"Unhalfbricking" by FAIRPORT CONVENTION from 1969
"...No Thought For Time..."
This Review Along With 300+ Others Is Available In My
SOUNDS GOOD E-Book on all Amazon sites
1960s and 1970s MUSIC ON CD - Volume 2 of 3 - Exceptional CD Remasters
As well as 1960s and 1970s Rock and Pop - It Also Focuses On
Folk, Folk Rock, Country Rock, Reggae, Punk and New Wave
As well as 1960s and 1970s Rock and Pop - It Also Focuses On
Folk, Folk Rock, Country Rock, Reggae, Punk and New Wave
Just Click Below To Purchase for £3.95
Thousands of E-Pages - All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs
(No Cut and Paste Crap)
Fairport Convention were to
have an extraordinary year in 1969 - one of only a handful of bands to release
three studio albums in one year - "What We Did On Our Holidays" in
January with the mighty "Liege & Lief" in December and this -
their 2nd platter "Unhalfbricking in July 1969. Other bands that achieved
three in a year were The Rolling Stones in 1965 (USA), Creedence Clearwater
Revival in 1969 (USA) and Matthews Southern Comfort in 1970 (UK). While those
other bands should be name-checked for such voluminous original output - by the
time the Fairports had placed "Unhalfbricking" at No. 12 in the UK
LPs charts with "Liege & Lief" to follow at the tail-end of that
extraordinary year at No. 17 – our Muswell Hill Heroes had practically invented
the genre 'British Folk Rock' or 'Electric Folk' and changed music forever.
Yet despite its higher chart
placing at No. 12 - it's "Liege & Lief" that gets all the
plaudits, the hero worship and general trembling on ancient British knees. I'd like
to argue that the humble but unfairly forgotten "Unhalfbricking" with
the eleven-minute World-Music/Irish Traditional/British Folk structures of
"A Sailor's Life" and the jaw-dropping beauty of Sandy's "Who
Knows Where The Time Goes?" is just as influential and should be just as
hallowed. And besides any album that has Nick Drake's house on the front cover
– a silly made-up name from Sandy Denny - and makes three old Bob Dylan songs
sound like new again gets an automatic five-star rating from me. "Million
Dollar Bash" indeed! Here are the CD reissue details...
UK released March 2003 -
"Unhalfbricking" by FAIRPORT CONVENTION on Island Remasters IMCD 293
- 063 596-2 (Barcode 044006359625) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Reissue and
Remaster with Two Bonus Tracks that plays out as follows (48:18 minutes):
1. Genesis Hall [Side 1]
2. Si Tu Dois Partir
3. Autopsy
4. A Sailor's Life
5. Cajun Woman [Side 2]
6. Who Knows Where The Time
Goes?
7. Percy's Song
8. Million Dollar Bash
Tracks 1 to 8 are their 3rd
studio album "Unhalfbricking" - released July 1969 in the UK on
Island Records ILPS 9102 in Stereo and November 1969 in the USA on A&M
Records SP 4206. Produced by JOE BOYD, SIMON NICOL and FAIRPORT CONVENTION
(Engineer JOHN WOOD) - "Genesis Hall" and "Cajun Woman" are
Richard Thompson songs - "Autopsy" and "Who Knows Where The Time
Goes?" are Sandy Denny songs - "A Sailor's Life" is a
Traditional cover with "Si Tu Dois Partir", "Percy's Song"
and "Million Dollar Bash" all being Bob Dylan covers.
