SOUNDTRACK: THE SHADOWS-“Apache” (1960).
In 1960, Cliff Richard’s backing band released this instrumental that shot to the top of the British charts. The song was named after the 1954 film Apache.
The band had a signature sound. Hank Marvin used an echo box and a tremolo bar on his Fender guitar. The melodic bass was by Jet Harris. Percussion was by Tony Meehan and Cliff Richard, who played a Chinese drum at the beginning and end to provide an atmosphere of stereotypically Native American music.
It has been cited by a generation of guitarists as inspirational and is considered one of the most influential British rock 45s of the pre-Beatles era because of the appeal of “that kind of Hawaiian sounding lead guitar … plus the beat.”
The song is really catchy with a surf guitar/Western riff and the rumbling drums. There’s a few parts which create some drama and forward motion.
[READ: June 29, 2021] Beeswing
I’ve been a fan of Richard Thompson since about 1993. I’ve seen him live about ten times and I’ve listened to most of his earlier work (including most of his Fairport Convention stuff).
I don’t love all the Fairport material. I likesome of it, but I never really got into it that much. And, I never really thought about what it was like being in Fairport back in the late 60s. So this autobiography was a strange thing for me. Seemed like an obvious read and yet it’s about an era that I didn’t have a lot of interest in.
Which proved to be the perfect combination.
Richard starts the book in the early 1960s. I was a little concerned because I really didn’t like the opening page–the style concerned me. But the idea that dust and fog were so pervasive in London that it cast a haze over everything was pretty interesting. Especially when he says that explains the state of London artistry–soft and fuzzy because of the haze.
Then he moves on to himself. His family was pretty traditional–his father was a policeman. He was not interested in school and a normal career.
He’d wanted a real guitar from a very young age. When he was 11 (1960), he was ready to start playing with others. Especially when The Shadows released “Apache.” All over England instrumental bands were the rage and were trying to emulate the Fender guitar sound. Playing crappy guitars (or a tennis racket in the mirror) would no longer do.
He learned from everyone he could. His sister was five years older than he was and often dated boys who played guitar. While she was getting ready for dates, he would bother the boys–who seemed happy to each him tricks. His parents also got him formal lessons from a sketchy guy in town. One day he went for lessons and the house had been knocked down–the teacher had been squatting in an abandoned house.
He talks about when he was just starting out self. He started a band when he was 13. They spent more time thinking of band names than playing. Nevertheless, the guitar (and gigs) took up more time than school and he barely got out of school with passing grades.
He met Ashley Hutchings who was in several bands at the time. Through Ashley he’d met Simon Nichol. Simon’s family owned a large mock Tudor house called Fairport. Ray and Dave Davies grew up down the street from it. The Fairport house was responsible for the name Fairport Convention which was “suitably polysyllabic for the age.”
Ashley knew a woman named Judy Dyble. She sang and played in folk clubs and soon enough she and Richard started dating. They found a new drummer, Martin Lamble. These folks made up the core of Fairport.
But in addition to the formation of Fairport Convention, this book is a fun look at the music world circa 1967. He talks about the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, a concert that took place at Alexandria Palace (29 April 1967). Several bands were playing at once: Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Sam Gopal and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. When you backed away from one band, all of the music blended in the middle. There were light shows and silent films all happening at the same time. John Lennon was wandering around while Yoko Ono did a performance.
Fairport Convention became like the younger brother to all of these bands. Even though they were in no way psychedelic, they weren’t squares either. They were singing covers of The Lovin’ Spoonful and The Byrds. They fit nicely into the scene.
This book makes me think it was easier for bands to get signed back then–there were apparently a lot fewer of them. After a few shows, Fairport asked a friend to be their manager and he got them signed to an agency. The agency signed many of the bands in London so when Pink Floyd played, Fairport might be tacked on to the bill
So they played the UFO Club where Pink Floyd was basically the house band. On 25 July 1967 Fairport opened for Floyd. That was the night Syd overdosed on LSD and Dave Gilmour had to play Syd’s guitar parts backstage. That’s also the night they met a producer who suggested Fairport make a record. So just “two months into our incarnation as Fairport Convention we were offered a record deal.”
They thought they needed a better male singer so they invited local singer Iain Matthews to sing on the album. There was no formal audition, he sang with them and just seemed to become a part of the band.
And thus the initial full six piece line up was formed,
They played gigs all over London. Graham Nash was at one of the gigs and in the between song patter Ashley said that Fairport was so poor they were like “King Midas in Reverse.” A little while later “King Midas in Reverse” was a hit song title by the Holies. Jimi Hendrix was also living in London at that time. He would often join Fairport on stage. He was dressed in his late 60s finery and it turned out that he bought clothes’ from Richard’s sister’s boutique.
