The past two days I have been reading Beeswing, Fairport, Folk Rock & Finding My Voice 1967-75, by Richard Thompson. I enjoyed it immensely and finished it in two marathon sessions. It has humour and sadness in equal measure. Anyone who has seen Richard Thompson play live will know he is a very humorous person and a great storyteller. He seems to take to writing a book as easily as a duck takes to water. However, there was also a lot of tragedy in his life during this period which must have been difficult to write about. On 12 May 1969, not long after recording their third album Unhalfbricking, Fairport Convention’s van crashed on the M1 motorway, on the way home from a gig at Mothers Club in Birmingham. Drummer Martin Lamble was killed outright in this accident at the age of only 19. Richard’s American girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn also died. This traumatic episode would have finished a lot of bands, but somehow Fairport survived and their next album Liege & Lief remains one of my favourite albums of all time and created the genre of British Folk-Rock. They had another dramatic incident later in 1971 when they were all living in a former pub called The Angel. A lorry on the road outside, missed a turn and crashed into the house killing the driver and ended up in Dave Swarbrick’s bedroom.
There is quite a ruthless side to the band displayed at times, such as when they dismissed the original drummer Shaun Frater, also the singer Judy Dyble. I suppose sometimes, in order to progress you have to be quite ruthless. Judy was replaced by Sandy Denny who many consider as Britain’s finest ever female singer-songwriter. When she failed to turn up for a Danish tour the band also sacked Sandy which was tragic for all concerned. Fairport did not try and replace Sandy because they thought she was irreplaceable. Without a female singer they had lost their unique sound. They still made some interesting albums, but in my opinion never reached anything like Liege & Lief or What We Did On Our Holidays. Celia from The Trees might have been a good replacement in my opinion, but it is not for me to say. Without Sandy, Richard was the only genius left in the band. He had outgrown the others and eventually left to pursue his solo career.
I will not say much more, or I will end up writing my own biography of Fairport and Richard. I will just mention a few little things I found interesting. In the book he writes about the Incredible String Band and on page 136 talks about the disappearance of Licorice McKechnie and how 35 years later in 2019 she reappeared. That was a surprise to me, so I googled her and could find nothing about her being found. Either Richard has made a mistake, or knows something that we do not. Another thing I found interesting is that only the night before the book arrived, I had been reading online about an album by Mike & Lal Waterson called Bright Phoebus that had attained legendary status with Folk fans. I had looked to find a CD to buy, and none were available. In his book Richard says that album is a classic and he is proud to have been a part of it.
It was great to read about many people who I have previously written about on my blog page. Phil Ochs, Joe Boyd, Anne Briggs, Johnny Moynihan, Nick Drake, Jackson C Frank, Tim Hardin, Bert Jansch, Shelagh McDonald, John Martyn, Vashti Bunyan, Nik Jones and many more. It almost seemed as if he had been through my record collection to write this book!. I thought there would be a lot more about Richard’s spiritual journey and why he converted to Sufism. Pir Vilayat Khan is mentioned though, and there is a vivid account of his journey to Mecca for the Haj. Richard’s great song Beeswing seems to be partly inspired by a tramp called Ted who did occasional work for them in Suffolk, also from what he knew about the wonderful Anne Briggs. I will not say anymore because you might want to read it yourself. I should mention that there are some wonderful photos. There is also an appendix where Richard talks about his dreams. I skipped through that bit. It was the only part of the book that I did not enjoy. Otherwise, I would say that this is one of the best books about music that I have read, and I hope Richard writes a sequel about the later parts of his brilliant career.
