Ian Matthews - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-1977

I am sad to announce that I have nearly come to an end of radio broadcast concerts to post from Ebbets Field, Denver. I've posted 70 Ebbets Field albums prior to this one. This is the only concert I could find from 1977, the last year the venue held concerts. (In the middle of that year, the owner switched to running a larger concert venue in Denver.) 

I only have two more Ebbets Field albums to post, and they're somewhat different. They're compilations of all the songs I could find that were recorded at this venue in the cases where only single songs have been made public instead of full shows. So this is the last proper concert. If you know of any concerts from this venue that I've missed, PLEASE let me know! I want this to be the best spot on the Internet for finding this material.

Anyway, let's get to the details of this particular concert. It's the second one from Ian Matthews, a singer-songwriter who was an original member of the band Fairport Convention. (He later changed his name to Iain Matthews.) The first one I posted was from 1976. Like that one, we have this one because it was released earlier in 2026 on the archival collection "Rhythm of the West: The Columbia Years 1975-1977." 

With his 1976 album "Go for Broke," he switched styles from folky to pop rock. He continued that trend with his 1977 album "Hit and Run." A lot of the songs here are from that album, as well as the previous one. Also, in the 1976 concert I posted, he hardly ever spoke between songs. But there's a lot of banter in this recording.

This album is an hour and one minute long. 

01 talk by emcee (Ian Matthews)
02 Just One Look (Ian Matthews)
03 Times (Ian Matthews)
04 talk (Ian Matthews)
05 Rhythm of the West (Ian Matthews)
06 talk (Ian Matthews)
07 Tigers Will Survive (Ian Matthews)
08 talk (Ian Matthews)
09 Help to Guide Me (Ian Matthews)
10 Brown Eyed Girl (Ian Matthews)
11 talk (Ian Matthews)
12 I Will Not Fade Away (Ian Matthews)
13 talk (Ian Matthews)
14 Shuffle (Ian Matthews)
15 Hit and Run (Ian Matthews)
16 talk by emcee (Ian Matthews)
17 Lonely Hunter (Ian Matthews)
18 talk by emcee (Ian Matthews)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nkohH3D2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mtiwKHRrtVSPPLj/file

The cover image is from 1978, but I don't know more details. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it. 

Ian Matthews - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 6-3-1976

Here's yet another Ebbets Field radio broadcast concert. This time, it stars singer-songwriter Ian Matthews.

Here's the Wikipedia entry intro for him: "He was an original member of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention from 1967 to 1969 before leaving to form his own band, Matthews Southern Comfort, which had a UK Number One in 1970 with their cover of Joni Mitchell's 'Woodstock.' In 1979, his recording of Terence Boylan's 'Shake It' reached No. 13 on the US charts." 

One other important fact about him is that in 1989, he changed the spelling of his first name from "Ian" to "Iain." I'm using "Ian" for this post though, because that was the name he was using in 1976.

Matthews had a lot of success in the early 1970s in a folk rock mode, including the British Number One single mentioned above. He led two bands in that era, Matthews Southern Comfort and Plainsong. However, he changed his musical style to pop rock with his 1976 album "Go for Broke." This concert took place about a month after the release of that album, so he was focused on that new style. His voice was well suited for that type of music. However, many of his fans were unhappy about the change, and his 1976 album didn't do as well as many of his previous ones. Despite this, he would stick with this different musical style through the rest of the 1970s.

As far as I can tell, this recording wasn't publicly available at all until earlier this year (writing this in July 2026). But this full concert was included on the new archival release "Rhythm of the West: The Columbia Years 1975-1977." A second Ebbets Field concert he did from 1977 was also included, and I plan on posting that soon as well. This seems to be the first newly officially released Ebbets Field concert by any musical act in many years, so let's hope others will follow. 

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long. 

01 Steamboat (Ian Matthews)
02 Hit and Run (Ian Matthews)
03 Rhythm of the West (Ian Matthews)
04 I Will Not Fade Away (Ian Matthews)
05 Payday (Ian Matthews)
06 Times (Ian Matthews)
07 Tigers Will Survive (Ian Matthews)
08 Shuffle (Ian Matthews)
09 Faith to Arise (Ian Matthews)
10 Nobody (Ian Matthews)
11 Truck Driving Man (Ian Matthews)
12 talk by emcee (Ian Matthews)
13 talk (Ian Matthews)
14 Brown Eyed Girl (Ian Matthews)
15 talk by emcee (Ian Matthews) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xXkP4xbr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/g7qEA2aY6fKShmv/file 

The cover image of Matthews is from an appearance on the Dutch TV show "Toppop" some unknown time in 1976.