By 1968 Judy left–she preferred small folk clubs. And they called upon Sandy Denny to sing with them. She was already well known and regarded. They started recording their second album with her. In the studio at the same time, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were putting finishing touches on “Sympathy for the Devil.” Richard says their lives shows weren’t that great, but their studio output was amazing. That’s because they did about 100 takes of the song they were working on.
In one of the more amusing parts in the book, he says in 1968 he and Sandy Denny received an invitation to Paul McCartney’s birthday party But Richard was such a snob that he decided not to go because the Beatles were “too pop” and not to be taken seriously (they were recording The White Album at the time)
He says that although they enjoyed experimenting with studio trickery like The Beatles had done, they were more influenced by the sound of The Band who played “Roots based popular music which is what Fairport wanted to do.”
He talks about writing “Meet on the Ledge” for their second album. He also wrote “Genesis Hall” and “Cajun Woman” (les of a classic as the other two) for Unhalfbricking.
Then came the first of many tragedies for the band (I had no idea about his one). On 11 May 1969, the band was in a car crash. The crash killed two people (including their drummer) and Richard had broken his ribs. They received get well cards from The Beatles and The Stones (which made them very cool in the hospital).
This accident and the loss of Martin made them rethink the band. They couldn’t stop playing–they had no marketable skills. So they decided to change direction. They would not play any of the old songs and turned to a more traditional British folk sound. They found a new drummer and a violinist Dave Swarbrick (who had played a bit on the last album) and created Liege and Lief. The album was nearly all traditional, with two songs written by Richard and the tunes either traditional or written by Swarbrick (“Farewell Farewell” and “Crazy Man Michael” respectively).
They had toured all over by now but on a trip to Denmark, Sandy Denny didn’t show up so they fired her. They felt she’d largely left the band already and there were no hard feelings. He still marvels that they were willing to get rid of “one of the finest voices Britain would produce.” TShe went on to form Fotheringay.
Soon after Ashley Hutchings would leave to start his own solo career.
In two years (and five (!) albums), the band’s lineup had gone from
- Judy Dyble – lead vocals
- Ian Matthews – lead vocals
- Richard Thompson – vocals, guitars
- Simon Nicol – vocals, guitars
- Ashley Hutchings – bass guitar
- Martin Lamble – percussion, violin
to [with Sandy Denny in between]
- Dave Swarbrick – vocals, fiddle,
- Richard Thompson – vocals, electric guitar
- Dave Pegg – vocals, bass guitar,
- Dave Mattacks – drums,
- Simon Nicol – vocals, electric & acoustic guitars,
One of the more interesting things about Fairport was that they all lived together. They would buy a large house and all the band members would live and compose and play in these places. After their first house proved no longer viable, they moved into a place called The Angel–a beautiful large Georgian house that happened to be a little too close to the main motorway. The band members (and their spouses and children) all moved in together.
They wrote the final album that Richard wrote songs for Full House and before Richard left, they toured America and opened for Jethro Tull and Traffic. But Richard found the live songs were so much faster than the recorded version that he barely recognized them. This was punk folk. In 1970 on another US Tour, in LA Led Zeppelin turned up and one by one joined them on stage. John Bonham broke their drums set in 30 seconds. Robert Plant sang and at one point Richard was the only Fairporter on stage with Zeppelin.
This set was recorded! But amazingly it was lost from the vaults never to be heard from anyone.
But all of this was too much for Richard-he didn’t like the direction the band was gong in and decided to call it quits. Simon Nicol is still in the band, still playing fifty years later (they put out a new album last year).
The band remained on good terms all this time (including with Sandy) and Richard even still lived in The Angel. Until one time he came home and found that a truck had crashed into the building.
And that led to Richard Thompson Session guitarist. He played on countless records in 1971. Then it was time to release Henry the Human Fly (with an amusing anecdote about that title). His one regret is that he wished he put on more electric guitar. But he was happy to release an album that was “met with universal indifference.”
He talks about the folk club scene back in the day and it sounds pretty fun–with lot so bands getting a lot of equitable billing and few egos. Although there was some backstabbing.
Then Richard and Linda got married. Linda had been a folk singer already but he thought it would be better for their careers if they worked together. Despite the lengthy discussions of the Fairport record, he talks fairly quickly through the recording of I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight and Hokey Pokey.
Then he talks about his conversion to the Muslim faith (as Sufi). He was always interested in the spiritual side of the world, and here was a chance to embrace something that he liked. Apparently the Sufi religion was quite popular at the time in the music scene.
The book stops in 1975 after Pour Down Like Silver. But he has a little epilogue about 1976 and how he and Linda didn’t tour that year. And how disco was really popular. The idea of dancing to records at home was really weird to him. He also explained the origin of the word discotheque
(record libraries): Live music was banned in France and so people would gather to listen to records to ally suspicion.
The afterword mentions their two albums First Light and Sunnyvista as well as a surprisingly short mention of Sandy Denny’s death.
The tone of this book is really casual and almost full of wonder. It’s a really fun look at a scene that was unfamiliar to me.
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