The Fairport Companion

AMG Review of The Fairport Companion

James Christopher Monger
All Music Guide

For a band that's seen seven or more incarnations, Fairport Convention has remained a near-mythological Godhead for the British folk scene. Castle Music's sprawling Fairport Companion, complete with a hand-drawn family tree foldout from legendary illustrator/journalist Pete Frame, manages to dutifully represent nearly all of the group's major offshoots. Well-known tracks from the Ian Campbell Folk Group, Steeleye Span, Shirley Collins, and Dave Swarbick are nestled snugly against lesser-known offerings from Trader Horne, Lal and Mike Waterson, Shelagh McDonald, and Harvey Andrews and Graham Cooper -- even the Sandy Denny tracks, Alex Campbell's "Been on the Road So Long" and then-boyfriend Jackson C. Frank's "Milk and Honey" are long overlooked gems. The Fairport Companion should be handed out to anybody looking to make sense of the collective's annual Cropredy Festival, as it features nearly everyone who would be likely to take the stage, but it should also be required listening for anybody with even the most remote interest in the origins of English folk-rock, as it sounds -- albeit pleasurably -- like a lecture from a visiting professor.