Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 31 May 07 - 06:37 PM

But Ashley Hutchings founded both Fairport and Steeleye.
How come you didn't 'discover' him till years later?

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: ClaireBear
Date: 31 May 07 - 08:27 PM

Because I live in California, where it was difficult to get independent recordings back in 1969 -- also I was a teenager at the time, and not as diligent as I am now at researching whose energy devised the music to which I listen.

As I recall, I was able to get Fairport and Pentangle LPs from the big Tower Records in San Francisco at that time, but there was no "British Isles" section back then to rummage through for other related works. Honestly, had there been such a section, I doubt that much would have been available in it.

Most of my then acquaintance with the music came from two or three very alt radio stations that were available to me at that time: KFAT (see the Laura Ellen obit posted on Mudcat yesterday), KSJO (now mainstream, but at first owned and operated by three young men who each took 8-hour shifts every day and played a wild mish-mash of whatever the heck they wanted), and tiny KTAO in my home town of Los Gatos. All three were noncommercial independent stations with eclectic recording collections -- but none of them had Hutchings except in the context of the aforementioned bands.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Severn
Date: 31 May 07 - 08:43 PM

One thing I seldom hear mentioned much, is that Dave Mattacks, to me at least, is the first person I ever heard on either side of The Pond that ever found a way make a drum kit fit into a UK or US Folk context and make them sound like they actually belonged there and felt relatively at home (other than in some dance oriented traditional contexts). Drums tacked on to a Bluegrass or folk recording by a producer who seemed to be on some sort of misguided attempt to make the music sound more "commercially appealing" usually made me cringe, i.e. the later Flatt & Scruggs recordings. "Liege" & "Full House" era Fairport (actually encountered in reverse order after a year's exile in Vietmam)made me say to myself, "That's cool!", while I thought that, while they'd used an occaisional session player on their first album, Steeleye was doing just fine before they added the full time drummer for "Now We Are Six" and that their rhythm section sounded a bit on the overly bouncy side a lot of the time, and a bit of a distraction. Mattacks could find ways to add to things beyond merely keeping time and even in later times could make something like "Polly On The Shore" sound like something that I'd have rather heard behind Steeleye's vocal prowess that what they had going, for the most part.
The flexibility of the Fairport rhythm section was a secret weapon for them apart from the ever changing parade of singers, songwriters and lead virtuosoty on guitar and fiddle.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST,van lingle
Date: 31 May 07 - 10:48 PM

This is yet another reason that we need a Trad/Rock playoff.The bowl system soesn't seem to be working. Fairport by 11&1/2 in IMO.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST,Mr. Gubbins (no not that one!)
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 12:13 PM

For Trad/Rock try Twangin'an 'a Traddin'by The Ashley Hutchings Big Beat Combo, it's more than a novelty record...

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 13 - 04:07 PM

Hiya,

I love both Steeleye & more recently Pentangle.
As to Steeleye v FC – Dad always preferred the former, so did I. They were played loads; I never seemed to hear any Fairport. Dad was crying during Steeleye's last gig, he hardly ever cries . We can't imagine living in a world w/o said band, although one day we're going to have to. I could talk about them all day. I friggin love 'em.

I don't care about them having no website cos there's various ways to find out which dates are near me; nor am I bothered whether the venues are half empty as long as I can get there, w/ whoever wants to come w/ me (people don't exactly queue up) it's actually a lot easier for me to get to ½ empty venues cos there's more chance of a wheelchair space. I would've liked the Spanorak (hoody) though. If they had merchandise I'd be skint.

I agree – heard Maddy's hare song as a little girl & cos she said "I" I thought she was referring to herself. Was always in awe of/in love w/ her voice (& perhaps her as well) & when I met her I shook like a leaf.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?There was
From: GUEST,mayomick
Date: 11 Jul 13 - 06:15 PM

I don't think the original post was asking people to rate the bands against each other rather than explain why the response to the two groups was so different. There were rival camps between fans of the two groups. The Fairport fans I knew in seventies England were studenty types who tended to be slightly condescending towards both Steeleye and their fans. Fairport were esoteric and underground - often "appreciated" more than enjoyed . Steeleye was played on the radio - so it was folk-pop versus Fairport's folk-rock. I doubt if any of this fan rivalry came from the musicians.

I don't think I could listen to Fairport much these days , and you never hear them played anywhere, do you? I heard All Round My Hat on the radio two weeks ago and it sounded very fresh .

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 13 - 03:57 PM

Hiya,

Well, Steeleye got me into Pratchett cos of hearing their songs about his books, I've made good friends (mostly online) – & found this place – through my love of said band, they cheer me up when I should need it, & (so far) I've never been led wrong by them. They're also a good deterrent for really annoying people.

I'm told that they were seen as a bit of a joke in the '70s, but a lot of people think my taste is a bit odd anyway, & the older I get, the less I care.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 05:22 AM

Listened to Fairport's "Tam Lin" a few months ago for first time in Ages. Was horrified. All those instrumental breaks getting in the story's way! And I used to love that track. Hearing Frankie Armstrong's version some years later has maybe spoiled me for any folk-rock versions. A ballad is a story. Still love Sandy's voice tho. And I always loved Steeleye's "Thomas the Rhymer". It just works..

