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Fairport Convention / Birmingham

Street Life, 1 November 1975

FAIRPORT HAVE toured the States twice this year, once with Traffic and, more recently, picking up anyone from Jean-Luc Ponty to Loggins and Messina, travelling from Eastern seabord to West. The ‘American experience’ can imply any number of things; it can make or brake, reassure or depress.

In Fairport's instance it has trimmed rough edges, cohered, and inspired new confidence in live performance.

Not that Fairport now evince an air of professionalism to the point of disinterest. Far from it, they tread an ingeniously fine line: their set has been thoughtfully streamlined (no embarrassing pauses between the numbers) and yet there's still ample evidence of Fairport's wish for - and depence upon - audience rapport. The jigs and reels help, always firm favourites, immaculately rendered and vibrant with enthusiasm.

Sandy Denny however remains unsure of herself at times, but in a way that's quite unaffected, confiding almost. It's an ambience that can only involve, never alienate. No need to request “a little more humanity, please.”

Her singing has broadened still further in emotional range, notably displayed in One More Chance and the enduring perennial Who Knows Where The Time Goes, as moving as it was when first written six years ago.

Fairport's major strength is their free-wheeling eclecticism, taking in both traditional and original material with equal facility. Sloth remains a high-point, more expansive than ever.

Few bands can boast a pair of players as consistently inspired as guitarist Jerry Donahue and fiddler Dave Swarbrick. Donahue is especially impressive: throughout Sloth he remains impassive, hardly moving, completely absorbed. No histrionics, only musical pyrotechnics: a lengthy flux of solos, cumulative and benefitting from an extensive rearrangement from the song. Altogether, a most underrated guitarist.

Similarly, Tam Lin has received a sympathetic facelift, emphasising the spiral interplay between Donahue and Swarbrick as invigorating here as in the jigs and reels. Fairport currently include a large part of their recent Rising For The Moon release: the aforementioned One More Chance, Restless, Iron Lion and Rising For The Moon itself.

Other selections include John The Gun, Mr Lacey, Hexhamshire Lass and Down In The Flood, all proving opportunities for Fairport's three main vocalists (Denny, Lucas and Swarbrick) and for rich harmonies, with bassist Dave Pegg helping out. Bruce Rowland's drumming, although entirely divergent from predecessor Mattacks, is neverthless consumately precise, rarely overweighty or excessive.

Birmingham was the second date of the tour: a full house, rapturously demanding five encores. Fairport are no longer, in Lucas's apt phrase, “the mother folk band”. They are catholic and contemporary. There are new songs already written or at least conceived, to be recorded when they enter the studios next year.

The once crippling debts accumulated on a logistically ill-planned world tour some two years ago have been dissolved. Sandy Denny will herself record a fourth solo album next spring, with Lucas producing. All in all, it can only get better. -- Argus MacKinnon