Fairport Convention: Liege And Lief

 

In the wake of the 1960s, a Folk revival started on both sides of the Atlantic, and got quickly linked with a protest movement, not always, but often linked to more left-wing tendencies, which did not sit well with the authorities. BOB DYLAN, JOAN BAEZ, WOODY GUTHRIE, JOHN DENVER, BUFFY STE-MARIE, but also the FARINA couple Richard and Mimi for the US and SHIRLEY COLLINS and EWAN McCOLL (mentor of BERT JANSCH, JOHN RENBOURN ) for the UK and HUGUES AUFRAY in France. In Quebec, there was the "Chansonniers" phenomenon among which CLAUDE LEVEILLE and FELIX LECLERC were the most popular, waking up the sleepy "Belle Province" and stand up for itself from the English rule. The English part of Canada also brought up JONI MITCHELL, LEONARD COHEN (although he was from Montreal) and NEIL YOUNG.

As DYLAN turned electric with his Highway 61 Revisited album, much to the dislike of purists who yelled for treason, Folk Rock was born, opening the floodgates for younger artists to turn on the electricity. As DYLAN soon abandoned to style to create Country Rock with his next album, his British equivalent Scotsman DONOVAN stayed true to Folk Rock. In the US, THE BYRDS were the main promoters of the style by now, culminating with the superb "Eight Miles High" track with a lengthy (for the times) guitar solo of almost one minute. But countless other bands on the west coast, such as LOVE, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE (and later its spin-off HOT TUNA), GRATEFUL DEAD, QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE, PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, and TIM BUCKLEY all started in the folk rock realm. Even San Fran's SANTANA with its Latino traditional music and, on the east coast, NY's THE LOVING SPOONFUL had folk roots. Notwithstanding the immense popularity of SIMON & GARFUNKEL and their delicious harmonies, Folk Rock was appealing only to the rock public as the older generations turned their backs in folkies.

In the UK, following on their countrymen DONOVAN, many Scotsmen were very influent in exploring new grounds for folk rock: INCREDIBLE STRING BAND (led by Scots Palmer and Williamson) with their two highly influential albums "5000 Layers Or The Spirit Of The Onion" & "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" and THE PENTANGLE (led by other Scots Renbourn, Jansch and McShee and their superb bassist Danny Thompson) and its incredible fusion of folk, blues and jazz style were very instrumental in developing the style to the same extent as FAIRPORT CONVENTION and STRAWBS who by that time were still more conventional US "west-coast folk rock". The single artistes in folk rock became known as Folk Troubadours were also numerous and often presented a more progressive side of folk: AL STEWART, NICK DRAKE, ROY HARPER, TYRANOSAURUS REX (actually a duo of Steven Took and Marc Bolan) , JOHN MARTYN etc.

However, the real angular album that will lead to further change of Folk Rock is FAIRPORT CONVENTION's "Liege & Lief" album, that proved to be highly influential for another generation of groups: this album concentrated into electrifying seminal English traditional folk and retained that quaint Englishness taste. It is interesting to see that both leaders of FAIRPORT quit the band after this success to go their respective way: Sandy Denny to a solo folk songwriting career and Ashley Hutchings to a very traditional folk rock. By this time, most connoisseur were talking of Acid Folk, Psych Folk, and Progressive Folk, all having limited differences and no particularly drawn-out limits or boundaries, but all relying on experimental or groundbreaking adventures and good musicianship but not necessarily of an acoustic nature.

Groups like THE THIRD EAR BAND and QUINTESSENCE relied on eastern Indian music influences and, sometimes, medieval tones. Other groups like the weird COMUS, TREES, SPIROGYRA, FOREST, the superb JAN DUKES DE GREY but also TRADER HORNE, TUDOR LODGE, FOTHERINGAY, MAGNA CARTA, and TIR NA NOG were out to break new ground but with less commercial success as their predecessor. By 1972, all of the glorious precursors bands were selling fewer records and had problems renewing themselves and a newer generation of groups was relying in a more Celtic jigs or really traditional sounds. Such as HORSLIPS, DANDO SHAFT, STEELEYE SPAN, AMAZING BLONDEL, ALBION DANCE BAND and SPRIGUNS OF TOLGUS. Although JETHRO TULL had some definitive folk roots right from the start, their only albums that can be regarded as Prog Folk are 1977's Songs From The Woods and 1978's Heavy Horses. Ian Anderson (another Scots) was very keen in acoustical traditional songs. Some Folk Troubadours such as TIM BUCKLEY and JOHN MARTYN started turning records more and more axed towards fusing jazz and folk (a bit in what THE PENTANGLE were doing) , others became more and more electric and they started to be referred to as Singer Songwriters especially those with country rock influences.