Fairport Convention - Cropredy Festival, Cropredy, Britain, 8-8-1997

Here's a rather strange thing I've put together from different sources. But hopefully it'll make sense once I explain.

The British folk-rock band Fairport Convention is rather unusual in that not only has it been in existence since the 1960s, with many different line-ups over the years, but it has annual reunions at the Cropredy Festival in which earlier line-ups often perform. The 1997 Cropredy Festival reunion was a particularly important one, since it marked 30 years since the band was founded in 1967. Virtually all of the many surviving band members took part in two different concerts on August 8th and August 9th. 

The August 8th show concentrated on the first few years of the band's existence. It featured all the surviving members from that time, including Judy Dyble, Richard Thompson (who of course went on to a long and very successful solo career), Simon Nicol, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Iain Matthews (formerly known as Ian Matthews), Dave Swarbrick, and Dave Pegg. The band's female vocalist for many of those early years was Sandy Denny, but she died in 1977. So her parts were song by a relative newcomer, Vikki Clayton.

The August 9th show was much longer, and featured numerous different line-ups, from the early 1970s until the current day at that time.

Both concerts were professionally recorded and professionally released as "The Cropredy Box." However, there were two problems with this. One was that over six hours of music were played over those two nights. Even though "The Cropredy Box" is a triple album, that meant a lot of songs had to be left out. Also, there were some problems which led to some key songs not being recorded, such as "Fotheringay."

I must admit that my interest in Fairport Convention is heavily concentrated in their heyday of the late 1960s and early 1970s. (And I'm not the only one who feels that way. There's even an official album of BBC performances from that time period called "Heyday.") I'm especially interested in the years when the musical giants Sandy Denny and/or Richard Thompson were in the band.

With that in mind, I wanted to make my own version of these shows, concentrating on the songs with Thompson playing on them in particular and discarding the rest. But what to do about the many missing songs? It turns out there's no good bootlegs of those other songs, at least that I could find. However, it turns out that, a mere two days earlier all the people mentioned above (apparently except Iain Matthews) had a warm-up concert in the nearby town of Banbury to practice those early songs they hadn't played together in many years. And, luckily, there is a very good sounding bootleg from that show. It doesn't sound as good as the ones from the official release of the actual Cropredy shows, but it's worthy of filling the gaps.

So this is an amalgamation of the songs from "The Cropredy Box" wherever possible with the Banbury songs for the rest. Also, the official album had almost no banter between songs, but the Banbury show had a lot, so I used that. But I did cut the banter down some. There were some parts where one couldn't hear what was being said that well, and other parts that went on too long or were mostly dead air. 

The end result is probably the closest one is going to get to the full August 8th show as is possible, unless a more complete version of "The Cropredy Box" gets released someday. I did find a list of the exact songs played, and the order they were played in, so I stuck to that as much as possible.

The first song, "Wings," isn't actually from the early years of the band. Instead, it was written by band member Ashley Hutchings as retrospective commentary on what those years were like. The next three songs were from the brief time period Judy Dyble was the band's female vocalist, so she's featured on those. But back in the day she was replaced by Sandy Denny, so in this concert she was replaced by Vikki Clayton. Dave Swarbrick and Dave Pegg didn't join the band until a couple of years after that, so they also joined in later in this concert.

Note that "Million Dollar Bash" was originally written by Bob Dylan. But this version has mostly new lyrics written by Fairport Convention. The new lyrics jokingly comment on some of the band's history.

I did the exact same thing to the August 9th concert as I did with this one, mixing the "Cropredy Box" songs with the Banbury bootleg ones. I plan on posting that soon.

By the way, it seems that even more songs were played in the August 8th show, probably a lot more. I found YouTube videos of a few more, and in one, there's a reference to the show being well over two hours long! Weirdly, those extra songs don't show up in the known setlists for the Banbury or Cropredy shows at setlist.fm, which closely resemble each other. But it's hard to deny the evidence of the YouTube videos. Hopefully, someday, more of this music will emerge in excellent sound quality. 

I've included the extra songs I found as bonus tracks. They're only bonus tracks because the sound quality is notably poorer than even the Banbury tracks. It's also fitting that they're not numbered like the rest, because I have no idea where they would have fit in with the song order. There were a couple others I didn't include even as bonus tracks, such as "Tale in Hard Time" and "Tam Lin," because the bass rumbled so much that I deemed them unlistenable.

