Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol are hugely important figures in the history of British Folk Rock and Folk music since the 1960's. They were both key figures in British Folk Rock super group Fairport Convention and appeared on their seminal album Liege and Lief (1969) which initiated the electric folk movement. In fact BBC radio 2 listeners have voted Liege and Leaf the 'Most influential folk album of all time'.
Dave Swarbrick has been described the most influential British fiddle player bar none. After 1970 he emerged as Fairport Convention's leading figure and guided the band through a series of important albums until its disbandment in 1979. Simon Nicol was a founder member of Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band... In 1973 he played on what is often considered one of the important folk/jazz albums of all time, John Martyn's Solid Air.
After Fairport Convention called it a day in 1979, Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol joined forces and spent the early eighties playing folk clubs throughout the UK as an acoustic duo. Their repertoire was drawn from various sources - including Fairport Convention material, Dave Swarbrick's late seventies/early eighties solo albums and also several tracks that were individual to the duo. The acoustic duo proved popular and recorded three albums. Two of those, the 1981 live album 'Live at the White Bear', and the 1984 studio effort 'Close to the Wind', were re-issued a few years back on Fairport Convention's own Woodworm Records label.
180 Grams Audiophile vinyl
Liner Notes on Insert
Tracklisting:
A1 79th's Farewell/Atholl Highlanders/De'il in the Kitchen
A2 Three Drunken Maidens
A3 Young Black Cow/Lord Inchiquin
A4 The Widow of Westmoreland's Daughter
B1 Si Bheag Si Mhor
B2 Humours of Cappa/Swallowtail Reel
B3 After the Thrill
B4 Friar Britches/Lark in the Morning/Gravel Path/Leighton Buzzard Shuffle
C1 Pittengardner's Rant/The Floggin'
C2 Planxty Morgan/Long Odds
C3 Lord Haddo's Favourite/ Lady Mary Hayes' Scotch Measure
C4 Flitter Dance/Peter O'Tavy/Mona's Delight/Hunt the Wren
C5 The Hen's March/The Four Poster Bed
D1 Over the Lancashire Hills
D2 Merry Boys of Greenland/Olifiord Jack/Willafiord
D3 O'Carolan's Farewell to Music
