Sandy Denny's voice would be worth the price alone, but the sensational work by the musicians with her,Richard Thompson,Dave Swarbrick,Simon Nicol,Ashley Hutchings,and Dave Mattacks just make this one of the all-time great entries in the late sixties folk rock lists. British Folk with a perfect insertion of SF acid that'll have you laying back weeping for those dear,dead days beyond recall.
May 9, 2008This album is a good addition to my collection. It is sweet and makes good music to cook to. i would buy it again.
December 17, 2007 |  | Best Ethnic Album of its time, without a doubt |  |
It's strange, because Fairport Convention was a group before, Sandy Denny, and after. However, there has NEVER, EVER, been a voice, at least in my lifetime, that has come CLOSE to Sandy Denny's! SHE, MADE Fairport Convention SOMETHING!!! This is without a doubt their best album, PERIOD, and is VERY addicting to listen to. Beware of this! The group are ALL amazing musicians beyond belief, but it is Sandy Denny's voice that MAKES this album what it is and became. She was SUCH a marvelous ethnic Irish singer with octaves that go all over the place, it was something to experience, and still is, thank God for Digital! We should ALL MISS this special sweet Princess of voice of ALL time, no matter the genre of music you like. She is SO sorely missed! She died 4/21/1978 (age 31), in a mishap that is a bit shady, falling down some stairs at her parents house??!! Whatever, I personally lost a person for whom I totally loved hearing that MOST beautiful voice. The voice of an angel!! I just, personally wish that there were more people that CARED for her in the ways that make people proud of whom they are!!! SHE was CERTAINLY something to be proud of both in beauty and talent!!! Many albums survive her and should be bought and listened to, to enjoy what this amazing woman brought to us all, well, whatever, you want to label her as, as a singer. She WAS and IS SANDY DENNY! Her OWN person, one in a million. To listen to her is like nothing else in life. This particular album, basically, says it all in her singing and the groups talent. It's a bummer that neither, made much of a mark of the major markets after they departed. This is something that is truely a mystery. What could have been. I am SO honored to have EVEN been in the same generation to experience this amazing woman. Damn, Sandy, I SO miss you!
August 27, 2007| | | (4.5 stars) Should be considered a rock classic | |
Most rock fans have heard of this group, but how many have actually heard them is another situation entirely. In other words, not enough people have heard of this group - everyone says, "Oh yeah, Sandy Denny sang on `Battle of Evermore', didn't she?" Or maybe, "Yeah, Richard Thompson, the Shoot Out the Lights guy". Or -if they're really smart - "Dave Pegg played bass with Jethro Tull for a while". When you're down to people who have actually heard any Fairport stuff, it's probably a short list. Which is too bad, because the dramatic murder ballad "Matty Groves" is better than "Free Bird", "Stairway to Heaven" or what have you: sung convincingly by Sandy Denny (who sounds kind of like a British Joni Mitchell, not like that's reason to complain), and featuring one of the coolest instrumental sections known to man: a Medieval fiddle solo followed by a hard rock one. Awesome! You can keep "Hotel California" (actually, I'd prefer that song to be dragged to pillory) - that is a rock song, man. Okay, a folk-rock song, but who's counting? That's my favorite, but that's not to say everything else is total crap: the joyful "Come All Ye", majestic, long "Tam Lin", which pairs dramatic hard-rock riffs with fiddle once again; the breakneck instrumental jig "Lark in the Morning/Rakish Paddy Fox-Hunter's Jig/Toss the Feathers", and the wonderful love song "Reynardie". The only song that doesn't strike me as genius is "The Deserter" and even that isn't too bad. So I've got to give this my full backing - if you're in the mood for something off the beaten track, or seeking an older band that hasn't been played to death on the radio, go here
August 20, 2007If nothing else, Liege and Lief is probably the definitive English folk-rock album. By combining traditional music with more modern sounds, the album takes on a timeless, intoxicating quality that draws immediate comparisons to groups such as The Band. The songs are warm, earthy, and inviting The rousing "Come All Ye" leads listeners into the album with irresistable flair- Richard Thompson's electric guitar and Dave Swarbrick's fiddle do a dazzling dance around one another, melding the traditional and the contemporary with effortless proficiency. But the real star of this song (and most of the album, really) is vocalist Sandy Denny, whose voice is simply one of the most evocative, sonorous, and outwright beautiful sounds ever concieved. She lends a kind of enchanting majesty to "Come All Ye," creating sounds that arc gracefully over the music, hypnotizing the listener within seconds. Once that stunning introduction is complete, the band launches into a few electrified renditions of traditional English folk songs: "Reynardine" is a strange, haunting, and tension-filled performance, in which the instrumentation is used to create dramatic bursts of pure sound rather than an actual melody, while Denny's voice flits and flutters to fill the gaps between notes. The result is an ominous, mysterious classic. The group also does an excellent instrumental medley, a joyful mixture of sounds that threatens to make you dance like a crazy person. "The Deserter" and "Tam Lin" are equally evocative, and just as expertly performed. The highlight of the album, however, is the group's epic reworking of the traditional "Matty Groves." It's an incredible performance, one that sees the group at its very best: Swarbrick and Thompson duel eachother with mounting intensity accross the song's eight minutes, while drummer Dave Mattacks lends the song a strutting, storming rhythm. Denny is simply amazing, narrating the story of the song's ill-fated title character with equal parts sympathy and sarcasm, letting her voice dart in, above, and under the melody, bending notes and stretching sounds, twisting and shaping every word with a kind of prodigious abandon. It's a resonant and irresistable sound, and it makes the song an absolute masterpiece. The Richard Thompson-penned "Farewell, Farewell" is the icing on the cake, a beautiful and mournful ballad with dreamy instrumentation, a gorgeous collection of sounds melting and blending into one another. Liege & Lief is an inescapably excellent album, a masterpiece that should belong to every fan of folk or rock.
July 14, 2007More reviews at Amazon.com ...
