“Have you got the new album by The Lost Brothers?”, I asked
the man in my local record shop yesterday. “No”, he replied, “It’s only available
online”. “Ok, have you got a new album by Frazey Ford?”. He looked on his
computer. “That doesn’t come out until April”. For god’s sake! I was trying to
support my local record shop because it is a miracle that we still have one in
this day and age. I was determined to buy something. I couldn’t hang about
though because I had left S in the pub. In the folk section I noticed an
album that I hadn’t heard for about 40 years. “That will do”, I thought, paid
the man £9.99 and hurried across the road to Spoons.
The album is Babbacombe Lee by Fairport
Convention. I originally bought it on release in 1971. I was a student at Teacher
Training College at the time. It is a concept album which relates the true story
of John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee who became famous as ‘The man they couldn’t hang’.
He
was convicted in January 1885 of the murder of his employer Miss Emma Anne Keys
at her home in Babbacombe near Torquay. The evidence against him was flimsy and
circumstantial and he swore that he was innocent. I remember at college one
night back in 71 my friends and I debated for hours whether he was guilty or
not. The night before he was due to be executed on February 13th,
1885 at Exeter Prison he had a prophetic dream that he would not hang. He was
quite relaxed when led to the gallows.
The hangman was John Berry who had perfected the new ‘long
drop’ method which was thought to be more humane than previous ways of carrying
out executions. The trapdoor failed to open on three attempts although it was tested
after each failure and found to be in full working order. The doctor who had to
be present by law was so shocked by what he was witnessing he refused to take
any further part in the proceedings and Lee was returned to his cell. His sentence
was eventually reduced to penal servitude for life. Babbacombe Lee was released in 1907 after serving twenty-two years. He emigrated to the USA where
he died aged 80 in 1945. Lee's gravestone was located at Forest Home Cemetery,
Milwaukee in 2009.
The album came about when Dave Swarbrick of Fairport
Convention was in a West Country antique shop and came across a bundle of
yellowing newspaper cuttings that had been bound and signed by Lee. That
inspired the band to create the first ever Folk-Rock opera which is Babbacombe
Lee. The CD which I purchased yesterday contains a booklet telling the
whole story in John Lee’s own words. There are also two bonus tracks that I
hadn’t heard before and I’m pleased to say that the great Sandy Denny sings
on one track called Breakfast In Mayfair. I don’t think it is one of
Fairport’s greatest albums by any means, but I enjoyed hearing it again today.and it
gave me something to write about on this dull and rainy Friday in February .
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