Documentary following English folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention as they celebrate their 45th anniversary in 2012. Fairport's iconic 1969 album Liege and Lief featured some of folk music's biggest names - including singer Sandy Denny, guitarist Richard Thompson and fiddler Dave Swarbrick - and was voted by Radio 2 listeners as the most influential folk album of all time. Today, having struggled for years with numerous line-up changes (26 members to date) and shifting musical fashions, these ageing folk-rockers host their annual festival in Cropredy, Oxfordshire in front of a passionate 20,000 crowd. Comedian Frank Skinner, who played the ukulele on Fairport's 2010 album Festival Bell, narrates this tale of the rise and fall - and rise again - of the original English folk-rockers.
A concert to celebrate the 45th anniversary of folk-rock outfit Fairport Convention, filmed in March 2012 at the Union Chapel in north London, only a few miles away from the 'Fairport' house in Muswell Hill where the band was formed during the summer of 1967. Today only Simon Nicol, whose parents owned the house, is still there from the original line-up, but the wealth of incredible songs and arrangements left by former members such as Ashley Hutchings, Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson remains at the core of the band's live shows. This concert's highlights include Matty Groves from the band's landmark Liege and Lief album and Sandy Denny's Who Knows Where the Time Goes, voted 'favourite folk track of all time' by Radio 2 listeners |