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Claire M
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 02:36 PM

Hiya,

I love that too. & 'Tam Lin' is a favourite, both story & song. One makes me think of the other, & I was overjoyed to get a fairy tale book one Xmas that used the old-fashioned language & versions of the tales. I was disappointed Maddy didn't say "where came ye from?" to me. I still melt away thinking about said gig.

Had Dad been as into FC as much as/more than SS I would've probably preferred them. Since I was little, when/if I had a favourite of anything – as I generally did -- similar stuff was never as good (this has changed somewhat w/ hitting 30 & finding Pentangle – nearly didn't notice 'Solomon's Seal' [1] cos it looked so plain, which would've been a real shame; it's unbebloodybefrigginglievable.

As for SS; occasionally look at the fan websites (& contribute to one) & I've got their tour alerts on ents24 but it'd still be nice to have an official website w/ shiny stuff & like-minded people cos there seems to be one for everything else – perhaps they don't have one cos soon they won't need it, or don't try as hard cos as FC there's no need to ?? Please no....owh I've upset meself now.)

I'm a jewellery fiend so some would be nice w/ their logo/something to do w/ their songs.

[1] Oh dear, that sounded wrong. Oh no, a footnote.........

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jul 13 - 05:05 PM

Steeleye Span had a name taken from a traditional song {Horkstow Grange}. & were yer actchul folk group ~~ i.e a group which sang traditional songs and played traditional dances, more or less straightforwardly, except that they used electric backing; and occasionally went in for some creative collation, as in combining three different but topically-related songs to make a rather fine IMO track of Weaver & Factory Maid; &, less successfully, for some reason singing the words of Farewell He to the tune of All Round My Hat, which I always found profoundly irritating {I mean ~~ WHY?}, but underlined the taste of the fine old pop-listening public by hitting the charts. Oh, well!...

Fairport Convention, OTOH, had a name which communicated zilch SFAICS (what sort of "Convention" would that have been then?), & were an indifferent (to my ears - but I admit I was never much into yer·ole·rock'n'roll) rock group who played a few jigs'n'reels for no reason particularly apparent to me, & sang mainly rather boring self-composed songs, with one or two traditional ones included, as I felt, a bit ½-♥-edly & absent-mindedly, interrupting them in the middle with apparently improvised show-offy instrumental interludes ['breaks', I think they are called with some appropriateness] of such tedium & interminability that by the time they were over one had forgotten what the bloody song was about — an odd habit which worked much to the detriment of a few initially quite promising soundalike groups who formed in their wake, e.g Trees, who however could never quite shake off this particular irritating compulsion, apparently feeling it was somehow expected of them as a soi-disant folk-rock group.

I think it obvious where my preferences lay.

~M~

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Claire M
Date: 14 Jul 13 - 09:49 AM

Hiya,

It's not as if I didn't have a say in what I listened to, far from it; in actual fact dad says it was me that wore that SS tape out cos I kept asking for it on.

I didn't know who the character they were named after was or why they were called that, I just thought they'd got a funny name. I did try listening to FC on one of dad's compilations but felt nothing; FC didn't seem as nasty (song-wise) unlike w/ SS I couldn't imagine them drinking out of crystal goblets in their little cave, saying ridiculously polite old-fashioned things to each other, or shape-shifting. 'Lyke Wake Dirge' reminded me of my beloved 'Gaudete'.

As for singing 'Farewell He' to 'All Around My Hat' now that I think about it that actually sounds quite sensible – of course we wouldn't use those terms now but a little bit of reason & sense go a long way.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:31 AM

Steeleye Span for me, but only really the first three albums (minus the rubbish Buddy Holly cover). The arrangements are rawer and more unorthodox, though Fc are probably the better conventional rock band. Some of the guitar playing on early Steeleye Span is almost like the Velvet Underground, which is a good thing in my book. Neither band are as good as Pentangle or Mr Fox, though...

The main problem with the overall Fairport/Steeleye/Albions sound is that it inadvertantly set incredibly limited parameters for how folk rock should sound now. It's an increasingly self-referential sub-genre that, with a very few notable exceptions, desperately needs to get out more. Essentially it's caberet.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:39 AM

Any band with M Carthy in it is good enough for me...

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Andrez
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:53 AM

Oi'll drink ter dat Guest!

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 08:18 AM

Totally agree with Spleen Cringe regarding the first three Steeleye albums - to be pedantic though, 'Rave On' doesn't appear on the original 'Please To See The King' album, only on reissues.

I only really like the early Fairport stuff mind. I think the largely non folky 'What We Did on Our Holidays' is something of a gem.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: RTim
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 09:06 AM

I have never like Steeleye, mainly because I don't like Maddy's voice! However, I may be baised because I know some of Fairport as friends!!!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 10:08 AM

Oddly, I was just going to say that it was Maddy's superb voice that really gave Steeleye its edge -- infinitely better than McShee or Denny or Humphriss or Pegg. So - no accounting, as the Wisdom hath it.

