What We Did on Our Holidays | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 1969 | |||
Genre | Folk rock, [1] folk [2] | |||
Length | 38:07 | |||
Label | Island | |||
Producer | Joe Boyd | |||
Fairport Convention chronology | ||||
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Singles from "What We Did on Our Holidays" | ||||
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Alternative cover | ||||
What We Did on Our Holidays (released as Fairport Convention in the United States) is the second studio album by the English folk rock band Fairport Convention,and the first of three released in 1969. It was their first album to feature singer-songwriter Sandy Denny. The album also showed a move towards the folk rock for which the band became noted,including tracks later to become perennial favourites such as "Fotheringay" and the song traditionally used to close live concerts,"Meet on the Ledge". [3]
Following the departure of Judy Dyble,the band conducted auditions for a replacement singer,and Sandy Denny became the obvious choice. Simon Nicol has said "it was a one horse race really... she stood out like a clean glass in a sink full of dirty dishes". [4] According to author Richie Unterberger Denny's "haunting,ethereal vocals gave Fairport a big boost". [2]
The album has been described by Unterberger as "a near-ideal balance between imaginative reworkings of traditional folk songs ... quality covers of contemporary folk-rock singer-songwriters,some quite obscure ... and original folk-rock material by various members". [5] In 2008 Simon Nicol described the album as his favourite, [6] and it was voted number 281 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). [7]
The cover features a sketch of the band performing,drawn on a blackboard by Martin Lamble and Sandy Denny in a classroom at the University of Essex [8] and the reverse of the original sleeve shows a photograph of the band performing. The Island Masters 1990 re-release IMCD 97 also features a portrait of Sandy Denny.
In the US,the album was released by A&M Records (SP-4185) with an identical track listing but featuring new cover art,and was re-titled Fairport Convention. [9] The album was also released in Australia and New Zealand by Festival Records with the 'blackboard' front cover and an entirely different back cover to both the US and UK releases. The Discogs website gives no fewer than 54 different versions of the album. [10]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [2] |
Pitchfork | 8.8/10 [11] |
Rolling Stone | (favourable) [12] |
The Village Voice | A− [13] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [14] |
In a contemporary review for The Village Voice ,American critic Robert Christgau deemed Fairport Convention the "most interesting unknown group" he had listened to in some time,highlighting their take on "Pentangle-style ballads" and Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It with Mine". [13] Neal Casal,of Ryan Adams &the Cardinals,later listed What We Did on Our Holidays as one of his favourite albums of all time. [15]
Reviewing the 2008 re-issue of the album Pitchfork.com said:"The album mixes new interpretations of traditional ballads like 'Nottamun Town,' here rendered almost as a raga,with much newer songs,such as their soulful take on Dylan's 'I'll Keep It With Mine' and their ponderous version of Mitchell's 'Eastern Rain.' The best material on Holidays,though,may be their own—the stomping blues-rock of 'Mr. Lacey,' the racing 'No Man's Land,' and the stirring afterlife anthem 'Meet on the Ledge.'" [16]
The album title was re-used for the 1999 CD release What We Did on Our Holidays –An Introduction to Fairport Convention on Island Records as IMCD 263. [17]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
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1. | "Fotheringay" | Sandy Denny | 3:06 |
2. | "Mr Lacey" | Ashley Hutchings | 2:55 |
3. | "Book Song" | Iain Matthews, Richard Thompson | 3:13 |
4. | "The Lord Is in This Place…How Dreadful Is This Place" (based on "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" by Blind Willie Johnson) | Hutchings, Thompson, Denny | 2:01 |
5. | "No Man's Land" | Thompson | 2:32 |
6. | "I'll Keep It with Mine" | Bob Dylan | 5:56 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Eastern Rain" | Joni Mitchell | 3:36 |
2. | "Nottamun Town" | Traditional, arranged by Denny, Matthews, Thompson, Simon Nicol, Hutchings, Martin Lamble | 3:12 |
3. | "Tale in Hard Time" | Thompson | 3:29 |
4. | "She Moves Through the Fair" | Traditional, arranged by Denny, Matthews, Thompson, Nicol, Hutchings, Lamble | 4:14 |
5. | "Meet on the Ledge" | Thompson | 2:50 |
6. | "End of a Holiday" | Nicol | 1:07 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
13. | "Throwaway Street Puzzle" | Hutchings, Thompson | 3:30 |
14. | "You're Gonna Need My Help" (recorded live for BBC Radio's "Symonds on Sunday" show, producer John Walters and engineer Tony Wilson; first transmission: 9 February 1969) | McKinley Morganfield | 4:11 |
15. | "Some Sweet Day" | Felice and Boudleaux Bryant | 2:32 |
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock band, formed in 1967 by guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Shaun Frater. They started out influenced by American folk rock, with a set list dominated by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell songs and a sound that earned them the nickname "the British Jefferson Airplane". Vocalists Judy Dyble and Iain Matthews joined them before the recording of their self-titled debut in 1968; afterwards, Dyble was replaced by Sandy Denny, and Matthews later left during the recording of their third album.
Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny was an English singer-songwriter who was lead singer of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. She has been described as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer".
You Can All Join In is a budget-priced sampler album from Island Records released in 1969. Priced at 14 shillings and 6 pence (£0.72), it reached no. 18 on the UK Albums Chart.
Trevor George Lucas was an Australian folk singer, a member of Fairport Convention and one of the founders of Fotheringay. He mainly worked as a singer-songwriter and guitarist but also produced many albums and composed for the film industry toward the end of his career. He married three times, his first wife was Cheryl, his second wife was fellow folk musician Sandy Denny (1973–1978), and his third wife was Elizabeth Hurtt (1979–1989). Lucas died on 4 February 1989 of a heart attack in his sleep, in Sydney, aged 45. According to Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane, Lucas "was one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters Australia ever produced and although he was held in high regard in UK folk rock circles, he remained virtually unknown in his homeland".
(guitar, vocal) is a 1976 album by Richard Thompson. It was released by Island Records as a career retrospective after he and his wife Linda had gone into semi-retirement from the business of making and performing music following the release of Pour Down Like Silver (1975).
Unhalfbricking is the third studio album by the English folk rock band Fairport Convention and their second album released in 1969. It is seen as a transitional album in their history and marked a further musical move away from American influences towards more traditional English folk songs that had begun on their previous album, What We Did on Our Holidays and reached its peak on the follow-up, Liege & Lief, released later the same year.
Liege & Lief is the fourth album by the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. It is the third album the group released in the UK during 1969, all of which prominently feature Sandy Denny as lead female vocalist, as well as the first to feature future long-serving personnel Dave Swarbrick and Dave Mattacks on violin/mandolin and drums, respectively, as full band members. It is also the first Fairport album on which all songs are either adapted (freely) from traditional British and Celtic folk material, or else are original compositions written and performed in a similar style. Although Denny and founding bass player Ashley Hutchings quit the band before the album's release, Fairport Convention has continued to the present day to make music strongly based within the British folk rock idiom, and are still the band most prominently associated with it.
Simon John Breckenridge Nicol is an English guitarist, singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was a founding member of British folk rock group Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band. He has also been involved with the Albion Band and a wide range of musical projects, both as a collaborator, producer and as a solo artist. He has received several awards for his work and career.
Fairport Convention is the debut studio album by the English folk rock band Fairport Convention. The band formed in 1967, with the original line-up consisting of Richard Thompson (guitar); Simon Nicol (guitar); Ashley “Tyger” Hutchings (bass); and Shaun Frater (drums), who was replaced after their first gig by Martin Lamble. They were joined by Judy Dyble (vocals), and Ian MacDonald after they made their major London stage debut in one of Brian Epstein’s Sunday concerts at the Saville Theatre.
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"We secured a deal with Vertigo, the one that ended up with them paying us not to make records. It seemed a novelty, like that Marx Brothers line: "How much for you NOT to rehearse?" "Oh, you can't afford it." We did Bonny Bunch and Tipplers Tales then didn't make the other four contracted albums"
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"Meet on the Ledge" is a song written by British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson and recorded by British folk rock band Fairport Convention in 1968 on Island Records. It was their second single.
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Fairport Chronicles is a 1976 compilation album of the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention, including songs from 1968 to the departure of the last original member in 1972. The double album is unique in that it was only released in the US, features original material and American covers over the traditional material usually associated with Fairport, and includes songs from side projects. All of the material was originally issued in the USA on A&M Records, which explains the exclusion of songs taken from their first, pre-Sandy Denny album, which was only later released in the United States.
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