20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Fairport Conve

Performer: Fairport Convention
Engineer: John Wood
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Fairport Convention: Sandy Denny (vocals, guitar); Dave Swarbrick (vocals, mandolin, violin, viola, fiddle); Ian Matthews (vocals, percussion); Richard Thompson (guitar, dulcimer, background vocals); Simon Nicol (guitar, background vocals); Ashley Hutchings, Dave Pegg (bass, background vocals); Dave Mattacks, Martin Lamble (drums). Producers: Joe Boyd, Simon Nicol, Fairport Convention. Compilation producer: Bill Levenson. Recorded at Sound Techniques Studios, London, England between 1968 & 1970. Includes liner notes by Dave Thompson. All tracks have been digitally remastered. This is part of A&M Records "The Millenium Collection" series. Personnel: Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, Simon Nicol (vocals, guitar); Dave Swarbrick (vocals, mandolin, violin, fiddle, viola); Ashley Hutchings (vocals, bass guitar); Ian Matthews (vocals, percussion); Dave Pegg (bass guitar); Dave Mattacks, Martin Lamble (drums). Liner Note Author: Dave Thompson . Recording information: Sound Techiques, London, England (1968-1970). Photographer: Eric Hayes. This is hardly "the best of Fairport Convention," focusing as it does on a pretty slim slice of their career. All of these ten songs were done within about a year and a half of each other between 1968 and 1970. As it happens, this is the peak of their career, and the phase that saw them progress into interesting variations on folk-rock with each album, from a more balanced base to a more avowedly British traditional one. But it's a small sample nevertheless. It draws two or three tracks apiece from the albums What We Did on Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, Liege & Lief, and Full House. It does include several of the songs that most fans and critics would value among the best of the band's output -- "Meet on the Ledge," "Fotheringay," "Who Knows Where the Time Goes," "Percy's Song," "Matty Groves," "Sloth," and "Now Be Thankful." Even here, though, there's plenty of room for questioning, particularly with the omission of "Tam Lin" (perhaps their best-known song in America) and "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" (which was their only British hit single). Since all of the albums from which these songs are taken are regarded as notable works in their own right, and since there's a much more comprehensive two-CD anthology of the band's early work (Meet on the Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975), this disc can only be viewed as something of use to very casual listeners, though the music it contains is good. ~ Richie Unterberger

The definitive British folk-rock band, Fairport Convention took the traditional music of England and injected it with electricity and rock energy, sparking a whole musical movement in the U.K. in the late 1960s and early '70s. The late-'60s incarnation of the band was bursting with talent, including singer Sandy Denny and guitarist Richard Thompson, both of whom went on to lauded solo careers. Even after Denny and Thompson's departures, though, Fairport never slowed down. Through numerous personnel changes, they soldiered on for decades with their singular brand of folk-rock, becoming the Grand Old Men of the genre.

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