~M~

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Claire M
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 12:36 PM

Hiya,

& when I've seen SS live they seemed to rock their songs up more, which was/is great.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 12:56 PM

Oh, indeed ~~ Steeleye have always done a lovely live gig, with creative costuming & Maddy's basic but effective [& infectious!] dance!

~M~

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 04:05 PM

I have equal respect for them both, but I've always loved Fairport, from the first time I heard them on Peel's show around 1968. There is genuine greatness, joy and tragedy which is inseparable from the band - we old folks doddering around Cropredy with 6X in one hand and adjusting our hearing aids with the other know this.

Someone said Fairport had succeeded through marketing to the beery blokes. MARKETING? Fairport? Are you kidding? Any success they've had is in spite of marketing. Mind you they did discover mailing lists around 1979, which helped a bit.

Alleged marketing success is far more relevant to Steeleye - for God's sake they had Jo Lustig for a manager! To steal a few lines from my old classmate Richard Williams -

"One day (Lustig's) sceptical Yiddish mother asked him what it was, exactly, that he did for a living. Well, mom, he said, people pay me to get their names and addresses into the newspapers and on to the radio. "You get people's names and addresses into the newspapers and on to the radio?" Yes, mom. "And you get paid for it?" That's right, mom. "Who pays you? The newspapers and radio?" No, mom, the people pay me. "And their names go in the newspapers and radio, because you ask?" Yes, mom. "So what are you, such a big shot?""

Then of course, Steeleye also had Mike Batt as a producer.....

Michael asks "what sort of Convention would that be then?"
Around the mid 1960s an assorted bunch of young musicians convened in a house called Fairport, at the corner of Fortis Green Road in Muswell Hill. That's the sort of convention it was. A musical one.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:15 PM

The first three are good, but it's Steeleye albums 4 and 5 for me - say what you like about MC and the Woodseses, for me Prior/Hart/Knight/Kemp/Johnson will always be the lineup. No drummer on any of those first five albums, which may be relevant - the 70s folk-rock rhythm section is a dreadful thing.

As for Fairport, speaking as a child of the 70s, I never got into the singer-songwriter end of folk-rock back then (with the partial exception of Pentangle's original compositions), and I'm not likely to now. (In the 70s I was a fan of Roxy Music, Slapp Happy and Faust, and I wanted folkie strummers to do something more interesting with their material - more lyrically complex, more texturally abrasive, less obvious. These days I'm a fan of P. Bellamy, R. Copper and F. J. Child, and I want the strummers to stop messing about and get back to the old songs - it's not as if there's any shortage. (When did you last hear a False Foudrage?))

I'll take Jacqui McShee over Maddy Prior, I think; her voice is more controlled and less mannered. But June Tabor or Norma W over either of them.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:39 PM

Phil, Brian Peters, who sometimes posts here, did a fine recording of False Foudrage. There's some discussion at http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=73959

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 13 - 07:56 PM

Flippin' 'eck, The, you're far too old to get into that spurious comparison malarkey, innit! Maddy Prior and Sandy Denny both have/had voices that are out of this world, given the right material. Vive le difference, say I.

As for June Tabor, she does grim better than anyone. Sometimes I like grim. But not that much.

By the way, one of the very best Steeleye efforts (for 'twas that in all but name) was "My Very Favourite Nursery Rhyme Record" which actually went under the guise of Tim Hart And Friends. It was the soundtrack of my two kids' childhood and it's utterly, unaffectedly, uncondescendingly fabulous! Buy this for your kids and they'll love you for it forever. Mine are in their 30s now and they wouldn't be without their copies. Or just buy it!

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 12:08 AM

My very ofavourite nusery record was also followed by a video release. Amusing to see martin carthy singing the man in the moon.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: melodeonboy
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 04:46 AM

Slight thread drift (I'm good at that!), but I'd rather listen to Shirley Collins singing than either Denny or Prior.
(No slur intended against either of them, mind; I interviewed Maddy for my radio programme some years ago, and she's a charming lady!)

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Tootler
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 05:26 AM

We had the Hart/Prior nursery fhyme album. I loved it . My daughters didn't.

Subject: RE: Fairport/Steeleye - unequal respect?
From: Claire M
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 01:20 PM

Hiya,

I'll take both, Phil.

I've never liked 'Rave On', probably cos I've never liked the original . I've always loved Tim's dreary voice, same w/ Maddy's , but I wouldn't want the Nursery Rhyme Record – no children :. no need – perhaps if mum/dad had had it things would've been different.

One thing that has always puzzled me re SS is why Maddy sings a couple of songs w/o changing the pronouns, like 'The Bonny Black Hare' (she seems to enjoy that one, as do I)

That said a little Claire M happily sang "those women will fret, those women will fuss, they spend 5hrs before their glass....." w/o seeing anything strange.

As odd as it makes 'The Bonny Black Hare' sounds it doesn't stop me wishing I was a character in said song though. Ooh!