Some Random Photos from My 1992 Trip to
Fairport Convention's
25th Anniversary Cropredy
Festival |
| For info on Fairport's Cropredy
Festival for 2009,
click
here. |
Information on
Nancy Covey's
Festival Tours |
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Warmup Show & Cropredy &
Barbecue
Click in this picture for full-size images. |
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Fairport
Convention was originally formed in 1967, broke up in 1979, and officially
reformed in 1987.
But, even in the period in which Fairport officially did not exist, its many
members and former members still managed an annual "Reunion", which eventually
grew into a full-fledged annual music festival in the small Oxfordshire town
of Cropredy, near Banbury. |
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| Every year since then, various members and former members
of Fairport Convention, along with other folk and rock musicians and bands
and thousands of loyal and enthusiastic fans have trekked to Cropredy in
August for two or three days of some of the best in folk, folk-rock, rock,
blues and just plain unclassifiable music available today. |
In
1982, Nancy Covey, wife of original Fairport guitarist Richard Thompson,
arranged a small tour group from the USA to Cropredy for that year's Reunion.
As the Festival has grown, so Nancy's company, Festival Tours, has
grown as well, and now books annual tours to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage
Festival and other musically-inspired tours as well.
(I wrote this in 2000 - i'm not sure of the current status of Festival.
- okay; i see
they're
still in business, planning a 2009 JazzFest package for next year, but
i don't see any Cropredy tours... |
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Oxford; Eagle & Child and
Martyr's Monument
Click in this picture for full-size images. |
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In 1990
and again in 1992 (which was Fairport's 25th Anniversary year), i availed
myself of Nancy's/Festival Tours' good offices and headed over to London
and thence on to Oxfordshire for the Cropredy Festival.
The pictures that appear on this page are some that i took on the 1992 trip
which recently came to light in a storage area.
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Due to Nancy's connection with the band through RT, people
on the Festival Tours group have a rather more interesting experience of
Cropredy than most ordinary attendees; though you don't get backstage, you
do get to hang out with the members of the band and get specially-autographed
programme books, etc.
Most of the performance pictures on this page were taken at one of the "warm
up" shows that Fairport plays in the week before the Festival, partially
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| for the benefit of those who, for whatever reason, cannot afford the money
or the time for the whole Cropredy experience, and partly to
shake down the details of their performance with the many and various former
members and guest performers who will be sitting in with them at the Festival.
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As before,
click for
larger images. |
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| The
shots of tour group members and the members of the band hanging out, eating,
drinking, etc, were taken at a barbecue at a pub called "The Joiner's Arms",
Sunday after the Festival -- mainly for the |
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members of the tour group, but there are some tickets
available to the general public, though i don't believe it's particularly
advertised in advance...
The Oxford shots were taken on Wednesday and Thursday immediately before
the Festival, when we were staying in the dorms at St Hilda's College, and
i had free time to roam in Oxford.
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I
was amused in 1990 to realise that the small stream that ran along the edge
of the grounds of St Hilda's was that very River Cherwell that flowed through
Cropredy. (Also see the shot of a
lock on the Cherwell at
Cropredy.) Frankly, after "Red & Gold", i had been expecting
something a bit more impressive -- in this part of the country, we call streams
not much smaller than that "creeks" -- and further West, what
we call "rivers" are looked upon with scorn by folks who live
near the Mississippi. |
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A last miscellany; wish i could give the names of some
of the people here, but my memory is bad enough at short-range; after
eight years, it's abysmal. |
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