Send "Fairport Convention " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 This month marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Fairport Convention’s Liege and Lief. And while it is enough to pay tribute to a great and lasting album, this record thankfully gives us a little more to chew on. Liege and Lief is—and will continue to be—a curious and exciting album to look back on. Back in 1969, it wasn’t their first album, but it was the album that solidified their—and really the—British folk-rock sound, making them as influential to others as they were great in their own right. But what was new has, over the years, morphed into a classic, into its own sort of tradition. And in that way the life of Liege and Lief, and perhaps of Fairport Convention’s sound as a whole, has become cyclical.The album is comprised mostly of reinterpretations of traditional folk songs. And they are certainly reinterpreted. They preserve the folk feel of the originals and Dave Swarbrick’s violin work—this is his first album as a full-time member—plants these songs just enough in yesterday to plug them into tradition without bogging them down. And in 1969, taking the old and refashioning it into something new, something revolutionary was a big part of what was happening in music and culture as a whole, and clearly not just in America....full text |
| Bbc |
| After forty years of Fairport Convention, undoubtedly one of the most influential folk collectives to have ever existed, here we have the release of a deluxe version of perhaps their best but certainly their most emotive album to mark the occasion. Liege & Lief is the Fairport album steeped in tragedy – the first trip back to the studio following the deaths of drummer Martin Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn (the girlfriend of Richard Thompson) in a tragic car accident in May 1969, the album has the almost eerie quality of a band struggling to find a means of coping with their obvious anguish; at the same time they are a band desperate to break all social constraints and indulge in the most manic of folk rock which they do so unapologetically in “Matty Groves”. Pioneers of the 1960s folk rock revolution (the band was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2002), Fairport’s seminal album was voted the 'Most Influential Folk Album Of All Time' in 2006. And quite rightly so – it is the album that saw the band edge closer to its English folk roots, bravely combining folk traditions with electric instruments. The Oxfordshire group, who had always been mistakenly thought of as members of the American west coast folk scene, embraced music in all its raw Englishness becoming exponents of a genre that would not only define a moment in musical history, but which would change the face of folk forever....full text |
| Uncut |
| Rightly considered a folk-rock landmark, Fairport’s fourth album contains music too mercurial to be constrained within one genre. Not that it ever looked as if things would turn out quite as happily. Conceived of after a tragic van accident, Fairport added traditional English music and a renewed sense of purpose to their already diverse elements, and emerged triumphant. Here on “Reynardine” or “Tam Lin” the kind of musical interplay – particularly between guitarist Richard Thompson and violinist Dave Swarbrick - that the band had explored in 'Unhalfbricking'’s “A Sailor’s Life” is blended with vernacular song to mesmerising effect. The unstable marriage of elements wasn’t destined to last, but with Liege And Lief the band didn’t just homage folk roots – they found new routes of their own....full text |
Fairport Convention lyrics
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