Love That Album Podcast episode 136 - Interview with John Penhallow about Fairport Convention

The story of English rock music in the 1960s often revolves around some mates meeting up and bonding over a love of blues music or wanting to be the next Beatles. Then there's Fairport Convention. Welcome to episode 136 of Love That Album podcast. Fairport Convention assembled around 1966 and rehearsed in the same neighbourhood as another band of Muswell Hillbillies. The line-up has changed over the years, but the mission has always been to adapt folk music to a rock setting. Early on, they interpreted contemporary folk songwriters from North America like Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Before too long though, the band looked too their own history to make British folk music contemporary. Bondi Cigars' guitarist Shane Pacey joins me once again, and we speak with John Penhallow, the first manager of Fairport Convention. John was there right at the very beginning due to his friendship with guitarist Simon Nicol. He played a large part in looking after the band on day-to-day business before Joe Boyd, so he regales us with stories from that period. We speak about the early FC days, his work in archiving Sandy Denny's music, Cropredy, some band called The Ravens, and the late Judy Dyble. Beyond telling the story of a band, this is a great story about friendship and community. What other long running band still has ex-members regularly turn up to play with them?John was very generous with his time and memories. Shane and I are thankful for him making himself available.....on his birthday weekend at that!!! Also huge thanks to David Kelly for arranging this, and Mark Snowden for getting us to clarify a very important part of Fairport history. Please explore Shane's music at both https://bondicigars.com/ and https://shanepaceytrio.com.au/ Download this episode of LTA from Spotify, Stitcher or iTunes (search for “Love That Album podcast”). Love That Album is proudly part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Go to http://pantheonpodcasts.com/ to check out all their great shows. You can send me feedback at [e-mail] (written or mp3 voicemail) or join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethatalbum. If you’d consider writing an iTunes review we’d be immensely grateful. However, it’d be even better if you told a friend about the podcast and Pantheon – at a (socially distanced) barbecue, over coffee (on Skype), on social media….whatever way you choose, consider me grateful.