In Germany, HOELDERLIN (and their fantastic debut album), EMTIDI, OUGENWEIDE, CAROL OF HARVEST, WITTHUSER & WESTRUPP were exploring German folk while KALACAKRA , SILOAH and EMBRYO were indulging with Indian music. In South America, most notably in Chile, LOS JAIVAS (very bent upon Andean Indian music) and CONGRESO (more Spanish-Latino folklore) were using folk in their rock, so much that some press talked about them referring it with the hateful term Inca Rock. In Quebec, the progressive movement exploded with the cultural identity and the Chansonniers tradition and this was carried out with LES SEGUIN and HARMONIUM and so many more. In France, many groups were out for folk rock such as CATHERINE RIBEIRO AND ALPES, TANGERINE, and ASGARD. In Spain, Flamenco playing a dominant role as well as Basque folk, TRIANA, ITOIZ and HAIZEA were the head of the movement once the Franco regime fell apart after his death.


There is also a very important medieval music influences dimension in some groups as the term Medieval Folk was also mentioned for a while but apparently dropped by musicologists. Among the UK groups are obviously GRYPHON, GENTLE GIANT and THIRD EAR BAND, in France: MALICORNE and RIPAILLE and in Scandinavia: ALGARNAS TRADGARD and FOLQUE.


Hugues Chantraine
with hyperlinks and updates by Ken Levine December 2017"

 

It looks as if PA's Sean Train (Hugues Chantraine) views L&L as a type of proto prog folk. If that genre doesn't exist then it can only fit into prog folk. The PA prog folk team is shut down for the present time but I wanted to keep this in print for the future. Just in case.

For once, I like this definition of Prog Folk ... it is well versed and shows that it was not just a fly by night operation in England, and that it was alive all over Europe, as it had been for hundreds of years. Both Portugal, and Spain (that I am aware of, but can not give you examples), have a massive history of folk music, and with its variations due to dancing and playing styles, in many ways it was always "progressive" since every generation adapted it to its own ways.

It has been said, and there is a comment on one film that is ... weird, if not interesting ... about the line "bye, bye, blackbird", that supposedly was a comment about the "horrible" English troubadours always doing different and weird ways of old songs ... and the kings in France did their target practice on them! My guess is that the "prog folk" thing did not go very far in France and Italy, although I am not sure that one could say that about Brittany, which had a very wide range of music and troubadour music, which Alan Stivell embraced, for many other reasons as well.

BTW, even though it has some different sources, Alan Stivell should be mentioned in the Prog Folk definition, even if marginal. His lyrics and traditional's, are no different than any other Prog Folk version of anything. But the fact that he is political at times, unlike the new age idealistic hip feathers by a few others, is something that is probably NOT enjoyed or appreciated ... but saying that a lot of Folk music is not political is a gross shame and one can go back 100 in America alone for stuff that was highly political and even some that became very well known ... fighting for the rights of workers, a Dam, and many other things. Even then, that was "Progressive", since it was so different and it was trying to come up to the times with the day's sentiments, instead of yesterday's ideas.

Still a nice write up ... Mosh approved! (Hehehehe!)

I agree re Alan Stivell, as far as Prog Folk, certainly.  He did electrify it a bit, after all.  Not as fond of his more recent forays (I wish I could say I was, because I respect his contributions to the harp, acoustic and electric), but thought that the early 70's pieces such as "Pop Plinn," and "King of the Fairies," was magnificent.

I think that Alan Stivell got stuck in a timewarp ... after gaining a RCA RED SEAL for his great album RENAISSANCE OF THE CELTIC HARP, I think he decided that it didn't matter what anyone thought, and with Dan Ar Bras, he fashioned a nice combination, that even involved rock music, some folks stuff -- and here I think is where people don't like him -- his voice is not a "singer" per se, and has more roots in a type of rap/spoken voice than it does as a singing voice, and since it did not sing about swans and fairies (other than the English huns, etc!), it was never going to be appreciated by new age folks, and it has continued since then. Still hard to see, and HARSH to not see, comments and discussion on many of these albums, which ought to clarify how different things are for so many folks. Alan Stivell is not about top ten, other than one album, which I think was done for an English speaking market, but it was too late to be appreciated ... AGAIN is a magnificent album, and progressive ... goodness ... 

Hope you decide to review some of their work if you would like