John the Wood went out one day to view the scene from a different angle

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

27/06/71 : Angel Delight - Fairport Convention

Our first visit with FC but I'm at least aware of their general sound and I find it admirable rather than enjoyable - they just take the folky warbling a bit too far for my liking. But maybe a full album will cure me of that (spoiler alert - it won't).

Yeah, that's still where we are. They're obviously good on their instruments and the singing is impressive with some very decent harmonies - but I just don't enjoy it. It's funny because I suspect someone like Kate Rusby could take any one of these songs and create a version I'd love without really doing all that much to it, but FC is just too warbly-folky for me. Having said that, the closest we've come to this sort of thing so far this year is Lindisfarne and this is a million percent better than that.

We're at #8 in the charts this week with a new entry, which is surprisingly high given they only managed five weeks - it dropped to #39 in the following week. The top five this week were Simon & Garfunkel (starting a five week run at the top), Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Paul & Linda McCartney, Free (a live album, hence ignored) and The Rolling Stones and the next highest new entry was Leon Russell (#29) who is a fascinating character receiving his first ever mention.

Wikipedia tells us this is their sixth album and their first without Richard Thompson, but Simon Nicol (a founding member who is still in the group) and Dave Swarbrick (a very influential figure on the British folk scene) were in there. Apparently the angel in the title refers to a pub in Hertfordshire where the group lived for a bit but they had to move out when a lorry crashed into it. The critics were nice enough about it whilst noting that it wasn't really displaying any progression, but it was their highest charting album here - possibly as a result of a mention on TOTP. It didn't do quite so well in the US though, getting to #200 (and tbh I think it did well to get that high).

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a version for a fiver, but if you want a version with pink rim labels then it's going to set you back fifty quid - those pink rims really make the difference, I guess. I appreciated the skills involved in this without particularly enjoying it, but if you want to experience some classic British folk rock then I suspect this is a good example. 

04/07/71 - Making a lot out of not very much

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