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Post by andyhowell on Apr 12, 2021 8:51:48 GMT
At the time of writing the hardback book has not yet been published but Beeswing is available as an e-book from Amazon.
If you like Richard Thompson, the Fairports and their wider network you will enjoy this although it is safe to say it is not the most insightful, revalatory or even well written book. If you rae young person this might not deliver as much!
The basic story is as you might imagine. Young, introspective guitar player, embarks on a life of music and remains pretty introspective right to the end of the book. The book is really structured around the albums and if you are a rather OCD completionist you will enjoy this. RT places each album in context and runs through most of the songs on the albums. Initially there are the early Fairport years, the leaving of the band and the struggling as a session musician, playing with Linda in folk clubs which not only taught him how to work with audiences saw him pretty fiancially secure for the first time.
Most of the dramatic stories have been told before in various biographies of Fairport and Sandy Denny. Sandy Denny comes through as arguably the finest songwriters the UK has produced but ultimately a tragic figure. Ashley Hutchins is revealed as a true revolutionary, someone who created new musical genres not once but three or four times. Dave Pegg is probably the best bass player in the world, the only one who could play those bass leads on the traditional material alongside guitar and fiddle. Dave Swarbrick was an inspirational figure but a difficult one who's love of speed (both the drug and the style of playing) took the subtlety out of the music which ultimately led to Thompson's decision to leave. There's the van crash on the morotway and the juggernaught truck crashing through the Angel. There's RT touring the USA with Iain Matthews and being asked to join Linda Rondstat's band (he thought Sandy might go ballistic as he was regularly working with her), playing with Glen Frey and the Eagles during a rehearsal set in an LA garage. Some of it is amussing in an RT way. Twice when playing with Matthews in the US — with audiences not getting it — he opened his eyes after completing a solo to find that IM had simply given up and walked off the stage!
He has real affection for Fairport and for those albums — they literally created a new style of music. And he is very proud of the songs he wrote for Linda to sing. Bright Lights comes across as a great album perhaps because they had so little money and time to record it in. The embrassing of sufi Islam is captured here, the time living in rural Suffolk and so on yet it doesn't really feel we are sharing that much.
There is a little bit about his guitar playing and style, though not as much as you might think. One thing I find odd is that many of the stories he gave in interviews for the book are not in the book itself and are often more interesting than the stuff that is!
The book runs up to the recording and release of Shoot Out The Lights though it doesn't cover the famous tour. It does, though, cover the Gerry Rafferty produced version of the album which RT hated — the budget and time in the studio made this the kind of album he really didn't like.
The final chapter is in some ways the most interesting, a meditation on the writing of Beeswing (released much later of course). Ostensibly this song was inspired byt he lives of Ted a tramp who he and Linda supported from time to time in Suffolk and Anne Briggs who was one of Sandy's closest friends (who RT never really met). However, the chapter really suggests that Beeswing is more autobiographical than you might think, someone on a long search for understanding.
If you think RT has always been something of an enigma he ends the book still very much as one. maybe you get a sense of development and growth but it seems to me that the RT we know today was forged more in the years that followed rather than those covered in the book. Fairport followed the great UK groups of the 60's but were never of that ilk and they squeezed what they could before pop and pomp squeezed them out. And yet their music survives in its own little niche rather than with any great celebrity, which I think RT and others were probably happy with.
It is a good and quick read — I read it over a couple of sessions. I can't help thinking RT must be a far more complex individual than the person who sines out of these pages, but maybe that's jsut the distorted view of a life long fan.
The book is illuminated by some gems of humour. My favourite refers to songwriting. Parents, partners and friends simply don't undestand the importance of hours spent staring of the window — a crucial part of the creative process!
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Post by fatfingerjohn on Apr 12, 2021 8:55:32 GMT
I've put in a request to Notts library to buy the book. I'm a meanie.
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Post by ocarolan on Apr 12, 2021 9:09:54 GMT
Pre-ordered it a while back...
K
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Post by Welshruss on Apr 17, 2021 22:14:00 GMT
Thanks just ordered.
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Post by borborygmus on Apr 19, 2021 9:29:54 GMT
Nice review, thanks!
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Post by ocarolan on Apr 19, 2021 10:00:25 GMT
Read my copy in two sittings. Enjoyed it very much. As Andy said above, it doesn't really break any new ground, but it was nevertheless an interesting read. Might return to reread my Fairport history book now.
Keith
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Post by andyhowell on Apr 19, 2021 16:04:44 GMT
I’ve also been thinking of rereading the Fairport stuff!
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Post by Welshruss on Apr 22, 2021 8:46:42 GMT
Fretboard Journal has put a great podcast up with Richard Thompson talking about the book. I just listened to it on the train home from work.
What’s is the Fairport Convention book called?