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long.

01 Wings (Fairport Convention)
02 Both Sides Now (Fairport Convention)
03 talk (Fairport Convention)
04 Jack O'Diamonds (Fairport Convention)
05 talk (Fairport Convention)
06 Time Will Show the Wiser (Fairport Convention)
07 talk (Fairport Convention)
08 Fotheringay (Fairport Convention)
09 Mr. Lacey (Fairport Convention)
10 talk (Fairport Convention)
11 Suzanne (Fairport Convention)
12 talk (Fairport Convention)
13 talk (Fairport Convention)
14 Percy's Song (Fairport Convention)
15 talk (Fairport Convention)
16 Genesis Hall (Fairport Convention)
17 talk (Fairport Convention)
18 Million Dollar Bash (Fairport Convention)
19 talk (Fairport Convention)
20 Come All Ye (Fairport Convention)
21 talk (Fairport Convention)
22 Lark in the Morning [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
23 talk (Fairport Convention)
24 Reynardine (Fairport Convention)
25 talk (Fairport Convention)
26 Matty Groves (Fairport Convention)

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
Nottamun Town

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115758/FairprtC_1997_CroprdyFestival__8-8-1997_atse.zip.html

I could only find two good photos of the 1997 Cropredy concerts. So I've used one for this album and the other for the August 9th one. I took the fancy writing on the top half from some promotional artwork for the 2007 concert, and squished it horizontally to make it fit.

The picture shows (from left to right): Simon Nicol (red shirt on guitar), Dave Mattacks (in the background on drums), Dave Pegg (blue shirt on bass) and Dave Swarbrick (with his back to the camera on fiddle).

Fairport Convention - You're Gonna Need My Help - More BBC Sessions, 1967-1969

A few days ago, I posted a Fairport Convention concert from 1968. That reminded me that I have another album of the band playing for the BBC that I haven't posted yet. The reason I didn't post it until now is because these are all songs they played for the BBC on other occasions, which I have posted. So these are extra versions, basically. However, the sound quality is generally excellent (with a couple of exceptions), and any 1960s music from this band is good, in my opinion. So here it is.

All but three of the versions here have been officially released. The three unreleased ones are "I'll Keep It with Mine," "Percy's Song," and "You're Gonna Need My Help." But they're from BBC sessions, and they sound as good as the others. 

Ironically, the worst sounding song here is the last one, "A Sailor's Life," even though it has been released. It's the only live performance here, from an unknown location in 1969.

One of the songs, "Fotheringay," has a BBC DJ talking over the intro. But I've used the audio editing program X-Minus to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music. That's why it has "[Edit]" in the name.

I'm making a concerted effort these days to use these new audio editing programs to redo ALL the BBC performances that had DJ talking over the music. I'll be writing more about that later. But note for now that not only did I fix this one song on this album, but in recent days I've fixed all such instances on all the Fairport Convention albums I've posted. Furthermore, I fixed the volume balance between songs, and redid the mp3 tags. So you might want to redownload everything from this band for some improvements here and there.

I also renamed all the band's BBC albums, adding "Volume 1," "Volume 2," etc... I updated the cover art with these changed names too. This one doesn't get a volume number, since it's extra versions that are not in chronological order like all the other albums in the series.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 One Sure Thing (Fairport Convention)
02 Time Will Show the Wiser (Fairport Convention)
03 Autopsy (Fairport Convention)
04 Meet on the Ledge (Fairport Convention)
05 I'll Keep It with Mine (Fairport Convention)
06 Percy's Song (Fairport Convention)
07 You're Gonna Need My Help (Fairport Convention)
08 Fotheringay [Edit] (Fairport Convention)
09 A Sailor's Life (Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115257/FairprtC_1967c-1969_YoureGonnaNeedMyHlpMoreBBSessions_atse.zip.html

There aren't many good photos of the band from around this time period. I used a photo taken from the same photo session as the album cover for the "How to Treat Another Heart" stray tracks album, taken in Sandy Denny's parent's backyard.

Fairport Convention - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 9-13-1968

Fairport Convention has made a lot of great music over the years, and they're still going as I write this in 2021. But for me, their peak was in 1968 and 1969, while they had both Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny in the band. This version recorded many songs for the BBC that survived, but until relatively recently, I never knew of any actual live recordings that had survived in good quality.

