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Fairport Convention at Farley Chamberlayne Yesterday we left Fairport Convention finally realizing the vision they had to head towards to. Today, we see how they get there. This destination was the creation of English folk-rock as most people know it and a true classic no matter what country you come from. What does that mean?…
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Fairport Convention – 1968 (Unhalfbricking photo session) Sometimes all you need to make the right change is a key ingredient to slide into place. My track of the day by the Fairport Convention makes that case vividly. Before they would become the most well known and thoroughly English folk-rock group they were decidedly going in the…
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Sandy Denny – 1967 Today, I post a track laden with hindsight of what could have been. There was a time when the English folk rock history books could have been rewritten if but a few minor things happened. Released in 1973, but recorded in 1967, by the Strawbs on their album All Our Own…
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The Pentangle – 1968 This is just a preview of what’s coming up. The Pentangle’s “Traveling Song” my track of the day, signals the shift of Britain’s folk groups from mere mimicry of traditional music. This shift would take traditional music, and reimagine it as a current form of expression. Formed in 1967, this group…
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Mike and Robin from the Incredible String Band Now this is where we start hearing all those columns come together from the previous artists I’ve highlighted. The fantasy, ancient, modern, experimental, surreal, and spiritual all get combined into a solid vision of a neo-folk movement. The Incredible String Band’s “A Very Cellular Song” from 1968’s…
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Van Morrison – 1968 My track of the day, “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison, needs little introduction. If, you’ve ever heard the album its off of, you’re more than likely already been shrouded with its all-encompassing feeling and uniqueness. No other folk song, or album, has ever had its kind of mystical worldliness. Most of…
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Donovan – 1967 Sometimes we don’t give enough credit to the quiet ones. My track of the day, Donovan’s “Widow with a Shawl (A Portrait)”, was another hugely influential English folk song that propulsed England’s folk-rock movement forward, and it did so in such a way no one expected. During the time he recorded this…
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Pink Floyd – 1967 I know the title of this post is really supposed to suggest one specific track, in this case its Pink Floyd’s “Scarecrow”, but in my full view, the feel of the track encapsulates a certain twisted folk being created in 1967, under the guise of psychedelia. Before the Incredible String Band’s…
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The Beatles – 1967 The track of the day is the very unknown single “Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane” from a cult band called the Beatles. Joking aside, what pray tell makes this track so important in the grand scheme of English neo-folk music I’m trying to delineate? Well, if you remember the groundbreaking folk rock…
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The Byrds – 1966 What exactly was the genesis showing a new way forward in English folk music? My track of the day, “Wild Mountain Thyme” by The Byrds, starts showing the huge influence rock and pop music started to play in shaping this new neo-folk music that was to be made in England. A…
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