because he comes all the way from America and the Gladys’s Leap album was such an important step in the reformation of Fairport Convention.
And another question on Cropredy before we move on to this tour. To keep the festival viable, you’ve made some changes. It’s funny because there was a group of us sitting in the camping field at Cropredy last August discussing this very thing and we all agreed that to keep the festival financially viable you’d have to downsize so you weren’t tearing your hair out about whether you’d get the numbers each year. And that seems to be what you’ve done, pretty much.
Well, luckily, Gareth Williams our CEO came up with several formulas for trying to make it pay. It’s always been such a gamble, the last couple of years especially. Because when you don’t know how many tickets you are going to sell, you can’t budget. You’re guessing about the number of people who are going to turn up. Gareth’s idea – we’re only going to sell 6,500 tickets and we’re only selling three-day tickets. Because we know we’ve got that lump of income and we can budget accordingly without the risk of going bankrupt. What happens to a lot of festivals is they overspend. Stuff like building the site at Cropredy is the most expensive aspect of our festival because you’re building a town in the middle of nowhere. There’s no electricity, there’s no water, there’s nothing. You’re putting everything on that site and as the years go by, it gets more and more expensive. And we could no longer risk it. We didn’t want to go bankrupt and it happens so easily and it’s happened to so many other festivals. The price of just the actual infrastructure for all these events went up so much. It went up like 30% over the space of a year and that’s why a lot of these festivals went down. And also, the fact that to get kind of headline acts is an absolute fortune nowadays. Little festivals like Cropredy can’t attract huge names.
So, we won’t be seeing the Alice Coopers any more but you’ve still got a fantastic line-up within the budget constraints. Within the world that you operate, you’ve got a fantastic line-up.
It’s a fantastic line-up and it’s a line-up of people that want to play at Cropredy and people that we want to see at Cropredy… But we’ve been very lucky that we’ve had people like Brian Wilson, for example, at the end of a European bash. Alice, for example, said Cropredy was the best audience he’d played to in Europe. But looking at it from a pure economical point of view, we can’t run the risk of doing that. So, what we’ve done now is rationalised things. Only doing the three-day ticket, which some people will complain about because some people only want to go for one day. It’s a shame but we’ve designed the festival for the people who’ve been with us over all those years, who come for three days, who come for the fact that Cropredy means a lot more to them than having a huge act on that’s probably their only chance to see. And we’ve put acts on that we think are really good.
I think it’s reassuring because we’ve got happy memories of your flirtation with the big league, with acts like Alice Cooper or Chic or whatever. But at the same time, we’ve got that reassurance that we know the festival can go ahead and it’s not going to go bankrupt.
Yeah, that’s it. It’s the only way that we could carry on. It’s a kind of test year this year because if it works, we’ve got a formula that we can kind of stick to. It’s adaptable. We may be proved wrong. There might be such a swell of people wanting to come. Last year we sold something like 9,700 tickets which was 2,000 less than the year before. Cropredy, it’s like a mature kind of crowd you get there with all due respect. A lot of them are ageing. They don’t want to camp any more. They enjoy the glamping and a lot of them have got motor homes or caravans. That’s great. But there are very few hotels about available nowadays and a lot of people think twice before taking a bivouac out and roughing it in the field. Although as we all know, Darren, the weather’s always perfect at Cropredy!
We’ve never had any rain! The sun’s never been too hot!
I think we’re going to have a fantastic year and I’m really pleased about the line-up. There isn’t a bad act on it and I’m so pleased that we’ve got Albert Lee because we’ve been trying to get Albert for years. And Martin Barre coming back – Martin is a great guitarist. And we’ve got Deborah Bonham – I love Deborah’s singing. The Churchfitters are coming back. And Trevor Horn’s coming back. We missed him last year because he was poorly and he had to cancel so it’s great having Trevor back.
I think that within the financial constraints that you’re operating in, it’s still a fantastically diverse line-up which has some of the folky elements and some of the classic rock elements and I’ve always liked that mix. You’ve still managed to maintain that.
