Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Close The Door Lightly When You Go
2. I Don't Know Where I Stand
3. Some Sweet Day
4. You Never Wanted Me
5. Nottamun Town
6. Marcie
7. Night In The City
8. Jack O' Diamonds
9. Gone, Gone, Gone
10. Suzanne
11. If It Feels Good, You Know It Can't Be Wrong
12. Eastern Rain
13. Fotheringay
14. I Still Miss Someone
15. Bird On A Wire
16. Tried So Hard
17. Reno Nevada
18. Book Song
19. Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

Disc 2:

1. You're Gonna Need My Help
2. Fotheringay
3. Shattering Live Experience
4. Cajun Woman
5. Autopsy
6. Si Tu Dois Partir
7. Percy's Song
8. Reynardine
9. Tam Lin
10. Sir Patrick Spens
11. Medley - The Lark In The Morning/Rakish Paddy/Foxhunter's Jig/Toss The Feathers
12. The Lady Is A Tramp
13. Walk Awhile
14. Poor Will And The Jolly Hangman
15. Doctor Of Physick

Disc 3:

1. Sir Patrick Spens
2. The Bonny Bunch Of Roses
3. Dirty Linen
4. Now Be Thankful
5. The Journeyman's Grace
6. Now Be Thankful
7. Tokyo
8. Matthew, Mark, Luke And John
9. Possibly Parsons Green
10. Rosie
11. John The Gun
12. Fiddlestix
13. Rising For The Moon
14. Down In The Flood

Disc 4:

1. Let's Get Together
2. One Sure Thing
3. Lay Down Your Weary Tune
4. Chelsea Morning
5. Violets Of Dawn
6. If (Stomp)
7. Time Will Show The Wiser
8. If I Had A Ribbon Bow
9. Meet On The Ledge
10. Light My Fire
11. Flatback Caper
12. Open The Door Richard
13. The Deserter
14. The Hangman's Reel
15. Tam Lin
16. Sir William Gower
17. Banks Of The Sweet Primroses
18. Sickness & Diseases
19. Bridge Over The River Ash
20. Lord Marlborough
21. Angel Delight

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23053 in Music
• Released on: 2007-04-09
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Live
• Running time: 258 minutes

Customer Reviews

Riding the air waves from Carmel to Cropredy ...
Lost and found BBC transcription discs provide new matter to one of the 4 CDs in this beautiful and informatively packaged '60s-'70s box set trove culled from its and band's archives spanning the earliest sessions by the first generation Fairport (a West Coast-influenced folk pop act) to the robustly English folk rock act if became best known for. Disc 4 contains the lost (poor quality its has to be said) recordings featuring original singer Judy Dyble with pleasures aplenty in her exquisitely piped takes, including earliest single, "If I Had A RIbbon Bow", and giggles aplenty in the period deejays' matey intros and back-announcements. But it's in the Sandy Denny era that the band establish the credentials that have enabled them to trade the Fairport brand with relative ease and charm over subsequent years. "Fotheringay", "Si Tu Dois Partir", "Poor Will And The Jolly Hangman", and "Reynardine" are highlights heaped upon highlights enjoying robust yet sensitive treatments couched in swooning musicianship, and bristling with vitality and confidence. This is a fine introduction to one of the finest of their kind and an entertaining ride into radio nostalgia.

Brilliant! - well worth adding to your collection even if you have all the original studio albums.
This is a great collection. I won't repeat the comments below on specific tracks but will add:

CD2's Liege & Lief classics (Reynardine, Tam Lin) shimmer. Sir Patrick Spens appears twice - both brilliant but the gem of the collection for me (also on CD2) is the version with Sandy singing - stunning! Other tracks from the Full House era sound brighter and more polished than the outtakes that now appear on that album's rerelease - check out Poor Will and the Hangman, Now Be Thankful, and this version of the Bonny Bunch of Roses. And Fairport playing The Lady is a Tramp?..... fabulous - they really swing.

I am not a Fairport completist (though I've been a fan for years) so except for those on the Heyday album, I don't already own these recordings. So this is a very marvellous collection - and don't dismiss it as another collection of outtakes. This is not one of those retrospective collections of material that wasn't good enough for release. Most of these BBC takes are very good quality - and the playing and arrangements on many are stunning!

[almost] all together now
I won't repeat the same details as the reviewer below, although the version of Tam Lin he mentions is on this set but was not mentioned in initial track listings of CD4.
For the committed early Fairport fan there is little here that's new [if you are familiar with the Heyday cd, Ashley Hutchings Guvnor series, Richard Thompson's Doom & Gloom tapes and some "unofficial" cds] and a lot that is disappointing. The early sessions on CD4 are from rough radio tapings and this is annoying because an acetate of the very first session exists and though it probably degraded rapidly, a decent tape of it must surely have been made. Secondly, 3 or 4 sessions that have never come to light, still haven't and must be presumed gone. The BBC famously wiped all but two and what we have here are mostly tapes saved by the band as well as BBC transcription discs found in radio archives in far flung corners of the globe (hence the DJ chatter on some intros).
On the plus side, Jack of Diamonds and a lot of Full House era material have been discovered and it is good to have almost everything in one place [As mentioned below, it is frustrating that Mr Lacey seems to be the sole omission - an oversight?].
Other tracks that are missing, that I've heard [albeit in mostly less than CD4 quality], are astonishing versions of Morning Glory, She Moves Through The Fair, I'll Keep It With Mine, Sickness & Diseases and the Christmas oddity Orphan Billy's Lonely Xmas - it's very sad that these haven't turned up.
This collection feels like the final word on the matter and has been nicely put together, but, for the reasons above, I can't give it a 5 star rating.