Sky Arts is to broadcast a major television documentary to mark the fiftieth anniversary of legendary folk-rock band Fairport Convention.
Titled ‘Fairport Convention: Folk Heroes‘, the 70-minute film will be transmitted at 9pm on Saturday 25 November 2017.
The film tells how five young musicians in North London formed Fairport Convention during 1967’s ‘summer of love’. The band went on to shake English folk music to its roots by fusing it with rock, an approach which outraged some purists but delighted a new and devoted audience.
In the subsequent five decades, Fairport Convention has attracted widespread critical acclaim, won a coveted BBC Lifetime Achievement Award, and Radio 2 listeners voted Fairport’s groundbreaking album Liege & Lief ‘The Most Influential Folk Album of All Time’.
The documentary has been made by London-based independent producer Special Treats Productions. The company’s previous television music documentaries include ‘XTC: This Is Pop’, ‘I’m Not In love: The Story of 10cc’ and the award-winning film ‘UB40: Promises and Lies’.
The film features rare archive interviews and footage as well as newly-filmed interviews with the current Fairport members and, among others, Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Iain Matthews, Judy Dyble, Joe Boyd, Ralph McTell, Maddy Prior, Bob Harris, Suggs, Rick Wakeman, Steve Winwood, and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.
Through these interviews, the film examines Fairport’s first five years in detail, including the tragic motorway crash which killed drummer Martin Lamble. It goes on to explain Fairport’s pivotal role in the evolution of British folkrock; how the band fostered major talents such as Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick and spawned other notable bands including Matthews Southern Comfort, Steeleye Span, and Fotheringay.
The story is brought up to date with contemporary material filmed at Fairport’s annual ‘own brand’ music festival held at Cropredy in Oxfordshire. The closing sequence features the band’s 2017 festival performance when virtually all the surviving former members joined the current line-up on stage.
Producer/Director Charlie Thomas has been working closely with Fairport for over a year. He says: “Our aim is to explain how important Fairport’s influence has been and continues to be – in other words, why the band matters.
“We have not set out to make a comprehensive, year-by-year history of Fairport; that has been done before. The film concentrates on two periods – the first five years and the band today. The result is a celebration of a very British institution and an assertion of Fairport’s continuing relevance.”
https://www.sky.com/watch/channel/sky-arts/fairport-convention-folk-heroes
More on Fairport Convention from Folk Radio UK: Interview with Ric Sanders | Review of 50:50@50 | Review of Fairport Convention CD box set, Come All Ye – The First 10 Years