Yeah, the diversity musically is one of the attractions of Cropredy, I think, because it’s not all folkie and it never has been because we’ve always had a real mix of music, like reggae, rock. We’ve never really had punk bands but we’ve had some very diverse kinds of music on there – and that will always be. The criterion is whether we think the acts that we book musically fit the bill. If the bands are all really good, the only people that suffer are us because we have to follow them all. It’s not funny. Two years running I’ve sat out in the field and I’ve watched and I’ve thought, “This is fantastic. The sound’s great, the screens, you can see everything, you don’t have to move, the bar’s only like a minute’s walk away and everybody’s so friendly and having a great time.” And then when it comes to Saturday night, I’m like, “Oh hang on, we’re on now. We’ve got to follow that lot!” It’s not easy. There’s a lot of nerves when we get up on that stage, because we play for about three hours.
In fact, this year’s going to be really fun for us because when we open on Thursday, we do our twenty-minute acoustic spot. We do Chris’s song the ‘Festival Bell’ and then we’re going to be joined by Joe Broughton’s Folk Ensemble. So, fifty students from Birmingham Conservatoire who are monster players and we’re going to do the biggest version of the ‘Lark in The Morning’ medley from Liege & Lief. Which should hopefully set the mood for the rest of the weekend.
Let’s move on to the tour then. What do you want to tell us about the Winter tour, starting 31 January?
I think we’ve got 27 dates altogether. We try and cover the whole country. We start off in Nottingham and we finish up in Tewkesbury. We’ve only got one Scottish date, although it’s great to be in Edinburgh. It’s nearly sold out. The tickets are going really well which is great. And we still enjoy touring enormously and treading the boards has always been what Fairport is good at. We’ve had more success playing live than we’ve had making albums.
Thinking back to when you first joined it must fill you with a certain sense of pride, knowing you’ve helped keep the show on the road all these years. In spite of all the problems in the festival industry, in spite of, sadly, former members no longer being with us, you’re still getting out there. It must give you a certain sense of satisfaction when you’re about to head out on tour again.
Absolutely. It’s great to get in the van. Getting in the van is easier than getting out of it. We’re banned from making pain noises now when we get out the van. But, Darren, I can assure you, I’m really ready to get in the van again and get ready to go out on the road. All I’ve got to do is learn two hours of music! Or re-learn. You think, “Oh I know all that stuff. I’ve played it hundreds of times.” And then you go, “Oh-oh”. We might be doing ‘The Lass from Hexhamshire’. We actually play in Hexham – on Valentine’s night – so it will be a great opportunity to get that song in the set – but, of course, we’ve got to learn it. And it’s quite a complicated arrangement from what I can remember. So that’s this afternoon’s work. I’ve lit the fire here because it’s really soggy and cold in Brittany so that’s my afternoon – learning the set.
Well good luck with the preparations and I look forward to seeing you at Union Chapel.
Tour dates:
January 31st Nottingham – Playhouse
February 1st Edinburgh – The Queen’s Hall, 2nd Alnwick – Alnwick Playhouse 4th Milton Keynes 5th Southend – Palace Theatre 6th Bury St Edmunds – The Apex 7th Canterbury – Colyer Fergusson Hall 8th Farnham – Farnham Maltings 9th Worthing – Connaught Theatre 11th Wakefield – Theatre Royal 12th Newcastle under Lyme – New Vic Theatre 13th Manchester – RNCM – Royal Northern College of Music 14th Hexham – Queen’s Hall Arts 15th Colne – The Muni Theatre 16th Lytham St Annes – The Lowther Pavilion 18th Lincoln – The Drill 19th Sunderland – The Fire Station 20th Leamington Spa – Royal Spa Centre 21st Harpenden – The Eric Morecambe Centre 22nd London – Union Chapel 23rd Corby – The Core Theatre 25th Swansea – Taliesin Arts Centre 26th Exeter – Corn Exchange 27th Southampton – Turner Sims 28th Bath – The Forum
March 1st Bridgnorth – Castle Hall 2nd Tewkesbury – Roses Theatre
A Happy New Year and thanks to everyone who has visited Darren’s music blog during 2024. As usual, we have a nice eclectic mix of musical genres featuring in this year’s top ten most viewed posts: folk-rock, prog rock, glam rock and much more besides. Here’s to 2025!
