Fairport Convention - Liege and Lief Today

Liege & Lief is a 1969 electric folk album by Fairport Convention which established British folk-rock as a distinct and influential genre. It would be voted the 'Best Folk Album Ever' by BBC Radio 2 listeners in 2002, and 'Most Influential Folk Album Of All Time' by public vote for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2006. "Liege and Lief" means "loyal and ready" in Middle English. It reached number 17 in the UK album charts. (from Wikipedia)

Excerpt from the Guardian article, 'There was a manic feeling in the air.'

The spark for Fairport taking this watershed turn was the Band's
1968 album Music from Big Pink, the record that - along with Bob Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes bootleg - brought about a widespread musical volte-face, in which what remained of psychedelia was replaced by a new rootsiness. Among the rock aristocracy, its influence was evident in the Beatles' ill-fated back-to-basics project Let It Be, the Rolling Stones' purple patch that began with Beggars Banquet, and Eric Clapton's decision to call time on Cream.

In Fairport's case, it convinced them that their early dalliance with transatlantic influences was best forgotten. "Music from Big Pink showed us that Americana was more suited to Americans, and we needed to explore Britannicana, or whatever the equivalent of that was," says Thompson. "They seemed to nail American roots styles so well, and blend them so seamlessly: country, R&B, blues. At that point, we thought, 'We'll never be that good at American music. We should be looking at something more homegrown.'"

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