Stating the blindingly obvious, this was the last year of the 1970s, and was the year that Girlfriend 27 and I got married. All of a sudden life got serious and I found I had new and challenging responsibilities. I am delighted to say that at the last count, that marriage survives.
It was also the year that the four chaps then comprising Fairport Convention decided to bring the group’s existence to a dignified close. As the years rolled on, in fact, it turned out that they did not have the power to do this, and indeed you can still go to gigs by Fairport Convention in 2014, and Simon Nicol is still in it. However, the immediate project ends with the 1970s, and at that point the band had indeed formally died.
As Cream had done some 11 years previously, the band did a farewell tour, a 36 date thing that ran from May to August 1979, thus ending just before the wedding. Girlfriend 27 (as she still was then) and I saw the Sheffield gig, notable for Simon Nicol climbing onto one of the amplifiers in the final song.
Again like Cream, they produced a partian shot LP. Cream’s had been called “Goodbye”, and featured a studio track. Fairport Convention called theirs “Farewell, Farewell”, taking the title of the track which closed the first side of the seminal album “Liege & Lief” in December 1969 [see above]. The LP is exclusively live, taken from the farewell tour, although the CD version has a bonus track which is a studio recording.
More of these records in the following posts.
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