1. Live review: Saving Grace with Robert Plant & Suzi Dian, White Rock Theatre, Hastings 23/3/24
Of all the ‘70s rock gods, Robert Plant is perhaps the one who has most has steadfastly refused to be pigeon-holed in the superannuated, stadium heritage rock act persona. It’s meant he’s continued to surprise and delight with new musical ventures. And it’s meant I could stroll along up the road to see him and his band perform an intimate gig in my local theatre.
2. Interview with Fairport Convention’s Simon Nicol
Ahead of Fairport Convention’s 2024 Winter Tour, I caught up with Simon Nicol. We discuss Dave Mattacks’ return to the Fairport fold, the forthcoming tour, this Summer’s Cropredy and why he won’t be retiring any time soon.
3. Farewell Frank Torpey – the last surviving original member of The Sweet
Frank Torpey’s role in the history of The Sweet was a small one but, nevertheless, an important one. Moreover, as well as continuing to play and record, he was always happy to engage with fans about The Sweet’s very early days. My tribute to Frank, who died in March this year.
4. Live review: Fairport’s Cropredy Convention August 2024
As things drew to a close with the familiar rendition of ‘Matty Groves’ prior to ‘Meet On The Ledge’ Simon Nicol confirmed that he’d been given permission by the ‘powers that be’ to throw in his usual ‘same time next year?’ invite, in spite of the festival’s future looking extremely precarious earlier this year. Phew! It will be going ahead in 2025 then. I’ll be there…
6. Live review: Oysterband & June Tabor, De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 5/10/24
It was almost exactly ten years ago when I last saw June Tabor and Oysterband at the De La Warr Pavilion, my first time visiting this stunning piece of 1930s architecture. I wasn’t even living down here yet but a friend had a spare ticket going and I came down for the weekend. So, when Oysterband announced their ‘Long Long Goodbye’ farewell tour with June Tabor, once again, as their very special guest I booked a ticket straight away.
7. Beckenham, Bowie, the Spiders and glam: interview with Suzi Ronson
Suzi was a small-time hairdresser in Beckenham before being swept up in a world which saw her become stylist for David Bowie and the originator of the iconic Ziggy Stardust hairdo as well as falling in love with the late Spiders From Mars guitar icon, Mick Ronson, who she would go on to marry.
8. Live review: Tubular Bells – the 50th anniversary celebration at White Rock Theatre, Hastings 30/10/24
From the familiar opening bars of part one of Tubular Bells, through every second that followed the who thing was just a magical, mesmerising and utterly unforgettable experience. For something that was so clearly conceived as a studio project, to see it transformed into a live performance piece in this way will stay with me a long time. Hats off to Robin A. Smith for pulling together such a stunning interpretation of one of the all-time classic instrumental albums.
9. Live review: Martin Turner ex Wishbone Ash – White Rock Theatre, Hastings 6/9/24
Performing two hour-long sets with a short half-hour interval in the middle, it’s a superb night packed full of Wishbone classics. I won’t say I haven’t enjoyed Andy Powell’s ‘official’ version of the band when I’ve seen them live but, for me, what gives Turner’s outfit the edge is being able to hear the original voice behind many of Wishbone Ash’s most famous songs live on stage. And his bass-playing is as majestic as ever.
10. Live review: Justin Hayward at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 16/10/24
With the death of Mike Pinder earlier this year, none of the original ‘Go Now’ line-up of the Moody Blues are still with us. And only Justin Hayward and John Lodge now remain from the classic ‘prog-era’ post-1967 line-up. But the music they leave remains with us and Justin Hayward does a hugely impressive job in celebrating the band’s legacy with affection, panache and good humour, along with some incredible musicianship on stage beside him.
I’ve been responsible for herding a fluid and evolving group of friends, family members and friends of friends to attend Fairport’s Cropredy Convention for some fourteen years now. Looking for somewhere to rendezvous that very first time back in 2010 (in order that we could all drive in together and camp next to one another) we happened across a layby in Banbury. Now, every year without fail in the days leading up to Cropredy I start getting text messages from various people in various parts of the country asking me where the layby is. I can never remember so every year without fail I end up visiting a dogging website to get the name, postcode and exact location so people can programme it into their satnavs.
