Swarb's Lazarus
Fairport's Cropredy Convention
Cropredy, Oxfordshire
United Kingdom
2006-08-12

Dave Swarbrick-Fiddle
Maartin Allcock-Guitar, Bouzouki [Bouzar], vocals
Kevin Dempsey-Guitar, Vocals
Dave Pegg-bass on track 7

source/lineage-2009 Dime reseed of a VG+ audience recording (source details below)> EAC> Audacity> TLH> DIME

1. Danny Thompson's Intro / soundcheck 3:11
2. Unidentified 5:27
3. Last's Night Fun / Paddy On The Railroad / Pots Of Brandy / Pol Ha'penny 4:25
4. Jamaica / The Gold Ring / Lament For Walter Klaebel / Kilarny Boys Of Pleasure 9:20
5. Dean Brig O' Edinburgh / The High Levels 6:47
6. Grey Funnel Line 5:59
7. The Brilliancy Medley / The Cherokee Shuffle 5:44
8. Two Constant Lovers 6:38
9. Jigs 5:03
10.The Laird O' Drumblair / The Bride's Reel / The Hawk / The 10 Pound Fiddle 7:33
11.Unidentified 6:32

This was first up here at DIME courtesy of megadrive back in 2006, and that was shortly after the set was recorded at that year's Cropredy Festival. I wasn't on DIME then, so I got it via a reseed in January 2009 from UncleBoko. Huge thanks to each of them. I'm bringing it back now for anyone who may have missed this along the line and after a 15+ year absence. It's also a nod towards the annual Cropredy Festival, organized and headlined by Fairport Convention, which just ended about a week ago as this is posted. Thanks to all who've brought sets from the Festival to the rest of us over all these years.
2006 was my first of 2 times at Cropredy-2009 was the other. I live in NY and first saw Fairport and Swarb shortly after my 14th birthday at Fillmore East when they toured Full House. For this 2006 recording, my wife and I are somewhere there in the field enjoying Swarb and Lazarus onstage as the wind blew across the field (and is picked up on the recording). I recall being really psyched to be there in general, but I envisioned this Lazarus performance as a potential highlight of my time there, and it was. Swarb, of course had deep roots in Fairport and the Festival. In 2006 he'd been so ill that a premature obit had popped up, and gave birth to the group name for the trio performing here. "Held Together by Velcro..."-an introductory reference made by Danny Thompson to Swarb's post op condition, kind of summed up his situation, but, great musician and performer that he was, Swarb delivers.
It was a joyous return to action for him, and he was accompanied by fellow Fairport alum Maartin Allcock. Lazarus also included Kevin Dempsey, who'd been in the terrific Whippersnapper with Swarb, Chris Leslie, and Martin Jenkins (who'd been one of his bandmates in Dando Shaft back in the 70's). Maart and Kevin each sing one song in this set, and Dave Pegg guests with them on The Brilliancy Medley/Cherokee Shuffle that had been on Fairport's "Nine" back in about 1973-74. Lazarus didn't last long, and only ever produced one live album, but I'm delighted to have seen them, and to have gotten this Cropredy recording as a memento.
In bringing this back now, a few things from Audacity were employed to try to bring out a little more depth, while minimizing those windy moments. Those moments had once led to a disclaimer about what to expect along the lines of this being an "open air recording from an outdoor festival". The windy moments are still part of what you'll hear here, but I don't think they detract very much from the music. I also added titles here for tracks 9 and 10 which had been unidentified, but also appeared (from a different setting) on the official Swarb's Lazarus release. If anyone knows titles for tracks 2 and 11, please share that info below in a comment. Finally, I've also added in a credit above for Dave Pegg, who came out to play bass on one track. We were pretty close to the stage, and I'm including a couple of photos we took of this performance. The blurry one is the Lazarus Trio, and the clear one clearly shows Peggy during his spot with them, but regrettably cut out Kevin Dempsey.

megadrive's original lineage, along with a few notes, is pasted in below from the dimebot archive:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

lineage :-
source: audience - just left of centre, approx 30' from stage
recording: yoga em-2.9u electret condenser mics -> Sony MZ-R55 minidisc
transfer: Sony MDS-JE530 -> optical cable -> creative nomad jb3 (44.1kh .wav) -> firewire -> pc -> cd wave editor -> cool edit pro -> traders little helper -> flac front end (level 8)

taped/tracked & flac'd: megadrive
file size: 380mb

Please note before you start to download - THIS IS AN AUDIENCE RECORDING OF AN OUTDOOR GIG.

If you are a fan of Dave Swarbrick, Fairport Convention, 'folk-rock' in general or the simply curious, it's for you - but read below first :-)

I was initially reluctant to share/trade this as there was a bit of a wind problem during this recording - not caused by too much 6X :-) In a number of places, but not, I must stress, all the way through, there is a rustling or crackle caused by wind across the mics, which for those interested, were attached, and poking out from, beneath the collar of my denim jacket and did have wind-shields. It affects both channels so it was difficult to remove or patch from one channel to the other although on track 9, the worst affected, I did decide to replace the right channel with a clone of the left. Hopefully, if you do decide to grab this, you won't find it too intrusive, and will enjoy this record of Swarb's triumphant return to Cropredy.

As aways, play nicely together, share this recording freely but please NOT as mp3's and NOT for personal profit. Most importantly, support the artists where you can.

Enjoy!

megadrive
September 2006

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show: