This time, some more of David Suff’s notes, continuing from where we left them, but jumping a couple of years in the process.
“Fairport Convention’s 1975 album for Island Rising For The Moon was a stunning return to form. With Sandy Denny back in the band, Glyn Johns producing and ex-Grease Band drummer Bruce Rowland replacing Mattacks; the album benefited from several of Sandy’s finest songs, including Stranger To Himself and the title track. Disappointingly the album didn’t achieve the success band and label hoped for; somewhat reluctantly Denny, Lucas and Donahue decided that their futures lay outside of the Convention.
“Many musicians have passed through the ranks of Fairport Convention, some have returned only to leave again, others have had only the briefest tenure with the band. Keeping track of Fairport’s multitudinous line-up changes is a daunting task. The great rock historian Pete Frame, [sic] once drew one of his family trees attempting to chronicle the many line-up changes of the band, telling it is titled “Resolving the Fairport Confusion”. Their 1976 album Gottle o’ Geer with its Norman Rockwell inspired cover dates from a particularly confused period in the group’ history.”
More from these notes, written in November 2006, next time.
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