So it was that this year (after numerous texts and checking out the dogging website once again) three cars, a caravan and a campervan all assembled punctually in said layby ready to enjoy another Cropredy weekend of fun, friendship and fantastic music.
Our Cropredy camping group this year – Photo credit: a friendly Cropredy punter
Day one: Thursday
As is now traditional, Fairport Convention opened proceedings with a short acoustic set. It still seems slightly unreal not seeing Gerry Conway’s beaming face alongside the rest of the band. Even though he’s been succeeded by long-time Fairport legend, Dave Mattacks, my years of following the band live had all been in the Gerry era so his retirement in 2022 and tragic death in March this year came as a real shock. He will be greatly missed.
Feast of Fiddles followed, always a great festival folk band and always a delight. Much as I wanted to see Kathryn Tickell and the Darkening, however, a combination of rain, cider and lack of sleep sent me back to the campsite for a snooze so I could be match-fit ready for Rick Wakeman’s set. What turned out to be an extended snooze meant I missed all of Tony Christe’s set, too, but I’m told he went down really well.
Rick Wakeman, on the other hand, I certainly did not want to miss. Performing the whole of his 1974 concept album, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, based on Jules Verne’s 1864 science fiction novel, it’s a masterclass in showing that while prog can be bombastic, over the top and full of itself, with Rick Wakeman at the helm it need ever, ever, ever be boring. It was brilliantly entertaining and something of a family affair for retro rock, with Wakeman’s own son, Adam, on keyboards, the son of Fairport’s Dave Pegg, Matt Pegg, on bass, and the daughter of Humble Pie’s Steve Marriott, Mollie Marriott, as one of the two female lead vocalists. Wonderful stuff and one of the real highlights of the weekend for me.
Rick Wakeman and son Adam. Photo Credit: Simon Putman
Day two: Friday
As the sun shone down for the start of a very hot afternoon, things kicked off on the Friday with folk punk outfit Black Water County. Not a band I had seen before but I’m pretty familiar with the genre, having seen the likes of Ferocious Dog and legendary local band here in Hastings, Matilda’s Scoundrels, who they very much reminded me of. Highly entertaining, I’ll definitely be up for seeing them again if they ever play down my way.
Cropredy village – Photo Credit: Simon Putman
The rest of the afternoon’s line-up looked very tempting indeed for a fan of folk rock and classic rock like myself. But I’d already agreed to have a wander around the village with one of our party and then check out Cream of the Crop, the boutique festival in the field next door which these days runs parallel to the main Cropredy event every August. We arrived just in time to catch the last part of the set from my old friends, Parkbridge, including a storming cover of Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’.
Parkbridge at Cream of the Crop. Photo Credit: Simon Putman
It was then back to the main stage in time for Swedish banjo trio, Baskery and bluesy Americana singer-songwriter, Elles Bailey, both of whom went down well. Then it was back to the campsite for pot noodles, some chill time and putting on some warmer clothes ready for a late night with Richard Thompson. We arrived back at the main stage just in time to see Spooky Men’s Chorale, a sprawling choral ensemble I’d heard lots of people speak very favourably of but who I knew next to nothing about. I’m not sure I’d sit at home listening to one of their albums (they are now on to their sixth apparently) but they make for a superb festival act with a mix of deadpan humour, melancholy ballads and anthemic covers.
Elles Bailey up on the big screen. Photo Credit: Simon Putman
Richard Thompson, on the other hand, I knew exactly what to expect and he didn’t disappoint. Launching straight into a plethora of RT classics, just him and his acoustic guitar and some mind-blowingly stupendous finger-work, it was precisely what I’d been looking forward to all day. Around two-thirds of the way through his slot, sundry Fairporters joined him on stage for an electric set and he dazzled us all over again.
