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Mojo Archaeology - February 1997 |
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30 Years Of the Village Green Preservation Society
Ashley Hutchings: For one show only, in a bowling alley in North London, we were called Tim Turner's Narration. Turner was a guy who did the voice-overs on those
Look At Life newsreels they showed in cinemas back then. Me on Danelectro bass, Simon and Richard on guitars. On drums was a chap called Shaun Frater. that was late `66. Our first show as Fairport Convention
was in St. Michael's church hall in Golders Green. Martin Lamble was in the audience and he came up afterwards, a precocious young man, and said, ``I can do much better than that guy on drums." So we
auditioned him and got him in. |
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Simon Nicol: It's been a long time since Richard wore a tie. And since I had a curly lead Judy Dyble would have been there somewhere. She's
obviously having a number off. She used to go off to the side of the stage and do her knitting or crochet work - not shooting up. That's how these rumours get started: ``No, crocheting I said, a different type of
needlework altogether!" Ashley: You forget now how unusual it was to have a
female singer up front in those days. We were quickly called the British answer to Jefferson Airplane... Simon:
We were a West Coast covers band really, and I'm not talking about Aberystwyth. We were influenced by Dylan - he walked on water - and Phil Ochs and the stuff John Peel was playing then.
Ashley:
We started by doing songs by Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and obscure Dylan Stuff from The Basement Tapes. When Sandy Denny joined it was a marriage made in heaven because she was such an accomplished musician, and everyone less laddish wouldn't have blended in so well.
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Simon:
Sandy had been around bands, notably the Strawbs, of course, and she implicitly understood the dynamic of groups. These pictures (left) were taken by an American named Eric Hayes for the cover of Unhalfbricking at Sandy's Parents house in Wimbledon. He was having a sabbatical over here and he really liked what we did and we liked his stuff. It was a Sunday afternoon. He took the cover pictures in the back garden and then Mr and Mrs Denny gave us all a mixed grill. One of these shots was used for the back of the album.
Dave Swarbrick:
I was quite a seasoned guy, married with a kid, when they asked me to play on A Sailor's Life on Unhalfbricking, and they were all so young. Simon wasn't even old enough to have a passport. But I was impressed with them, impressed enough to join them.
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...returning from a gig in Birmingham on May 14, 1969, the band's van crashes killing drummer Martin Lamble ((2nd right, above) and Richard Thompson's girlfriend Jeannie
Franklin. Ashley Hutchings was hospitalised for two months with acute facial injuries... |
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Ashley:
After the crash, we got together for a meeting and decided we'd carry on, bring in Dave Swarbrick on fiddle and audition for a new drummer. We'd opened a whole new can of worms with A Sailor's Life and we decided there and then to go wholeheartedly in that folk rock direction. So that was quite an auspicious meeting.
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Simon:
Some of these shots were used for an article in [the British edition of] Rolling Stone [written, coincidentally, by one Rick Sanders]. Eric Hayes came down to Farley Chamberlayne and took them just after Armstrong landed on the moon. There was a real feel of times-a-changing.
Ashley:
We rented this big old Queen Anne house near Winchester and began work on Liege and Lief. Being in that house certainly helped form the music. We didn't dwell on the crash. There was a sense of adventure. It was uplifting.
Dave: It was incredibly creative. Everybody was focused and felt they were riding on the crest of something new, that this would
break new ground. And people would come to visit us - Trevor Lucas, Joe Boyd, and my friends from the folk scene - all helped instill that feeling in us. |
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Ashley:
We were there for about 8 weeks. It was a very remarkable group. I'd say it's maturity was unmatched. Because we lived in that house all kinds of combinations were possible. And I wouldn't separate Sandy and Richard, everyone contributed to Liege and Lief sounding the way it did, Swarb, Mattacks...and Simon was such an important steadying influence. I remember it being a great shock to people when we appeared for that classic Royal Festival Hall concert where Nick Drake supported us and Dave played a solid electric fiddle for the first time and it blew people apart.
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