(1969) Fairport Convention - What We Did On Our Holidays
Review:
The arrival of Sandy Denny on What We Did On Our Holidays began Fairport Convention's evolution as the best British folk-rock band from the 1960s. That is made immediately clear with her composition "Fotheringay," which kicks off the album. Partly because it sounds like a traditional song from old England, and partly because of Denny's heavenly voice, this acoustic song is more ethereal than anything from their debut. Another song in this vein is "She Moves Through the Fair," which is more of a band piece (the group is credited with the arrangement of this folk song) the style of which the group would further explore on "A Sailor's Life" on their next album.
Richard Thompson contributed three songs to the album. One of them, "Tale in Hard Time," has such an irresistibly melodic keyboard riff that you will be excused for not noticing the dispiriting lyrics ("Take the sun from my heart/Let me learn to despise").
A second piece, "No Man's Land," is a traditional-sounding folk song driven by an accordion as lead instrument. Lastly, there's "Meet on the Ledge," a resigned slice of reality not unlike the type of song he would later write while recording with his future wife, Linda Thompson.
The band gets to display their chops on numbers like the electric-folk blues of "Mr. Lacey" and the wordless "The Lord is in This Place...How Dreadful is This Place," which contains a slight echo effect, as if it was recorded in a cathedral. On this rural blues track, Denny hums a gospel hymn over a slide-guitar accompaniment.
Fairport Convention tip their collective hat to West Coast folk-rock by including a great Byrds knockoff, "Book Song," that was co-written by Thompson and Ian Matthews. It has a slight country twang to it, with Denny and Matthews singing harmony. Also, as on their debut, they perform a sweet sounding Joni Mitchell tune. The song tells of a casual encounter that takes place during an "Eastern Rain:"
You with daybreak in your eyes
Afraid to speak for telling lies
I watch you search for some reply to lend me
But when the rain is done we'll stop pretending
The band also repeat themselves with a Bob Dylan cover, this time around performing "I'll Keep it With Mine." In addition to doing a great job of showing off Denny's vocals, the arrangement is similar to Denny's later "Who Knows Where the Time Goes." Also, the melody to "Nottamun Town" (again credited as a band composition) is a dead ringer for Dylan's 1963 protest song "Masters of War," which in itself was probably taken from an earlier folk song. But hey, if you are going to imitate somebody, you could do a lot worse than to choose Bob Dylan as your model.
Throw in a pretty instrumental to close out the album, and Fairport Convention easily tops their debut with this one. What We Did on Our Holidays sounds better every time I play it. Hard to believe that they would top it with the release of Unhalfbricking just six months later.
Tracklist:
01 Fotheringay.flac
02 Mr. Lacey.flac
03 Book Song.flac
04 'The Lord Is In This Place, How Dreadful Is This Place?'.flac
05 No Man's Land.flac
06 I'll Keep It With Mine.flac
07 Eastern Rain.flac
08 Nottamun Town.flac
09 Tale In Hard Time.flac
10 She Moves Through The Fair.flac
11 Meet On The Ledge.flac
12 End Of A Holiday.flac
13 Throwaway Street Puzzle (Bonus Track).flac
14 You're Gonna Need My Help (Bonus Track).flac
15 Some Sweet Day (Bonus Track).flac
Summary:
Country: UK
Genre: folk rock, british folk rock
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~411-847 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