I did, however, start to see a lot of people leaving during Richard Thompson’s set. I don’t think this was any reflection on the performance whatsoever. Indeed, I suspect many of those leaving were actually long-term Richard Thompson fans. I believe it’s got far more to do with the timing. Given an aging demographic among long-term Fairport devotees, and given even second and third generation attendees may have young kids or grandkids to put to bed, it may be time for the organisers to think about putting the headliners in the penultimate slot, when they can be guaranteed maximum attendance, and having an inexpensive late-night party band in the final slot for the remaining revellers to party the night away. I’ve seen other festivals do this and it works a treat.
Richard Thompson. Photo Credit: Darren Johnson
Day three: Saturday
Following a fascinating talk by legendary 60s producer and the man who discovered Fairport, Joe Boyd, folk-singer-cum-funnyman and inciter of mass outbreaks of Morris dancing, Richard Digance once again formally opened proceedings on the Saturday. Sometimes I find his songs a little bit twee and sentimental and the nostalgia is certainly laid on with a trowel – but I wouldn’t miss the now-infamous communal hanky-waving routine for the world.
Richard Digance and a mass Morris Dance. Photo credit: Simon Putman
Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage, Zac Schulz Gang and Ranagri all put in sterling performances. Focus was one of the bands I’d been really looking forward to seeing on the Cropredy stage, however. I’d seen them before at classic rock festivals and will admit to approaching them slightly tongue-in-cheek, gleefully dancing around like an idiot to ‘Hocus Pocus’, channeling my inner Neil from the Young Ones persona and not taking them entirely seriously. Here, the atmosphere was markedly different and the audience really seemed to get Focus and really absorb the band’s extended prog masterpieces. As keyboardist, vocalist, flautist and founder member, Thijs van Leer, said at the end, the band felt “truly at home here in this beautiful field.” Perfect.
An appreciative Cropredy crowd for Focus. Photo Credit: Darren Johnson
I can’t do a full twelve-hour shift in the main field without some chill-time back at the tent before returning for the evening headliners. Normally, it’s fairly easy. I find someone I’m not too bothered about (or ideally someone I really can’t stand at all) who’s on the bill around teatime and time my break for then. This year it was an impossible choice. I wanted to see everyone. Unfortunately, Eddie Reader got the short straw. I love her music and have seen her live several times but I really didn’t want to miss Focus and I didn’t want to miss the special guest slot just in case I missed someone really… special.
There had been quite a bit of speculation within our camping group about the identity of the ‘Special Surprise Guest’. It would have to be someone who was mates with the band and was willing to perform for free, it would have to be someone who was reasonably well-known and it would have to be someone who was still alive. That narrowed it down quite a bit and we were left with a potential shortlist of Robert Plant, Jasper Carrott or Ralph McTell.
After our little break back at the campsite we headed back to the main arena. I was hoping for Robert Plant but expecting Jasper Carrot. I wasn’t wrong. I have huge admiration for him performing gratis as a way of helping ensure Cropredy’s financial viability at an increasingly fraught time for the festival sector. But his humour seemed very dated and his routine was not exactly up to the minute: jokes about Covid and the US presidential election which would have hit the spot when Biden was still in the race but made little sense now Kamala Harris is running. I should have trusted my instincts and stayed for Eddie Reader and given Carrott a miss.
Fairport’s Chris Leslie. Photo Credit: Simon Putman
It was wonderful to see Fairport Convention take the stage to round off another successful Cropredy though. My one niggle is that there did seem rather a lot of Chris Leslie-penned songs in the set-list and not nearly enough by Richard Thompson, Dave Swarbrick or Sandy Denny songs. We did get some wonderful Ralph McTell material though, including stunning renditions of ‘The Hiring Fair’ and ‘Red and Gold’, the latter performed by the man himself with some wonderful accompaniment from Anna Ryder, Hannah Sanders, Michelle Plum and Ed Whitcombe. As things drew to a close with the familiar rendition of ‘Matty Groves’ prior to ‘Meet On The Ledge’ Simon Nicol confirmed that he’d been given permission by the ‘powers that be’ to throw in his usual ‘same time next year?’ invite, in spite of the festival’s future looking extremely precarious earlier this year.
Phew! It will be going ahead in 2025 then. I’ll be there…
Fairport Convention at Cropredy. Photo Credit: Simon Putman
Ahead of Fairport Convention’s 2024 Winter Tour, starting in February, I catch up with Simon Nicol. We discuss Dave Mattacks’ return to the Fairport fold, the forthcoming tour, this Summer’s Cropredy and why he won’t be retiring any time soon.
