What Fairport Convention Did on Their Holiday Quiz

Answer: Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary, Queen of Scots is the only one of these that has any connection with a castle, any castle, Fotheringhay being the castle that Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned in for the last months of her life before execution.

Fotheringay is also the group formed by Sandy Denny after her departure from Fairport Convention, recording one album with the same name. Roughly forty years later, the three former members of Fotheringay still living, reformed the band for about 12 months and as many concerts.

Answer: Entertainer

Bruce Lacey, known as Professor Lacey, was renowned for creating various machines which became part of his performance. Wikipedia tells me that amongst his machines was a knife throwing robot, which I think I would avoid.

His obituary in the Guardian tells us that;" As well as having a one-man show, Lacey appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s with a musical comedy group called the Alberts, where he was billed as "Professor" Bruce Lacey." The obituary also refers to an earlier article in the paper (sometime in the 1950s) where Bruce Lacey is described as:
"Oddball comedian, actor, painter and sculptor, bricolage inventor of robots and automata, post-hippy shaman, errant guru to travelling bands of new age travellers, and who knows what else."
Mr Lacey and his machines appear on this recording, the machines are performing the instrumental interlude.

The song itself was written by Ashley Hutchings and states: "Please, Mr Lacey, let me work your lovely machine", or possibly loving machine.

Answer: Names

This song could be one of two things. It could be about a woman and her reaction to the singer while he is reading. Or the woman could simply be the character in a book.

The second verse starts: "She left behind names in the pages."

This is another song from the pen of Richard Thompson, and in this case Ian Matthews (who as I noted in a previous quiz later formed the band Matthews Southern Comfort).

Answer: Sandy Denny

Of the four women listed, the only one who was a member of Fairport Convention on this album was Sandy Denny. So she has to be the answer. When Sandy left the band it appears that they decided she was irreplaceable and the band has never had a female member since, apart from a short time in the mid-70s when Sandy returned.

Of the others, Judy Dyble was the original female singer for Fairport, who left (or was unceremoniously dumped as she put it) after the first album. When Ashley Hutchings left Fairport he formed Steeleye Span. Another founder member of Steeleye was Maddy Prior. Maddy also formed a duo with June Tabor under the name "Silly Sisters". June Tabor in turn has recorded albums alongside folk-rock group the Oysterband.

Answer: Bob Dylan

This one is a Bob Dylan number. At this stage Fairport had recorded several songs by Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Later on, songs written by Ralph McTell were added to their repertoire.
One of McTell's songs has a very similar name, "I'll Keep This with Mine", which has the subtitle "Leaving 'Liggan Woods".

Jackson Frank is particularly known for the song "The Blues Run the Game". I haven't been able to identify any recordings of this song (or any others of his) by Fairport. Sandy Denny on the other hand did cover some of his songs in her solo work. There is another connection with Fairport member Sandy, as she was reportedly at one point the girlfriend of Jackson Frank.

Answer: Nothing

Nottamun, this could be a mispronunciation of Nottingham or a natural change in place names over the years. Possibly it doesn't refer to a real place. Regardless it is attributed to the prolific songwriter known as "Trad".

It appears to have been found by folk song collectors on both sides of the Atlantic and has been recorded by various musicians. A common description of the song is that is is a "nonsense song", or even surreal.

Ashley Hutchings, (on this album still a member of Fairport Convention) has written elsewhere that it is "probably an old magic song using the device of riddles. The "back-handed awk'ard talk" resembles the language of mummers plays."

Back to this version of the song, the second verse of nonsense runs:
"When the king and the queen and a company more
Were a-walking behind
And riding before
Come a stark naked drummer
A-beating the drum
With his hands on his bosom come marching along"

So the drummer is naked, wearing nothing.
(Since this is an old fashioned LP I can't comment on Martin Lamble's sartorial sense whilst playing the song, only the character in the lyrics.)

Answer: Kisses

Although several of these things are mentioned the only relevant words are found in the second verse.
"Shadows by the fire
Slowly climb and fall
Kisses fade and leave no trace"

This is another cover, this time of a Joni Mitchell song. Comparing lyric sites and listening to this version again it appears that Joni Mitchell's version has a short refrain after verses 2 and 3 that is not included in this version.

The interesting instrumental section of this track appears to be the autoharp being played by Simon Nicol. My first thought on hearing it was that it was a zither (from instinct not from any special knowledge) so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that an autoharp is also called a chord zither.

Answer: She Moves Through the Fair

The song "She Moves Through the Fair", appears in the various lists of traditional folk songs such as the Roud Index. Sometimes under the title "She Moved Through the Fair", this is also found under the name "Our Wedding Day" .

This song first appears to have been collected by the folk song collectors around the end of the nineteenth or start of the twentieth centuries.

If it was collected then, it clearly goes back far longer. Or does it? Some of the sources indicate that the collector Padraic Colum only recorded the last verse and wrote the other verses himself. Switching the argument round though, if the last verse was collected then maybe there were other verses that went uncollected.

Of the three Richard Thompson songs, one will be discussed further in the final question.
Also note that "No Man's Land" is very different to the Eric Bogle song of the same name.

Answer: Simon Nicol

All of these people (except Martin Lamble) included guitar playing in their musical talents.

Martin Lamble was the band's drummer on this album (and the first one). He died in 1969 when the van carrying Fairport back from a gig in Birmingham crashed.

Sandy Denny died in 1978 after falling downstairs.

Dave Swarbrick died in 2016 and was not a member of Fairport on this album.

This leaves Simon Nicol as the last guitarist standing.

Of the other people in the Fairport line-up on the album, guitarists Richard Thompson and Ian Matthews, as well as bass guitarist Ashley Hutchings all survived into the reign of King Charles III. They have played with members of Fairport since leaving the band but they have never re-joined as part of the band.

Answer: The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican

All of these are, or at least have been, real bands around the UK folk scene in the last 50 years.

Here the most recent of these to come into existence is the Val Doonican option. "Rugh and Ryf" is itself a parody of the Fairport album "Liege and Lief".
Whereas most of their songs are parodies (eg "Where the Sheets have no Stains"), the version of "Meet on the Ledge" is true to the original.

Fairport don't seem to be objecting to this as two of their number, Dave Pegg and Dave Mattocks, are found performing on the "Rugh and Ryf" opening track "The Broadside Ballad Of Maggie Gove", a clear parody of "Matty Groves".

NB Dave Mattocks died early in 2024.