Fairport Convention: Undying Love of Music Keeps It Alive

Should Britain’s Fairport Convention ever pummel its way to mainstream fame, it may be as “the band that wouldn’t die.” The group that performs at the Coach House tonight has sifted through about 26 members since forming in 1967; Fleetwood Mac, renowned for its personnel changes, has seen a comparatively measly 14 faces over the same period. The only founding member in the current lineup is singer Simon Nicol, and even he quit for 5 years, not counting another 5 years after the group broke up in 1979, a period when Fairport continued to perform sporadically without admitting to exist as a band.

Members have lost their hearing or been racked up in accidents (Most recently, drummer Dave Mattacks broke several ribs while touring the United States with Richard Thompson last year). Three former members have died. Look up Fairport Convention in the New Musical Express Encyclopedia of Rock, and it reads: “It would be difficult to name a band that’s paid more dues and been rewarded with such wretched luck.”

But while always finding mainstream success elusive, the band did originate an influential brand of music: the British folk-rock form that electrified ancient ballads, reels and dirges, sparking everyone from British contemporaries Steeleye Span and Led Zeppelin to, more recently, 10,000 Maniacs and R.E.M., both of whose love for Fairport discs led them to employ the group’s original producer, Joe Boyd. Many consider the group’s late singer Sandy Denny to have been the finest singer British rock produced, while another Fairport graduate, Richard Thompson, has become one of the most respected songwriters and guitarists in rock.

Meanwhile Fairport itself has slowly been gathering steam since officially re-forming in 1985 with longtime members Nicol, bassist Dave Pegg and drummer Mattacks and with newer members Ric Sanders on violin and Martin Allcock on guitar and an array of other instruments. Since 1985 the group has recorded three critically well-received albums, toured with Jethro Tull--from whom Pegg and Allcock are on loan--and draws up to 15,000 fans, including more than a few Americans, to a yearly “Fairport Convention Reunion Festival” held in a field near the Oxfordshire village of Cropready.

From the vantage of a pool-side telephone at a Los Angeles hotel, Pegg didn’t sound particularly disconsolate about the band’s past, and even less so about its present, though the current 6-week bus tour doesn’t promise much visible reward.

“Mainly what has held us together is the enjoyment factor--just playing music together. It certainly can’t be the money,” Pegg said with a laugh. “We’re a bit of a democracy, and we all basically have the freedom to contribute what we want. . . . Working with other people we don’t always get that.”

Though Pegg said all the members are committed to taking Fairport as far as it can go, they also have to make time for the band amid busy schedules. Pegg and Allcock are tied up working with Tull several months of the year, Nicol is involved in writing music for a TV project, and Mattacks is an in-demand studio drummer who has worked with Paul McCartney, Mark Knopfler and Elton John. But it may be the limited time members can devote to Fairport that enhances their enjoyment of it now.

“It’s not a chore for us anymore, as it had become in the late ‘70s,” Pegg said, “Now we look forward to going out and touring. When we broke up in ‘79, we’d worked so hard slogging around touring for years because we never, ever sold any records so the only way the group could exist was to tour nonstop. And (original violinist) Dave Swarbrick had this hearing problem that couldn’t tolerate the noise levels we made on stage and he just wanted it to stop.

“Nobody wanted to carry on, so it just disintegrated. . . . And the musical climate at the time wasn’t exactly inducing to go out and attempt to play songs and stuff. It was the height of the punk era, which we obviously never quite fit into.”

Oddly enough, the group now finds itself on the punk-spawned Rough Trade label. “We’re not really into major labels, because we have our own cottage industry label, Woodworm, in England, which is run by my wife and myself. That organizes the festival, and has put out various Fairport albums in the past. But we needed the help of a bigger label in terms of distribution for America and Europe. We didn’t want to be on a folksy-type label, because we’re not strictly a folk band. So Rough Trade seemed right, though we were really surprised when they were interested, because they aren’t known for our particular type of music. But it’s worked incredibly well. . . .”

Fairport’s current Rough Trade album, “Red and Gold,” continues its tradition of drawing on musical styles that stretch back hundreds of years, skidding along the more musical edge of progressive rock, and occasionally chucking in the odd Dylan song.

The title song of “Red and Gold” is a bit of what Pegg calls “pseudo-folk,” a powerful mini-epic by band friend Ralph McTell, author of “The Streets of London.”

“It’s a song about the battle of Cropready Bridge which occured 1644, a civil war battle that actually took place at the site of the festival. Ralph had been at our festival one year and had been reading about this battle, and found it amazing that here we had 15,000 people having a good time to music, where 350 years ago at the very same site there was this bloody battle. He wrote the song through the eyes of one of the villagers. Ralph performed it with Fairport at the festival and we thought it was so relevant to us, because we enjoy doing historical pieces, and there we were playing it on this historical place.”

The Fairport Convention Reunion Festival is held over 2 days each August, with old English tradition influencing the food, ale, Morris dancers, children’s entertainment and performers. This year’s lineup will include Fairport--both its current members and alumnus Thompson--and Steeleye Span, Martin Barre from Tull and others. And always, there are several dozen fans from Southern California in attendance (Festival Tours of Santa Monica offers a Great Britain tour based around the festival. Information: (213) 395-2486).

“We certainly have a small, but very dedicated number of fans here, and we’re hoping to increase that. It’s different here because our audience in England now really has evolved since this lineup started touring in ‘85, and we’ve got an awful lot of young people turning out now, people that weren’t aware of the group before ’85.

“We’re very proud of the stuff we’re doing now. . . .” Pegg said. “We’ve had some fun times in Los Angeles when we used to play at the Troubadour. That was a good period in our lives, when we first came to America. Things always seem more exciting when you look back. . . .”

Perhaps so, considering that Fairport’s legendary 5-night stand at the Troubadour in 1970--during which they were joined on stage by Linda Ronstadt and Led Zeppelin--only grossed the band $500, which was applied toward a $2,000 bar tab.

“We were so much younger then, you know,” Pegg said, laughing.

Fairport Convention plays at 8 tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $16.50. Information: (714) 496-8930.