So you’re obviously looking forward to the Winter Tour then which starts early next month. What can fans expect this time?
Well, for those who didn’t catch DM (Dave Mattacks) with us last year, you’re in for a different kind of musical experience than the last twenty-five years with Gerry. That’s one thing. But the other thing that’s happened with DM, it’s not just the style of playing, it’s the way it’s easily opened up a lot of the repertoire that Peggy and I, and Ric, and DM kind of all know. Because that line-up from ‘85 to ’98, when DM moved over to America, created a lot of its own material. But, of course, Ric was easily able to adapt to much earlier material so it’s really only a case of Ric and Chris now having to learn old stuff if we want to go back to the early days of when Peggy joined. It’s suddenly opened up a huge tranche of the back catalogue which, I’m happy to say, we’re having a look at this year. We’ve been dusting off the old LPs and we’ve found some things that have never really been in the repertoire at all. So it’s going to be an adventure for us and a real voyage of discovery for some of the older – well the more mature members of our audience who perhaps remember us from college days and are now in retirement. They’ll be hearing some stuff that they haven’t heard for decades. And a lot of that will be brand-spanking-new for newbies.
Excellent. So there’s going to be quite a few surprises, then?
Yeah! I hope so! All good ones. You say it’s quite soon but I’ve got a daunting number of things to do before we all actually get together and start practicing under the one roof. Because we all live miles apart. Peggy’s in France when he’s not in this country, he’s over there. DM, obviously, he only comes over a few days before from Boston. I live down in East Kent. So we don’t actually see each other very much considering we’re kind of based in north Oxfordshire.
Has it all slotted in place, in terms of working together. Does it feel very comfortable having Dave Mattacks back?
Yes. We’re used to planning a repertoire in this way. There’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and discussions on the phone and WhatsApp groups, where we chew the fat. And then people go off and listen to the songs in question and we end up with a big rag-bag, a bucket of songs if you will. And Chris is the clever one. He sits down and tries to work it out – “Let’s put this one here. Let’s put that one there.” And then there aren’t too many instrument changes and not too many things in the same key and a bit of a rise and fall to the shape of the two sets.
Yeah, we’re very much looking forward to it and we’re used to working that way so when the time comes and we get together in the studio for the rehearsals – two days of that – everybody’s on the same page and there’s not much to be worked out. Just – “Does this still work in this key?” That’s one of the big questions (laughs) because obviously voices and so forth change.
Voices change over the decades! And talking of Dave Mattacks coming back, you never seem to have suffered the sort of rancour with former members that have often bedevilled other bands. That seems to suggest that Fairport Convention has always been a relatively happy working environment. Is that true?
Well, it’s many things. It’s a band. It’s an environment. It’s a family in many ways. I’m closer to the guys I’ve been working with for fifty years than I am to my own immediate family really – I spend more time with them! Been through more adventures! It’s been said before but no-one gets out of Fairport alive. You may stop coming to the gigs but, you know, underneath it all, if you scratch deeply enough do they not bleed Fairport?
So you’ve never really had any of those Noel and Liam Gallagher moments?
Oh.. well. Obviously there are hearty and firm disagreements occasionally and there have been moments when you haven’t spoken to people but there’s a parallel there going back to the family thing or in any small office. Occasionally there’ll be frictions but basically, if you’re a band and a band-member kind of person, I don’t get it. If you’re at daggers drawn and you don’t cut each other slack all the time then you’re probably in the wrong band. You’re probably working with the wrong collection of people because you’re just making life unpleasant for yourself.
Yes, it seems an incredibly sensible philosophy but it seems to evade quite a few bands.
Well I think there’s the famous difficulties which brothers always have when they form groups. There never seems to be a seamless happy bunch of brothers. I mean the Finn Brothers seem to do ok but what do we know about their.. they just make wonderful records. But the Kinks were at it when they were kids. And the Gallaghers dear oh dear. And even the Everlys used to travel to gigs separately and have their own managers and their own lawyers. They would talk to each other through their lawyers and they’d come on to the stage. One time I saw them they came on from different sides and when they went off they didn’t look at each other and they walked off separately…
So Fairport’s a largely happy family rather than a dysfunctional one then..
