"The dawn will send me on a chase to nowhere. Why cry as if I were the first to go there?"
Simply put, Fairport Convention, in their late-sixties incarnation, were the best folk-rock band going British or otherwise. Not only were they adept (re)interpreters of both the British and American roots traditions, but, unlike many of their peers, they were also capable of writing fine original material. Although their best work occurred during Sandy Denny's brief but legendary stint with the band, there is, nevertheless, much fine material to discover both before and after this period. While Fairport Convention were a great studio band with several classic albums to their credit, their more impromptu, less polished BBC recordings are just as revelatory and contain many gems that never appeared on their albums. A perfect example is their stunning interpretation of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne"; if not eclipsing the original, Sandy Denny's soaring vocals, the ominously odd shuffling tempo and the psychedelic overtones of Richard Thompson's guitar-work take the song somewhere entirely new. However, even the more familiar Fairport material fares well here. Denny's masterpiece, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?," receives a lovely, desolate acoustic treatment that easily bests the lighter folk-rock arrangement of the studio version on Unhalfbricking. It should be noted that the sound quality is not the best in places, especially the "off-air" recordings, but the essential nature of much of the music more than makes up for this. An amazing document of some of the best British-Folk recorded during the late sixties and early seventies.
