Fairport Convention - Morning Glory - Non-Album Tracks (1967-1968)

Almost exactly a year ago, I posted an album of Fairport Convention at the BBC. (Wow, have I been running this blog for a year already?!) It collected all the BBC performances of the band when their main singer was Judy Dyble, who was only with the back from its start in 1967 through mid-1968. I didn't post any more from the band after that, because I wasn't sure how best to organize their non-album tracks.

I finally figured out a way, so I'm ready to post a lot more by the band. I decided to collect all their songs not on their official albums, creating a series of stray tracks albums. Then, I collected all their BBC performances of songs on their official albums. This means splitting up the BBC performances into two groups. But I think it makes more sense this way. I want to listen to the songs that aren't on their official albums (which I've heard many, many times) more than performances of songs that often are only slightly different than the ones on their albums.

With that in mind, here's the first album using this new approach. I'll be using many of the same songs I put on that Judy Dyble-focused collection I did a year ago, since I'm acting as if that collection doesn't exist. (But I'll keep that album on this blog for people who still want it.)

For this first album, it still has a Judy Dyble focus. Except this time, it's all songs that don't repeat any of the songs on the very first Fairport Convention album in 1968, simply called "Fairport Convention." That's the only one with Dyble, since she was replaced by Sandy Danny. Of course Denny is great, but I feel Dyble is underrated.

Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough unique stray tracks from the Dyble era to make up a full album. But I got around that problem by adding in some songs Dyble sung with Giles, Giles and Fripp shortly after leaving Fairport Convention. If you're not familiar, Giles, Giles and Fripp was a very short lived group that only released one album, "The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp," in 1968. Then Peter Giles left and Michael Giles and Robert Fripp picked up some new members and morphed into King Crimson.

Dyble was with this band very briefly and doesn't appear on their sole album. But the songs she sings with them are very good in my opinion, and also sound a lot like Fairport Convention and very little like what King Crimson would sound like. However, one of the songs she sings with them, "I Talk to the Wind," actually would appear on King Crimson's acclaimed debut album, "In the Court of the Crimson King," though in different form (and of course not sung by her).

So what you have here is 24 minutes of Dyble-led Fairport Convention songs, two of them from BBC performances and four not. Then there's 13 minutes of Dyble-led Giles, Giles and Fripp songs. Add it up and it makes for a nice 37-minute-long album.

As far as the Fairport Convention songs that don't come from the BBC, special note should be made of two songs performed for a French TV show, "Morning Glory" and "Reno, Nevada." If you're a fan of Fairport Convention at all, you should look these up on YouTube, because it seems to be the only color footage of the band from before 1970, and definitely the only footage from the Dyble era. Even Richard Thompson and other band members have publicly commented about how happy they were to see this footage on YouTube. What's really impressive is the performance of "Reno, Nevada," because they take a simple short folk song and turn it into an eight-minute-long Richard Thompson guitar solo extravaganza. The audio recording of this is very clear, and of course it's included here.

By the way, there's one BBC performance, "Let's Stay Together," that I had to reduce to a mere bonus track due to sound quality issues.

01 Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Fairport Convention)
02 If I Had a Ribbon Bow (Fairport Convention)
03 Both Sides Now (Fairport Convention)
04 Violets of Dawn (Fairport Convention)
05 Morning Glory (Fairport Convention)
06 Reno, Nevada (Fairport Convention)
07 Passages of Time (Giles, Giles & Fripp with Judy Dyble)
08 Under the Sky (Giles, Giles & Fripp with Judy Dyble)
09 Make It Today (Giles, Giles & Fripp with Judy Dyble)
10 I Talk to the Wind (Giles, Giles & Fripp with Judy Dyble)

Let's Get Together (Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115264/FairprtC_1967a-1968_MorningGlry_atse.zip.html

It's exceedingly difficult to find any color photos of Judy Dyble or the rest of Fairport Convention from the Dyble era. Pretty much the only color images come from that one French TV appearance on YouTube. So I took a screenshot of Dyble from that and used it as the cover. It's too bad I couldn't get the rest of the band in the picture too, but she was the main singer for only a short time, so I figure it's okay if she gets the spotlight for this one album. It's not even a great photo of her, but at least it exists! ;)