I don’t want to be all Pollyanna-ish about it but, you know, I think we’re all cutting each other slack all the time and happy to do so.
And moving on, from Fairport Convention’s vast back-catalogue, what album are you most proud of?
Oh God, I don’t know. It’s that favourite child question again isn’t it? I think it’s more of a repertoire to me. A performance on one album enshrines a particular place and a time and a collection of people at that point in their lives. But, you know, we’ve had ‘Crazy Man Michael’ in the repertoire, along with ‘Matty Groves’, since they first surfaced on Liege & Lief in 1969 and I don’t think there’s a definitive version of either of those songs. Certainly, there isn’t in my head when I go to sing that song. If I see it on the list and it’s coming up, I’m not thinking, “Oh, the definitive version of this was recorded on this particular album. This is what I’m going to try and emulate now and try and make it as close to that as possible.” You now, I’m not a human juke-box and the band doesn’t feel like that. We’ve got this song. We all know where it starts and finishes, what key it’s in, what tempo it is. And on the count of four, we’ll start playing it and what comes out that night will be tonight’s performance. It’ll have the same structure as last night’s performance but it’s not the same song. Because my mind will be somewhere else in this song. The person standing next to me playing will be on their own little passage from note one ‘til the end. And I’m sure it’s the same with actors. They perform the same play every night but every night is a first night for that play and that song because it’s a performance.
Fairport Convention’s second album where ‘Meet On The Ledge’ first appeared
Even ‘Meet On The Ledge’ – probably your most well-known song from the live repertoire – that’s evolved massively over the years from the quite gentle and understated song when it first appeared to the rousing anthem for live performance now.
That’s right. It was just a ‘no-big-deal’ song on the second album. It was tucked away on Side Two, Track 4 which is a bit of a graveyard slot for most songs. It wasn’t what you heard when you dropped the needle but it has grown in the telling. It’s a song that’s grown in the telling and it’s acquired more reasons to perform it every year. And I know it means the world to people at Cropredy when we come to it – and not just because we can all go home soon! But because of what it’s come to mean to all the people who are there.
Yeah, it’s gathered extra meaning along the way for the audience and gathered more and more meaning over the years.
You also recently announced the final line-up for Cropredy this year. What are you most looking forward to? (apart from your own set of course!)
That’s another bit of a favourite child isn’t it! I’m looking forward to seeing the reactions of the audience who, implicitly, trust our judgement in selecting the bill and you always get the positive feedback and you always get… it’s a bit like TripAdvisor. You hear the best reviews and you hear the worst ones, you know? And you have to disregard the complete outliers because those aren’t a good ship to follow. And some acts you just know are nailed-on. They’re going to be an absolute banker in terms of the reaction. People’s response to them is just.. that’s why you book them. They’re a certainty. But the funnest acts or the ones that create the most warm feelings at my time of life are the ones that are largely unknown or perhaps under-exposed to the audience. And they go on and they’ve got this huge stage, this wonderful setting to perform to and an audience which is trusting and agog and waiting to be entertained. And you put somebody that’s not had a go before or maybe only has a hundred-and-fifty friends in the audience and then ten minutes later they’ve got the whole audience. Ten thousand new best friends! And that’s a wonderful feeling. And I can think of the Travelling Band having that experience happening to them and, of course, the Pierce Brothers
The Pierce Brothers, they were incredible.
If you weren’t there, I feel sorry for you!
I’d actually seen them, I think a week or so before at Womad and they were just on a small stage with maybe a hundred or so people and I thought, “There are going to go down pretty well at Cropredy.” But yeah it was just incredible.
They went down so well we booked them the next year which is, you know, an absolutely unique experience. Buy yeah, that’s like if you go back to last year for instance, we knew that Chic would be an absolutely 24-carrat performance. But what surprised me was the act before them. Because Toyah and Robert (Fripp) were a little bit of an unknown quantity. You had no idea what their repertoire would be derived from and then they came on and they just tore the place up. It started with ‘Paranoid’ I think, just the set-list from heaven and the performance was just… everything was turned up to the right level and it just absolutely cooked. So I had that same experience. I knew it was going to be ok. It might be great but it was better than both.
