Fairport Convention-Unhalfbricking

Genesis Hall
Si Tu Dois Partir
Autopsy
A Sailor's Life
Cajun Woman
Who Knows Where the Time Goes?
Percy's Song
Million Dollar Bash

At their outset Fairport Convention seemed to serve a lot more purposes than their own. Island records thought they had a british Jefferson Airplane on their hands. Members were mined to back Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan on their classic recordings. But with this, their third outing they came into their own.

It's the originals that resonate. Richard Thompson's Genesis Hall kicks things off with a old-meets- new traditional kick laying down the blueprints for the whole proceedings. Sandy Denny provided the strongest of original material however. Who Knows Where the Time Goes? her melancholy fare-thee- well that became her signature song is a pricless classic. But I have always favored and loved Autopsy, her brutal kiss-off to a love affair that features some of the most beautiful and intricate layered sounds the band would ever produce.

Three of the songs are penned by Bob Dylan, none of which at the time were heard before. Percy's Song and If You Gotta Go, Go Now (sung in french as Si Tu Dois Partir), but it's the record's closer Million Dollar Bash that is the most telling choice. That track was one of the legendary acetates shopped around from the Basement Tapes laid down at Big Pink in upstate New York, during Dylan and the Band's hermitage exploring Folk and Americana. I have always felt what Fairport Convention was doing with Traditional british music was kin to what the Band was doing with traditional North American sounds. This helps prove my theory.

But it's A Sailor's Life that resonates above all else. An old british standard folk song that is given eleven minutes and eight seconds of Indian, Psychedelic treatment yet somehow keeping its traditional flavor. This song is a journey that leaves a listener transformed, transfixed and changed.

Fairport Convention was to record once more with this line up with their 1970 collection of British folk songs Liege and Lief. Richard Thompson would then embark on a brilliant solo career as would Sandy Denny. Denny would also enter the pantheon of music history as being the only other person in the world besides Robert Plant to sing on a Led Zeppelin song (The Battle of Evermore). Unfortunately she passed away shortly there after. Unhalfbricking remains a landmark of unequaled creativity and heart- Greg Trout

Fairport Convention