BONUS TRACKS:
9. Dear Landlord [Bob Dylan
song] - an outtake from the "Unhalfbricking" sessions
10. The Ballad Of Easy Rider
[Byrds song written by Roger McGuinn] - an outtake from the "Liege &
Lief" album sessions
FAIRPORT CONVENTION was:
SANDY DENNY - Lead Vocals
RICHARD THOMPSON - Lead
Guitars and Vocals
SIMON NICOL - Second Guitar
ASHLEY HUTCHINGS - Bass
MARTIN LAMBLE - Drums
Guests:
DAVE SWARBRICK - plays
Fiddle on "Cajun Woman", "A Sailor's Life", "Si Tu
Dois Partir" - Mandolin on "Million Dollar Bash"
TREVOR LUCAS - plays
Triangle on "Si To Dois Partir"
MARC ELLINGTON - sings on
"Million Dollar Bash"
IAN MATTHEWS - sings on
"Percy's Song"
DAVE MATTACKS - plays drums
on "The Ballad Of Easy Rider"
Even after all these years
(2019 will be 50) – the wildly-different American A&M Records front sleeve
with three circus elephants and a woman astride on top still throws me for six
– what were they thinking! (Its pictured on Page 8 of the 16-page booklet).
Original Band Member ASHLEY HUTCHINGS penned the new liner notes and gives
really interesting insight into the songs – the fantastic rearrangement of
"A Sailor's Life" with its early World Music incantations and how
guest musicians like Fiddle Player Dave Swarbrick and Drummer Dave Mattacks
were such a comfortable fit that they soon became permanent members of the
band. Long-time Audio Engineer PASCHAL BYRNE handled the original tapes and his
typically excellent skill gives this CD reissue a gorgeous sound. There's also
a wad of Colour and Black and White photos of the Famous Five - Sandy goofing
about and Richard Thompson looking like he needs to see a good barber and soon.
The album opens with the
first of two Thompson originals "Genesis Hall" (the other on here is
"Cajun Woman") and immediately the guitars and Sandy's voice create a
magical sound. The lyrics "...to see both sides...to judge without
hate..." still impress too. The first of three Bob Dylan covers sees his
"If You Gotta Go, Go Now" transformed into a daft-as-a-brush French
knees up on Fiddle and Washboard. Bizarrely the July 1969 UK 7" single on
Island WIP 6064 with Richard's "Genesis Hall" on the flipside was a
No. 21 hit and brought the hairy-mob into a Top Of The Pops studio for the
first and only time. Things settle back down with Sandy's "Autopsy"- a
song that's both sleepily pretty and strangely bleak at one and the same time -
it's 4:20 minutes punctuated by beautifully economic and played guitar work
from RT. Side 1 ends with a monster - the 11:08 minutes of "A Sailor's
Life" - a Traditional air sweetly sung by Sandy. But then as it progresses
it's transformed into a drone that encompasses Irish Folk, Indian Rhythms and
British Folk Rock - Swarbrick's looming Fiddle slinking in while Thompson
plucks and flicks on the guitar - both battling it until the end. It's
fantastic stuff...
Side 2 opens with the second
Thompson original - where he lets rip on the wild partying "Cajun
Woman" - a song that seems two decades ahead of its sound yet strangely
out of place here (if that makes sense). But then 'it' happens - the magic -
"Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” Re-listening to it for the millionth time
and I'm still floored by its beauty and pathos. I often imagine a Mum watching
her grown-up daughter from out of a kitchen window taking to her Dad with her new
beau in the garden - introducing the one she'll marry. The mum is listening to
Sandy sing on her mini stereo - fixing things on her counter-top (just so) -
her precious child now a woman and leaving for her own life. No thought for
time - except where has it gone and how did it go by so fast...
The Extras actually feel
like Bonus Material - an outtake cover of Dylan's "Dear Landlord"
where the band sound relaxed and Sandy effortless in her rendition. The Byrds
cover for "The Ballad Of Easy Rider" actually hails from the
"Liege & Lief" sessions later in 1969 but Hutchings says in the
liner notes that its sound is more in keeping with "Unhalfbricking" -
and he's right - in fact it sounds like a sort of dry-run for "Who Knows Where
The Time Goes?" - very pretty indeed.
When you think that you
couldn't locate the original British vinyl LP with its black-eyed Island
Records logo for under £250 - then the three-quid cost of this fabulous CD
reissue seems like a garden fence I'd want to climb. Fab and then some...
