Customer Reviews

A Lasting Spirit: The Collection

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Licking my lips I read the AMG review of this release - "a compilation of live performances from across the group's history, intermingling class concert recordings from as far back
as the late '60s with much more recent work from Cropredy".
As a Fairport fan I lept with joy at the thought of getting more unreleased live recordings. Now the Amazon review did suggest the possibility of some studio recordings included in this 3 disc set but was not specific.
This review will spell out the truth. This release contains only 9 unreleased cuts, the 1st nine on disc 1. The balance of disc 1 and most of disc 3 are from Cropredy '97. ALL of disc 2 are selected STUDIO tracks, mainly from The Five Seasons and Red & Gold albums. So to me, a Fairport recordinig collector, this 3 disc release is terribly redundant. It just depends how much one is willing to pay per unreleased cut. At this point, I feel I've been duped by reviews which did not inform potential buyers.
I really don't know the audience for which this recording was made. Completists will have most of this material already; folks new to Fairport should avoid this because it is not a good cross section of their recorded history, and it is not a good place to start.
My rating is for the package, not the music. The music, is, as always, suburb.

This budget-priced 3CD box set spans thirty years of the Fairports' illustrious career and includes a few rarities, enough to make it a worthwhile purchase for someone with a couple of their regular albums and an interest in delving a little deeper.

Of greatest interest is the first disc, Sweet Days. This includes the first song they ever recorded in a studio, Both Sides Now, written by a total unknown called Joni Mitchell. Judy Dyble does a beautiful lead vocal, with Richard Thompson singing back-up (Iain Matthews had yet to join the band). At the session, on 10 August 1967, they also recorded an early version of One Sure Thing and If I Had A Ribbon Bow. This became their first single while the other two were consigned to the vaults.
 
Iain Matthews sings lead, with Judy provided harmony, on the opening track, Some Sweet Day, the old Everly Brothers song which was to have been the band's second single in 1968, but shortly after it was recorded Judy found herself out of the band and the single was shelved. The song was recorded again on 28 May 1968 for John Peel's Top Gear programme with new vocalist Sandy Denny, and Jackson Frank's You Never Wanted Me is taken from that same session (it is also on Heyday).

Night In The City and Marcie, both unreleased Joni Mitchell songs that were later to appear on Song To A Seagull, come from a 1968 radio broadcast of the David Symonds Show. Unfortunately these are from an AM signal, complete with buzzes, crackles and late fade-ins, but are good to hear as there are no official versions. 

Memphis Slim's You're Gonna Need My Help Someday comes from a later David Symonds session, February 1969, and is in far better quality. Again, there is no official equivalent and this version has not before been generally available. Fotheringay, from the same session, is a delight as it comes from a better source than the transcription copy used on Heyday, lacking both the distortion and the intrusive voice-over by Brian Matthew at both ends.
 
A month later they were in the studio for the Unhalfbricking sessions. Dear Landlord did not make it to the final cut, which had three other Bob Dylan songs. Sir Patrick Spens made its recorded debut on Full House, by which time Sandy Denny had left the band. The version here was recorded before she left and is not the BBC Top Gear version you may know but a stereo outtake from 1969's Liege And Lief, and is marvellous, featuring her lead vocal and piano and some tasteful phasing effects. I would have preferred more of these alternative recordings from the 1960s than the seven live recordings from 1997 that flesh out the rest of disc one.

Long Summer Days, the second disc, juggles tracks from Gladys' Leap (1985), Expletive Delighted! (1986) and The Five Seasons (1990), plus the Wishfulness Waltz medley from 1997's Who Knows Where The Time Goes, in what seem to be their standard released versions.

Cropredays, finally, features live recordings taken from their 30th anniversary concerts at the Cropredy Festival of 1997, with a shifting line-up of Fairport Convention members past and present including Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick, both in fine form. Interspersed are a couple from the 1995 Cropredy (Close To The Wind and I Heard It Through The Grapevine) and a 1997 version of Who Knows...? featuring Simon Nicol, from the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury.

There are copious notes with the box set but these are eulogical more than they are factual and unfortunately include little of the information I have added here or other details such as full line-ups for the various incarnations, making this a welcome but imperfect collection

"Marcie" and "Night in the City" were released on an Ashley Hutchings compilation. Hard to find cuts poorly recorded. Great performances though.

The only one I've never heard before is "Both Sides Now" with Judy Dyble on lead vocals.

The 3 Joni Mitchell cuts are the only rare ones. All of the rest are readily available elsewhere. Most of this is just recycled tracks from the Cropedy 3 disc set.

Very bizarre compilation. Don't understand it at all.

Wish there was an easier way to get the 3 Joni Mitchell covers!

This is one of the few Fairport Convention albums of the last three decades which disappoints. It consists of alternate recordings of old favorites, nearly all of which were done better the first time. It is particularly disappointing to hear Sandy Denny's solos done by a less competent vocalist. My advice: stick to the original recordings like Leige and Lief and Full House--they are Fairport at their best!

For a long long time I have been a fan and listener to the recordings of the British Folk/Rock band STEELEYE SPAN . . . for their songs . . . for their stylings . . . for the great vocal character present in the deliveries (Maddy Prior being a main part of that) . . . I had heard of FAORPRT CONVENTION . . . whenever I happened to mention the name "Steeleye Span" someone would invariably ask me if I had ever heard FAIRPORT CONVENTION. And now that I have heard THIS 3 CD collection, "A LASTING SPIRIT: THE COLLECTION" I can understand why . . . track and track of pure musical genius . . . an experience no one should miss.

I was familiar with the name SANDY DENNY . . . and I knew her song "WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES?", so I knew that my expectations of this collection waas high (Sandy Denny set the bar for such hopes). And as i placed each disc onto the music player my expectations were not disappointed . . . in fact i was amazed and more than pleased.

The vocals throughout . . . the instrumental play (particulary the fiddle/violin work) . . . create so many various feels and moods; from the upbeat to the light-hearted and cary one into the more somber and nostalgic and sad/languid . . . all the magic one hopes to experience from a "folk band" with such a rich history and treasury of music to delve into and present.

I am more than happy that i have this 3 CD cpllection as my "first" encounter with the great FAIRPORT CONVENTION . . . and i'm now positive and certain that it will never be my LAST. :)