Fairport Convention - Banks of the Sweet Primroses - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: 1971-1973

In my opinion, the two musical greats in Fairport Convention were Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny. Unfortunately, by the end of 1970, both of them had left the band. There still were other excellent musicians in the band, though. So although my interest in the band drops quite a lot after 1970, I'm continuing my BBC series through the rest of the early 1970s, with this album and one other one.

The vast majority of the songs here come from the "Live at the BBC" box set. In fact, most songs are from just two BBC sessions on that, with the first five songs from one BBC session in 1971 and the last four songs from another session in 1973. 

That just leaves two songs in the middle. The first one, "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is a real oddity. Perhaps it doesn't belong here, since it isn't from Fairport Convention at all, but instead is of a band, the Performing Gibsons, that was led by two prominent former members of Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson and Ian Matthew. This band was only in existence a short time and never officially released anything at all. But they played live on the BBC once, and did this Dylan song as well as song others. 

That leaves just "The Hanging Song." This was done by Fairport Convention for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." Luckily, the sound quality is excellent, even though the performance remains unreleased.

01 Sir William Gower (Fairport Convention)
02 Banks of the Sweet Primroses (Fairport Convention)
03 Bridge Over the River Ash [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
04 Lord Marlborough (Fairport Convention)
05 Angel Delight (Fairport Convention)
06 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Performing Gibsons [Ian Matthew & Richard Thompson])
07 The Hanging Song (Fairport Convention)
08 Tokyo [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
09 Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (Fairport Convention)
10 Possibly Parsons Green (Fairport Convention)
11 Rosie (Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115463/FairprtC_1971-1973_BnksoftheSweetPrimrosesBBSessionsVolume6_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo shows the band playing a concert at the Winterland in San Francisco in October 1971. From left to right are: Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol, and Dave Swarbrick.