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Friday 25 March 2022

Fairport Friday - What We Did On Our Holidays

 


Now this is more like it. Fairport Convention's second album What We Did on Our Holidays was released in January 1969 and was the first of three absolute classic albums released by the band in that calendar year. Has any other band ever had a year like that?

The personnel was the same as the debut album with one crucial difference. Judy Dybie had left the band and was replaced by Sandy Denny. Not that Judy was bad but Sandy with her singing takes the band to a whole different level, or even stratosphere.Also, it was an out and out folk rock album as opposed to the musical hotchpotch on the first one.  I'm not sure that it is  crucial but it was also the first of their albums on the Island label..

Sandy also wrote the opening track Fotheringay which was to become the name of the band she set up with boyfriend Trevor Lucas when she left the band in 1970. Note to myself - one for the must have list.

Fotheringay Castle was where Mary Queen of Scots was executed and is the name of a street, and formerly a pub, on Glasgow's southside in the vicinity of the Battle of Langside

What we Did was the favourite album of all time of CCM favourite the late great Neal Casal.If it was good enough for Neal it is good enough for me.

Like George I'm not sharing Meet on the Ledge not because I'm contrary, like him, but because there are plenty of other good songs to choose from.

Another classic from 1969 next Friday? I think so.

Fairport Convention -Fotheringay

Fairport Convention - She Moves Through the Fair

2 comments:

  1. I only properly got on board with Fairport (at that time) with their 3rd album Unhalfbricking and as a result, perversely perhaps, I'm a tad curmudgeonly resistant to embracing WWDOOH wholeheartedly - misery guts I know! Great album cover though!

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  2. This is where the magic begins. Three pretty much flawless albums all released during 1969 before Sandy quit. The Fotheringay album from 1970 is a must have (as is the Fotheringay 2 album which Jerry Donahue completed and released in 2008). Of course Sandy later re-joined Fairport as did most of Fotheringay. Fotheringport Confusion as RT described them.
    The castle where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned and executed was/is Fotheringhay Castle in the village of Fotheringhay (not Fothering-gay). Maybe Sandy removed the 'h' to help it 'scan' in the song... perhaps she made a genuine mistake... but either way I think the Sandy Denny spelling should always be used and village & English Heritage signage be adjusted accordingly.

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