The good news is, such a thing does exist, in the form of this bootleg. The bad news is that it's quite short, at only 22 minutes long. But still, that's better than nothing. Only one song from this concert has been officially released. "Mr. Lacy" came out on the relative obscure compilation "Fairport Unconventional." But that version sounds the same as the bootleg one, so I used the same source all the way through.

I had refrained from posting this concert here because the sound quality was pretty rough. But the main problem was that the vocals were too low. Now that I'm using the sound editing programs Spleeter and X-Minus, I realized this is another concert I could improve. I'm not marking the songs with "[Edit]" because every track was edited with one of those programs, even the talking tracks to lessen the hiss there.

The end result? Okay, it's still rather rough. But it's markedly better than before, and I think it's very listenable. It certainly sounds better than I'd expected for any live recording of the band from 1968. The key is that these songs were recorded by the Dutch TV network VPRO and played on TV at the time. There clearly was more to the show, since the band mentioned coming back for a second set. But this is all we've got, in any form, thanks to it getting on TV.

Iain Matthews does all the talking between songs. Matthews and Denny do most of the singing, though Thompson sings lead on "If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong." It's also interesting to hear how very small the crowd was. Based on the applause, it sounds like only a dozen or two people

There's one other bootleg of this band from 1968 that I know of. The sound quality is significantly worse. It's a short recording from the Whittlesey Barn Barbeque two months before this. Most of it isn't listenable for my ears. But I rescued one song from it that sounds passable, helped by the fact that I boosted the lead vocals for that one too. It's a cover of Bob Dylan's "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." I'd added that as a bonus track.

Oh, regarding the date of this concert, it may or may not be true. This bootleg is generally listed as taking place in September 1968. I dug a little deeper and found the band's visit to the Netherlands that month was very short, from September 11th to September 14th. The show could only have taken place on the nights of September 12th or September 13th, so I guessed!

This album is 22 minutes long, not including the bonus track. 

UPDATE: On January 26, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. The song list is the same. However, I ran all of the songs through the MVSEP "denoise" filter, to get rid of hiss. I think they sound better now.

01 I Still Miss Someone (Fairport Convention)
02 talk (Fairport Convention)
03 Bird on a Wire (Fairport Convention)
04 talk (Fairport Convention)
05 If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong (Fairport Convention)
06 talk (Fairport Convention)
07 I'll Keep It with Mine (Fairport Convention)
08 talk (Fairport Convention)
09 Mr. Lacey (Fairport Convention)

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Fairport Convention)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rriZZkJh

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/i8xlR1n2NkNiWYk/file

I couldn't find any color photos of the band in concert in 1968. I decided the world needs at least one, so I colorized this one. (Heck, I was happy to even find a decent black and white one.) Apparently, it's from the summer of 1968. I assume the personnel from left to right is Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Iain Matthews, and Ashley Hutchings. Thompson has said he was very shy at this point in his career and often played his guitar solos with his back to the audience. It looks like this is such a case.

Fairport Convention - Eastern Rain - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1968-1969

I said I had a lot of Fairport Convention to get caught up on, and I meant it. Here's the third album from them today. The other two I posted were stray tracks collections. This one are all songs from official albums, but performances from the BBC.

Sandy Denny joined the band midway through 1968. All but two of the songs here are from 1968, but they're all from after Denny joined. She sings lead on most of the songs.

The vast majority of the songs here come from the early 1969 album "What We Did on Our Holidays." There's only two from "Unhalfbricking" ("Cajun Woman" and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes"). But some songs are from the other stray tracks albums I posted. In those cases, they had two different BBC performances of songs they never put on album, so I put one of those on a stray tracks album and another one here. "Reno, Nevada," and "If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong" are examples of that.

The great thing about late 1960s Fairport Convention was that they were an awesome covers band, but they also wrote some of the greatest songs of all time. Two classics are here in their unique BBC versions: "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" and "Meet on the Ledge."

I removed the BBC DJ talking over the start of "Eastern Rain" using X-Minus audio software to wipe the talking while keeping the underlying music. That's why it has "[Edit]" in the title.