This year though, we’ve got some unexpected people, unknowns. And I can tell that you know the Spooky Men’s Chorale. I think that they are going to surprise a lot of people who wouldn’t have come upon them. And they’re so different. What they do is just absolutely heart-stoppingly beautiful and so funny and so moving and you can get all of that in the space of about ten seconds. He’s a brilliant showman, Steve, and I’m really pleased we managed to get them.
Photo credit: Simon Putman
Other bands have run their own festivals over the years. The Levellers have been doing Beautiful Days for about 20 years I think, but I can’t think of a single one that’s lasted anywhere near as long as Cropredy. What do you think the secret is?
I don’t know but if I could put it in a bottle I could sell it. No, it’s great and all festivals have to confront the same logistical situations. The same questions have to be answered in many different ways. But there are more questions that set Cropredy apart really than make easy parallels with other festivals. It’s just the way it’s grown out of something that was in the village. It wasn’t started as a commercial thing. It literally was the village hall committee asking us if we’d perform for them after the village fete. So it got it’s roots down deep into the heart of the village at the very beginning rather than being something that was imposed on the village. So it’s always been welcomed and enabled by everybody in that postcode. And the fact it’s just grown little by little, almost just incrementally.
Photo credit: Simon Putman
A big change was going from the one day, the Saturday thing, to incorporate the Friday. And that happened after quite a while and it was just such an obvious thing to do. It didn’t feel that weird because people were camping anyway in advance of it. Similarly, we moved again, changed it into a three-day festival but instead of incorporating a Sunday, we thought we’d go back again and bring people to the village a little early and everyone gets a relaxing free day to go home on the Sunday. Most festivals end on the Sunday night and there’s definitely a different feeling from ending a festival on a Sunday morning. That’s one thing that makes it stand out. And the fact that we’ve always tried to look at it as a punter would. You know, your experience from arriving. You see some festivals where people have to go and park half a mile west from the village and then they have to carry everything to a campsite a mile-and-a-half the other side of the village. Whereas at Cropredy we’ve got enough land to play with and the right size, with the smaller number of people attending. It means people can actually camp next to their car. But it’s just a practical thing like that. And because we wouldn’t want to stumble around on an unlit road, we light the village. We put our own lighting in because it’s safer and it’s practical. And road closures and things like that, we try to make it as good an all-round experience as we can.
Indeed, I’ve been going for years but I went with a friend who had not only never been to Cropredy but had never been to a festival before. I think this was two years ago, the first one after Covid. And he’d done loads and loads of camping so he knew campsites inside out and the drill with that but he’d never been to a festival before and he was like, “Oh, it’s really well-organised. It’s not what I was expecting at all. It’s like proper camping!”
Well, you can always improve things so every time you try and tweak things. The glamping has really taken off. So every year we expand that and it still sells out immediately, however many tents we put up. Because I suppose the demographic is not getting any younger, same as the band. So yeah, we try and make things comfortable but, you know, if you change anything in a way that’s noticeable there’ll be uproar! It’s like tinkering with the broadcast time of The Archers. You can’t do it quietly!
Fairport Convention’s Dave Pegg up on the big screen (Photo: Simon Putman)
Wonderful. Is there anything else you want to tell us, ahead of the tour and ahead of Cropredy?
You can just take it from me that I appreciate every tour more as I get older. And I look forward to every Cropredy more and more. But after the two lockdown years, the two missed Cropredies, that period of enforced retirement made me value all the more what this band and this lifestyle and this business, this fellowship of people, has given me. And if I was ever thinking of retiring, making a choice to step away, that thought was sent to the bottom of Davey Jones’ locker big time. Because I would just miss it so much. And I love what I do and I love the people I work with and I’m so grateful for the opportunity when I wake up every morning and I can wriggle my toes and fingers and look forward to the van pulling up then it’s alright with me.
Fairport Convention’s Winter Tour begins on 6th February 2024
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