TIPPLERS TALES

Tipplers Tales is overall more similar to Full House than perhaps to any of the other Fairport albums (that I've heard so far). And this is a good thing for me since Full House is one of my personal favourite albums by Fairport Convention. For fans of Prog Folk this album is far more interesting than any of the Sandy Denny-led albums. Among all the 70's Fairport albums, Tipplers Tales is one of the very best ones together with the aforementioned Full House and the concept album Babbacombe Lee. Tipplers Tales is also a concept album, but it does not tell a story like Babbacombe Lee does. The album is loosely based on alcohol and it's well known pleasures and problems.

Thankfully the awful American/Country influences of albums like Nine and Rising For The Moon are completely absent here. The instrumental attack is great with a plethora of acoustic and electric stringed instruments as well as keyboards and drums. Songs like Jack Orion and John Barleycorn has been heard before by other bands, but these versions are worth while. Some standouts are The Hair Of The Dogma which is very similar to the style of The Dixie Dregs! The track Tokyo from the album Nine is in the same style. This is followed by the short As Bitme which starts with just percussion for about a minute - a bit of avant-garde there, at least in Fairport's terms. Bankrupted is a fun, almost jazzy, Steve Howe like acoustic guitar piece. Could just as well be Steve Morse.

If you like Full House you will like this album too. Tipplers Tales is clearly a Prog related album that is in my top five Fairport Convention albums.