IT’S CROPREDY BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT
This rather dumb headline, channelling as it does a Star Trek misquote – I blame The Firm – heralds a rather splendid event curated by the wonderfully resourceful Cressida Ford who hosts the first hour of the Almost Acoustic Show on Radio Scarborough every week; a must-listen between bouts of hair washing. So, camping chairs, 6X and wristbands at the ready, settle down at 7pm this Thursday evening and tune into Radio Scarborough to enjoy the official Virtual Cropredy.
Fairport's Cropredy Convention might have rolled over to 2021 but there is no need to go folk-free this summer. You can still meet on the web (a point for Gryffindor there if you get the link to Fairport’s second album). Ahead of the Fairport's Cropredy Connection YouTube broadcast on what would have been the festival Saturday, Radio Scarborough has created two full evenings of programming featuring music and exclusive interviews with performers from the 2021 line-up. The broadcasts are from 7pm to midnight on Thursday 13 and Friday 14 August.
Acts on Virtual Cropredy include Clannad, Richard Thompson, Turin Brakes, Martyn Joseph, Iain Matthews and, of course, Fairport Convention themselves, while to help you recreate that unique Cropredy spirit at home, there will be lots of chat with festival regulars and traders.
Photo of Richard Thompson from his 2013 Shepherds Bush Empire concert by Helen Boast
Following the two Virtual Cropredy evenings on Radio Scarborough, the simulated folk festival concludes with Fairport’s Cropredy Connection on YouTube. Drawing on performances from Cropredy 2019, the show includes Richard Thompson’s complete set with guests Zara Phillips (Thompson’s singer-songwriting partner, not Mike Tindall’s missus), and Fairporters past and present, Dave Mattacks, Simon Nicol and Dave Pegg. Around midnight, viewers will also be able to sing along to the traditional Cropredy denouement in the form of that song obliquely referenced in paragraph two above, following Fairport’s entire two and a half-hour show.
On that note, here are a couple more ways to recall the legacy of Fairport Convention. Here is the 2018 festival version of that song so you can get word perfect for this Saturday and see how many names you can put to the faces on stage. NB. can't be embedded but you can still watch on YouTube. You can also relive the band’s seminal folk-rock album Liege & Lief which turned 50 last year, here.