Once again we take up David Suff’s November 2006 notes from where we left them last time:
“Island supremo, Chris Blackwell, decided that the finished record would make more sense if released under the group name, rather than Mr Swarbrick’s. Dave still thinks that was the wrong decision [hear, hear!]. To add to the confusion, when the album hit the shops they had temporarily dropped the “Convention” from the band’s name. A new touring line-up briefly settled around Swarbrick, Pegg and Rowland, with Bob Brady, Roger Burridge and French acoustic guitar maestro Dan Ar Bras. As Nicol has it: “Eventually it was all done. They put together a band which did twelve gigs but had very little relevance to the stuff on the record [luckily for the several audiences]. As well as Peggy, Swarb, and Bruce Rowland there was Roger Burridge on the fiddle, Bob Brady on piano and Dan Ar Bras who was very confused. I don’t know how he got roped in. They went out as Fairport (without the “Convention”) but it obviously wasn’t going to work so I was invited on board to play guitar. That turned out to be the longest lasting pre-1985 line-up – three and a half years.””
More of that intriguing final sentence as these posts roll on to the end of the 1970s.
Meanwhile, after a short interlude, we next time return to David Suff’s notes.
Comments