Proper Records, in collaboration with Universal Music Recordings, are delighted to make again available Full House, Angel Delight, and ‘Babbacombe’ Lee, the fifth, sixth and seventh albums by the much loved and highly influential Fairport Convention. 

After their 1969 album Liege and Leif paved the way, Fairport Convention pushed further into traditional music, led by charismatic and renown fiddle-player Dave Swarbrick, who had joined the group in 1969 after making his name with Martin Carthy earlier in the decade. Vocalist Sandy Denny and bassist Ashley Hutchings left after Liege and Leif, and for the first time since the group’s inception in 1967, there would be no female voice on a Fairport album.

Guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol took vocal leads with Swarbrick and, with new bassist Dave Pegg joining drummer Dave Mattacks, the group made Full House, released in July 1970. Picking up where its predecessor left off, and again recorded with Joe Boyd at London’s Sound Techniques, the album continued the standards set by their previous four albums. Four of the seven songs on Full House were adapted from traditional folk melodies, such as “Dirty Linen” and “Sir Patrick Spens”, while of the originals, Thompson and Swarbrick’s nine-minute opus “Sloth” gave the group one of their all-time anthems. The sleeve sent up their new role as ambassadors of the rustic by inventing a string of traditional British games that didn’t really exist. 

Released in June 1971, Angel Delight was the first of two albums of Fairport Convention as a four-piece, after the departure of founder member Richard Thompson that January. The band were living in a converted pub, The Angel, in Hertfordshire where they worked up the material for the album, another blend of the traditional and the original. The title track – a pun on the time they were having at the pub, and a nod to the popular British dessert of the same name – was a jolly catalogue of their life at the moment, referring to producer John Wood as ‘John The Wood’ and drummer Dave Mattacks as ‘Dave The Drum.’ It also mentions the day a lorry crashed into the pub, which, had Dave Swarbrick been in his room at the time could well have killed him. The album – Fairport’s only Top 10 album in the UK chart – is also known for its traditional medley of jigs and reels, “The Cuckoo’s Nest”, the beautiful ballad “Wizard Of The Worldly Game” and the group’s version of the salty English song “The Bonny Black Hare”. 

‘Babbacombe’ Lee was Fairport Convention’s foray into the concept album so loved by groups in the 70s. Instead of looking at something fantastical or progressive, the group went back to the tale of John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee, the man they couldn’t hang: The gallows failed three times after he was convicted of the murder of Emma Keyse in Torquay in 1885. Dave Swarbrick found details of the trial in a junk shop, and the band worked up the story into an album. Released at the end of 1971 with ephemera from the day telling the story, ‘Babbacombe’ Lee had episodes listed rather than tracks. It contained the most original material of a Fairport album to date, and was seen as taking folk-rock a huge step forward. Within weeks of the album’s release both Dave Mattacks and Simon Nicol left the group, leaving Swarbrick and bassist Dave Pegg to lead Fairport on through their next chapter. Today, ‘Babbacombe’ Lee is one of the group’s most enduring albums. 

“Ever since Swarbrick’s been in the group, he’s taken over in the eyes of the public as like the leader: the most creative factor of the group. And obviously on stage he comes across more than anyone else.” 

Dave Pegg, NME, 1972 

Full House, Angel Delight and ‘Babbacombe’ Lee are presented with scrupulous attention to the detail of the original UK first pressings and available in audiophile 180gm vinyl. Whether replacing much-loved originals, or adding to a collection afresh, this is a superior way to enjoy such enduring and influential music.

Pre-order here: 

UMCLP101 – Full House: fairport-convention.lnk.to/fullhouse 

UMCLP102 – Angel Delight: fairport-convention.lnk.to/angeldelight

UMCLP103 – ‘Babbacombe’ Lee: fairport-convention.lnk.to/babbecombelee 

Full House
UMCLP101

Side One

1. Walk Awhile
2. Dirty Linen
3. Sloth

Side Two

1. Sir Patrick Spens
2. Flatback Caper
3. Doctor of Physick
4. Flowers of the Fores

Angel Delight
UMCLP102

Side One

1. Lord Marlborough
2. Sir William Gower
3. Bridge over the River Ash
4. Wizard of the Worldly Game
5. The Journeyman’s Grace

Side Two

1. Angel Delight
2. Banks of the Sweet Primroses
3. Instrumental Medley:
   The Cuckoo’s Nest/
   Hardiman the Fiddler/Papa Stoor
4. The Bonny Black Hare
5. Sickness & Diseases

Babbacombe’ Lee
UMCLP103
Side One

1. John’s reflection on his boyhood, his introduction to Miss Keyes and The Glen, his restlessness, and his struggles with his family, finally successful, to join the navy.
2. This was the happiest period in his life. All looked set fair for a career until he was stricken with sickness and invalided out of his chosen niche in life. Reluctantly and unhappily, he turned to a number of menial occupations and finally returned to the services of Miss Keyes.
3. Tragedy now strikes hard. The world’s imagination is caught by the brutal senseless[ness] of the apparent criminal who slays his kind old mistress. 

Side Two

1. John was hardly more than a bewildered observer at his own trial, not being allowed to say more than a few words. The tides of fate wash him to the condemned cell where he waits three sad weeks for his last night on earth.
2. When it comes, he cannot sleep, but when he does, a strange, prophetic dream comes to him, and helps him to bear the strain of his next day’s ordeal as scaffold and its crew try in vain three times to take his life.