Cheers Russ
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Post by andyhowell on Apr 22, 2021 18:31:30 GMT
Fretboard Journal has put a great podcast up with Richard Thompson talking about the book. I just listened to it on the train home from work. What’s is the Fairport Convention book called? Cheers Russ Meet on The Ledge - Patrick Humphries I think!
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Post by scorpiodog on Apr 23, 2021 11:59:17 GMT
I read it last evening all in one go. Not being a Fairport completist, many (probably most) of the stories were new to me, and I found it interesting. I agree that he hasn't "bared his soul" to the World, but he does call it a memoir and not an autobiography. The highlight of the book for me was the story of the recording of "A Sailor's Life". It's only a page or two long, but I really had to listen to the record again in the light of what was said, and I have a new respect for a song that I had previously not properly listened to. The biit about dreams was also fascinating. I have a couple of questions. Maybe one of you ( andyhowell) will have the answers. 1) He acknowledges that Pentangle was playing trad arrangements in a modern style, and yet he asserts that Fairport were breaking new ground in Folk Rock. I think Pentangle were the groundbreakers here, and not Fairport, although Fairport's use of the rock idiom was more "Rocky". Thoughts? 2) Why does RT sing like that if he's a Londoner? He sings like a Geordie to my ears. I honestly thought he was one. I would certainly recommend the book to anyone who has an interest in RT's type of music and history, but who doesn't already know the history. It's a light read that moves quickly, and some parts are really funny (as in laugh out loud when you're on your own reading it).
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Post by andyhowell on Apr 24, 2021 9:54:57 GMT
I doubt RT thinks of Pentangle as Folk Rock, maybe more Folk Jazz! It'sa good question though as both had their first albums out in 1968. He reitetrates in the book the idea he's mentioned many time before that it was the Band that provided their greatest inspiration and set them off to search for an English equivalent. If I think of what I think to be folk rock then it probably would be Fairport?
Song style? Who knows but is family were Scottish from the borders, not that far from Northumberland?
His singing has changed a lot over the years and IMHE he only really became a competent singer once he started touring the USA solo. This, in a sense, provokes a lot of thoughts in my mind (though probably I should have better things to do).
For me personally the highlights of his career were Bright Lights and the Hands of Kindness band period which found he re-united with Joe Boyd and John Wood. However, it does seem that he won't be going any further. I suspect this is because it is taking him into the years of his long marriage to Nancy Covey which ended a couple of years ago. Covey was the musicla programmer for McCabe's music store and small venue in Santa Monica. I think she was responsible for his solo tours of hte USA which built his following and probably gave him a living! I'm no real RTT fanatic but I get the impression that this relationship just collapesed and she was the one to call it. Who knows. But you can see from this book that he is a bit of an odd ball, maybe even more so that you and me ;-)
For me he remains an enigma but maybe that's because I do the fan thing of experting people to be more profound that they probably are. However, what a musician.
I still shake at the memory of the Fairport 50th Anniversary evening at Cropredy a few years ago when all the living ex-members playd for about 4 hours going through the ages. The segment where the Full House line-up played (which chris Leslie as Swarbrick) was probably the most exciting and stunning thing I have ever seen — a rythmn section that have played together most of their lives and Thompson in remarkable form. There seems to be no DVD of this but there are some videos of some of the songs on their YouTube site.
If Cropredy goes ahead this year we are said to be treated to the full rendition of the Full House album. I suspect this might be the last time I get the chance to see these guys together. Not only fo we get RT, but Dave Mattacks' drumming (up there with the very best), Dave Pegg's bass (possibly the very best) and Simon Nicol. Watching them play the night before as RT's scratch band it was hilarious to see Nicol stop, pull a face, when he couldn't work out where RT was going. But in a blink he was back there. On this form they are up there with the vdyr best for me.
Of course, the Men in Black jsut shade it ...
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Post by Phil Taylor on Apr 24, 2021 14:14:53 GMT
Good review Andy. This isn't about the book but may I put the cat amongst the pidgeons? Apart from Beeswing I'm not keen on his voice at all and as a consequence I only appreciate his songs when covered by other artists. I'll get my coat
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Post by lavaman on Apr 24, 2021 14:29:09 GMT
This isn't about the book but may I put the cat amongst the pidgeons? Apart from Beeswing I'm not keen on his voice at all and as a consequence I only appreciate his songs when covered by other artists. I'll get my coat I'll get my coat too I enjoy Alison Krauss's version of Dimming of the Day, and Martin Grosswendt's cover of Down Where the Drunkards Roll
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Post by martinrowe on Apr 24, 2021 20:07:11 GMT
I'll get mine as well, and it's not like I don't I try to see if I'm missing something - no joy yet though. With one exception, I really do like 'I want to see the bright lights tonight' though. That made me smile the first time I heard it. It all right, I can't see that he'll be that bothered.
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Post by ocarolan on Apr 24, 2021 21:41:44 GMT
.. cloakroom seems to emptying fast....! Keith
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