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Featured Album | 397

Fairport Convention | Rising for the Moon | Island ILPS 9313 | 1975

I don’t suppose anyone really saw Sandy Denny returning to the fold, certainly after the string of solo albums she made after leaving Fairport, together with a brief stint in her own band Fotheringay, yet return she did, for Fairport Conventions’ tenth studio album, whose line-up at that moment in time featured not one single original member, the last one having left the band in 1971 after the Babbacombe Lee album.  Though the newly formed band would hear the odd ‘Fotheringport Confusion’ joke, each of the members had in fact served time in Fairport previously, with the exception of drummer Bruce Rowland, who shared drum duties on this album with long time Fairport drummer Dave Mattacks.  Marion Appleton’s cover painting appears to blend the band’s debut album cover shot with the caricatures featured on the cover of the debut Fotheringay album, which seems a fitting image for the newly formed Fairport.  If the feel of the album is different from any of the previous nine Fairport albums, then it might be due to the absence of John Wood at the controls, the respected engineer having been replaced on this occasion by the equally respected Glynn Johns, who brought a little more polish to the legendary unpolished band.  As we would expect by the time of this album’s release, the songwriting was second to none, with Swarb chirping in with “White Dress”, Lucas delivering “Restless” and “Iron lion” and Denny dominating proceedings with the fabulous “One More Chance” as well as the title track.  Rising for the Moon would be Sandy Denny’s swansong with the band and the singer would leave the rest of us just under three years later.      

Playlist:

Lido Shuffle – Boz Scaggs (Silk Degrees)

This Wheel’s on Fire – Byrds (Dr Byrds & Mr Hyde)

White Dress – Fairport Convention (Rising for the Moon)

Child in Time – Deep Purple (Deep Purple in Rock)

Wang-Dang-Doodle – Howlin’ Wolf (The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions)

Ditty Wah Ditty – Ry Cooder (Paradise and Lunch)

Wonderworld – Uriah Heep (Wonderworld)

Starman – David Bowie (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars)

Dame Lombarde – Pierre Bensusan (Pres de Paris)

One More Chance – Fairport Convention (Rising for the Moon)

An hour of the best in jazz, join me for The Jazz File on Tuesday 9 June.