01 Suzanne (Fairport Convention)
02 Eastern Rain [Edit] (Fairport Convention)
03 Fotheringay (Fairport Convention)
06 Mr. Lacey (Fairport Convention)
07 Meet on the Ledge (Fairport Convention)
08 She Moves through the Fair (Fairport Convention)
09 Reno, Nevada (Fairport Convention)
10 Book Song (Fairport Convention)
11 Nottamun Town [Acappella Version] (Fairport Convention)
12 Cajun Woman (Fairport Convention)
13 Who Knows Where the Time Goes (Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115297/FairprtC_1968e-1969_EastrnRainBBSessionsVolume2_atse.zip.html

There's a serious lack of good Fairport Convention color photos from 1968, or even 1969. Luckily, I was able to find one I liked. The photo used for this cover comes from a concert in Copenhagen in 1968.

Fairport Convention - How to Treat Another Heart - Non-Album Tracks (1968-1969)

Here's another stray tracks Fairport Convention album. The band had so many songs that didn't appear on their studio albums that this is the third such album I've made that at least partially is from 1968.

This is more of the same very good stuff. Like the last album in this series, most of the songs here are cover versions. I believe the only originals are "Shattering Live Experience" and probably "Billy the Orphan Boy's Lonely Christmas." (That one hasn't been officially released so I can't check the credits, but nobody else seems to have done a song by that name.)

The band still was very much fascinated with American folk-rock, doing songs by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the Byrds, Gene Clark, and the like. But the last few songs are outtakes from the 1969 "Liege and Leaf," and one can seem them pivoting to their version of traditional British folk.

It's been a long time since I made this album, so I don't remember why I gave it the title "How to Treat Another Heart." I probably didn't think any of the song titles made for a good album title. The title I used are part of the lyrics to the song "Shattering Live Experience."

01 Bird on the Wire (Fairport Convention)
02 Billy the Orphan Boy's Lonely Christmas (Fairport Convention)
03 Tried So Hard (Fairport Convention)
04 You're Gonna Need My Help (Fairport Convention)
05 Shattering Live Experience (Fairport Convention)
06 Dear Landlord (Fairport Convention)
07 The Lady Is a Tramp (Fairport Convention)
08 Sir Patrick Spens (Fairport Convention)
09 Quiet Joys of Brotherhood (Fairport Convention)
10 The Ballad of Easy Rider (Fairport Convention)
11 Fly Me to the Moon [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qAcnn6CH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/i0Avbfs2yiZQzBe/file

The album cover photo comes from a photo session of the band in Sandy Denny's parent's backyard.

Fairport Convention - Night in the City - Non-Album Tracks (1968)

I've fallen behind where I want to be with posting Fairport Convention material. (I really should have posted all I have on their late 1960s and early 1970s stuff before posting Richard Thompson solo stuff.) I'm going to try to catch up in a hurry.

This is a stray tracks collection, avoiding all the songs on their official albums. But it's also almost a BBC compilation, because 8 of the 12 songs here come from BBC performances. The band had a very wide ranging repertoire. Thank goodness we have their BBC recordings, because in my opinion these songs sound just as good as many of the songs on their albums. The chief difference is their 1960s had a fair amount of originals, and these are mostly cover versions. There are a few originals here, however: "Throwaway Street Puzzle," "Now and Then," and " If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong."

But what covers they are! This is my favorite Fairport era, their first couple years when they looked to American folk rock as their main influence before getting deeply into British traditional folk.I like that era too, but I like this a bit more.

All the songs here are from the second half of 1968, meaning Sandy Denny was already in the band, and she sings most of the songs.

I've put one song as a bonus track, a cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." It's the only song here from a concert, and the song is much worse than for all the others. It's also the only song that's officially unreleased.

01 Suzanne (Fairport Convention)
02 Now and Then [Demo] (Fairport Convention)
03 Close the Door Lightly When You Go (Fairport Convention)
04 You Never Wanted Me (Fairport Convention)
05 Some Sweet Day (Fairport Convention)
06 Been On the Road So Long (Sandy Denny)
07 Marcie (Fairport Convention)
08 Night in the City (Fairport Convention)
09 Gone, Gone, Gone (Fairport Convention)
10 If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong (Fairport Convention)
11 Throwaway Street Puzzle (Fairport Convention)
12 I Still Miss Someone (Fairport Convention)

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15115309/FairprtC_1968c_NghtintheCty_atse.zip.html

There are very few good color photos of Fairport Convention in 1968. This one definitely comes from 1968. But there are some other people in the photo in addition to the five members of the band at the time. According to the caption, it was taken in a public park, and the women in the middle of the back is Anthea Joseph, who was a pivotal early supporter of British folk-rock.

