Fairport Convention - Fairport Convention (1968)

Fairport Convention are a successful English band who are credited with inventing ‘electric folk’, a subgenre of folk rock based heavily on traditional English folk songs.
 

Fairport Convention were formed in London in 1967 by Simon Nicol, Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson and Shaun Frater. Frater was soon replaced on the drums by Martin Lambler, and they then brought in singer Judy Dyble. They were soon regularly playing at such underground clubs as UFO and The Electric Garden, and came to the attention of Joe Boyd. Boyd became their manager, and got them signed to Polydor Records. He also persuaded them to recruit a male vocalist to work alongside Dyble, reccomending Ian MacDonald (who would later call himself Ian Matthews). By the summer of 1968, their debut album had been released.
The self-titled Fairport Convention album is often seen as little more than an interesting prologue to their later works, as it contains none of the English folk material which would define their later sound. Instead, it is heavily based on American west-coast folk-rock, containing covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and other American songwriters. At the time many comparisons were drawn with Jefferson Airplane, mostly due to their use of two lead singers. It was their only album to feature their first lineup of of Ian MacDonald (vocals), Judy Dyble (vocals), Richard Thompson (guitar), Simon Nicol (guitar), Ashley Hutchings (bass) and Simon Lamble (drums).

|> What We Did On Our Holidays (1969)
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