Fairport’s trailblazing days were far behind them by this release and so were all their founding members. Like the Sugababes the band name continued long beyond the departure of all the original members. The Rock Family Tree for Fairport Convention extends to almost infinite dimensions.
For this line-up Sandy Denny was back in the fold, raising high hopes for a return to form after a series of increasingly lacklustre albums.
In part the resulting album, released in 1975 and given the deluxe reissue treatment this year, was a return to form, but as a Sandy Denny album in all but name. There are few traces of the folk-rock sound that Fairport Convention pioneered. Denny had already made a move away from that sound with her previous solo album Like an Old Fashioned Waltz. Many of the same lyrical themes are carried over between albums on the Denny penned songs, with a polished AOR production carrying touches of country rock in slide guitar lines.
At times the Denny led tracks sound very similar to the Christine McVie tracks from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. If you dig mid-70’s AOR you’ll like this album a lot.
Sandy Denny’s husband Trevor Lucas was in Fairport at this point and he sings a couple of country rockers which are pleasant enough but mostly founded on train metaphors with little to distinguish them from each other.
Dave Swarbrick, violinist with Fairport since their third album, takes lead vocals on a couple of tracks which cleave closest to the folk-rock template, but his voice is something of an acquired taste and unlikely to win over any new fans.
It’s with the final track of the original album, One More Chance, that the band take flight with something which hearkens back to their glory days, everyone taking turns to solo and spin out in epic style. A final hurrah for this line-up which promised much but ultimately failed to deliver.
The deluxe reissue adds a further five tracks, a live TV performance of White Dress, studio demos of Dawn and What is True, home demos of After Halloween and The King and Queen of England. Stripped of their studio polish all these tracks come across more powerfully and are superior to the album versions.
Completing this deluxe issue is a whole set of this line-up of the band live at the L.A. Troubador. With a set list drawn from Denny, Dylan, Holly and Fairport’s own back catalogue the band spend a blistering hour demonstrating what an excellent live act they were. Often live albums are a ropey cash in but this one more than justifies the reissue. It’s often said that some bands struggle to translate their live ability to the studio and this was certainly the case with this line up had Rising for the Moon managed to capture more of this passion and energy it would certainly have been a more successful album, rather than a footnote to their tangled history.
by Garry Todd
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