Credit: Far Out / Island Records UK

Record Rebound: Fairport Convention reissue their 1969 masterpiece ‘Liege & Lief’

Fri 14 July 2023 13:00, UK

The 1960s folk revival was synonymous with artists such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel. Hence, a generation would be forgiven for seeing America as the home of the rustic genre. Alas, before Dylan was Woody Guthrie, and before him were centuries of folk genesis in the verdant fertility of the British Isles. Through the 1960s, several artists brought folk music back to its spiritual home; Fairport Convention were among the finest groups to do so.

For this week’s Record Rebound feature, we’re catching a vinyl as it rebounds across 54 years as one of the finest examples of British folk rock. Liege & Lief was released in December 1969 as the Convention’s fourth studio album and the first to feature longtime members Dave Swarbrick and Dave Mattacks on violin/mandolin and drums, respectively.

Following the band’s debut album of 1968, they launched into a notably prolific spell in 1969, releasing three albums in the year. Each of these albums arrived with a nuance of perfection, and while Liege and Lief marked a pinnacle, a word must be said of Unhalfbricking, the centrepiece of this trilogy. The seminal album housed classic tracks like ‘Autopsy’, ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’ and the French Bob Dylan cover, ‘Si Tu Dois Partir’ (‘If You Gotta Go, Go Now’).

The most notable corner turned between Unhalfbricking and Liege and Lief was a detachment from covers of American folk tracks. Gone were the Dylan covers, and embraced was a more English folk sound, with the traditional tracks, ‘Reynardine’, ‘Matty Groves’, ‘The Deserter’ and ‘Tam Lin’, featuring as the album’s well-placed covers.

While adhering to their beloved folk tradition, Fairport Convention, they employed contemporary blues rock influences reminiscent of Dylan’s mid-1960s electric work. Throughout the album, Swarbrick’s string arrangements flavour Sandy Denny’s assertive lyrical deliveries while Richard Thompson’slead guitar lines intertwine with Mattacks’ propulsive beat.

Perhaps the album’s most memorable moment is ‘Matty Groves’, an update on a traditional folk narrative from Northern England, also known as ‘Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard’. The eight-minute epic tells a tale dating back to at least 1613, wherein a noblewoman enters into an affair with Matty Groves. The situation turns sour when the noblewoman’s husband discovers the adultery and murders both.

Besides the traditional renditions, the band also presented four original compositions, ‘Come All Ye’, ‘Farewell, Farewell’ and ‘Crazy Man Michael’, using a similar formula. Adding the final piece to the puzzle of historical homage, Swarbrick arranged a four-part medley based on traditional pieces consisting of ‘The Lark in the Morning’, ‘Rakish Paddy’, ‘Foxhunter’s Jig’ and ‘Toss the Feathers’, all adding a taste of rural ancestry to the mix.

Staying true to the album’s title, which translates from Middle English to “loyal and ready”, the band showed sincere devotion to their roots in Liege & Lief while accommodating the contemporary hippie aesthetic.

“Nothing resonates like an old song,” Thompson told Uncut in relation to the album. “To sing something beautifully written, and then refined over hundreds of years, that still has meaning and urgency, that still creates vivid pictures in the mind, is a deeply rewarding thing. I think we hoped the band would achieve some mainstream popularity so that we could bring the tradition a little closer to people’s lives.”

The album was fittingly recorded in the summer of ’69 in an old house in the rural parish of Farley Chamberlayne, Winchester. Remembering the sessions fondly, bassist Ashley Hutchings added: “It was a magical time … and there’s a lot of magic on that album… There was a special feeling in the house, in the room, and also a lot of hidden magic and weirdness on that album. The past is weird, you know, our ancestors did a lot of weird things.”

On Friday, July 14th, Fairport Convention are rejuvenating this late-1960s gem with a reissue via Proper Records. The album has been pressed on a limited run of 180g records encased in a gatefold sleeve. You can pre-order your copy here.

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