Fairport Convention - One Sure Thing - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967-1968

I'm posting this second Fairport Convention album immediately after the other one I just posted to hopefully make clear my approach on dealing with the band's non-album tracks. That album contains all their songs that didn't appear on any of their official studio albums, including some BBC performances. This album makes up all their other BBC performances.

The first half of this album is from when July Dyble was the band's main singer. From the seventh track onwards ("She Moves through the Fair"), the rest of the songs have Sandy Denny as the band's main singer.

Actually, not all the songs on this album are BBC performances. I've added a few song demos here too, because I couldn't think of a better place to put them. The first two songs are demos by Judy Dyble. The seventh track (mentioned above) plus the last two are acoustic or demo versions by Sandy Denny.

All the songs here have been officially released, so the sound is great. And the performances are excellent too.

I'll continue this approach, with more albums of unique non-album songs, plus other albums of BBC performances, soon.

01 Both Sides Now (Fairport Convention)
02 One Sure Thing (Fairport Convention)
03 Chelsea Morning (Fairport Convention)
04 If [Stomp] (Fairport Convention)
05 Time Will Show the Wiser (Fairport Convention)
06 If I Had a Ribbon Bow (Fairport Convention)
07 She Moves Through the Fair [Acoustic Version] (Fairport Convention)
08 Some Sweet Day (Fairport Convention)
09 I Don't Know Where I Stand (Fairport Convention)
10 Nottamun Town (Fairport Convention)
11 Jack O'Diamonds [Edit] (Fairport Convention)
12 Fotheringay [Acoustic Version] (Fairport Convention)
13 Autopsy [Demo] (Fairport Convention)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8k5y962o 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/btHLJfyr9soxJIj/file

Good color photos of Fairport Convention in their early years are harder to find than hen's teeth. This isn't a great photo of the band - Sandy Denny isn't even in view - but it is of them from 1969.

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! ;)

Fairport Convention - At the BBC: The Judy Dyble Era (1967-1968)

I'm a big fan of Fairport Convention, specifically in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Richard Thompson was a member. Each of their albums from that time period are great, but on top of that, they did a lot of songs for the BBC, many of which never got on any of their albums at the time.

At first, a single CD compilation of their BBC performances came out called "Heyday." Then that was upped to a four CD box set called "Live at the BBC" in 2007 that covered their BBC performances from 1967 to 1974. But even that wasn't enough, and more BBC performances have dribbled out here and there on various archival releases.

This is the start of a series that gathers up all their BBC performances of good sound quality from that early era and organizes it chronologically. I did a similar thing with Dusty Springfield's TV and radio performances. However, that included only songs not recorded by her in the studio. Whereas this includes all songs performed on the BBC, because Fairport Convention often would perform their songs differently while Springfield almost always stuck close to her studio versions, However, I don't include multiple versions of the same song, unless there's an unusual reason to do so.

For about the first year of Fairport Convention's existence, the main vocalist was Judy Dyble. In mid-1968, she left and was replaced by Sandy Denny. This first album of BBC performances collects stray tracks just from when Dyble was in the band. It works out that there's 36 minutes of music from that time, which is a nice album length for that era.

Actually, there wouldn't have been enough material for a good album length except for two songs performed on a French TV station, "Morning Glory" and a nearly eight minute version of "Reno, Nevada."  (I'll include any good TV or radio performance, even if it wasn't actually performed on the BBC.) Surprisingly, color video footage of the band on that French TV station exist on YouTube, and it's quite an interesting watch. (Search for the band name and song name and you'll find it.) It's just about the only color video of the band from its early years.

By the way, only four out of the ten songs below were also on the band's self-titled first album, the only one with Dyble on it.

01 Let's Get Together (Fairport Convention)
02 One Sure Thing (Fairport Convention)
03 Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Fairport Convention)
04 Chelsea Morning (Fairport Convention)
05 Violets of Dawn (Fairport Convention)
06 If [Stomp] (Fairport Convention)
07 Time Will Show the Wiser (Fairport Convention)
08 If I Had a Ribbon Bow (Fairport Convention)
09 Morning Glory (Fairport Convention)
10 Reno, Nevada (Fairport Convention)

https://www85.zippyshare.com/v/HmzD4rur/file.html

For the cover, I took a screenshot from the YouTube video of "Reno, Nevada." By the way, that's Ian Matthew in front, Richard Thompson in the middle, and Judy Dyble in the background.